Kazimir Malevich painted four versions of Black Square spanning 1913 to the late 1920s or early 1930s. The medium he chose to convey his intricate and almost revolutionary vision was oil on linen. One of the most famous paintings in Russian art, Black Square marked the turning point of the Russian avant-garde movement. Before creating this painting, Malevich spent eighteen months in his studio, laboring over thirty non-objective paintings. In the end, he had created a series of non-objective paintings, of which Black Square is one.
His invention of the word "suprematism" was meant to refer to the supremacy of the new geometric forms. Although the other works in this period were created with visual brushstrokes and asymmetrical forms, Black Square was the prominent piece, with no visual textures and a perfectly symmetrical shape, as it was the paramount of Malevich's change to pure geometric abstraction: suprematism.
Suprematist Composition
White on White
Black Square and Red Square