malevich female portrait 1928-32 Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935)

Description of the painting "Portrait of a Woman" by Kazimir Malevich

Kazimir Malevich was a Russian and Soviet artist who mainly worked in avant-garde styles such as symbolism, cubism, neoprimitivism, and cubo-futurist realism. He is best known for creating the Suprematism trend, which Malevich independently invented, substantiated, and for a long time wrote articles on the philosophy of Suprematism and accompanied a group of young avant-garde artists.

Few artists have so many works painted in completely different moods and styles - from realism, impressionism to primitive, in terms of academic classical art, versions of painting. There is no doubt that Malevich was a gifted creative person, but after two unsuccessful attempts to enter the St. Petersburg Art School, he is trying to find his way and his place in the world of art. And although his avant-garde art is very controversial, to this day a lot of criticism, debate, outright rejection, it is obvious that his recognition and fame of the world scale Malevich managed to earn it.

Malevich uses certain unusual techniques in creating his famous Suprematist and cubic images. For example, most of the colors he creates the imposition of one layer of paint on another, such as red on black, which not only gives the color some heavy saturation, but today allows experts to establish the authenticity of paintings by the artist. Also, in addition to the geometric piling of monochrome figures, Malevich sometimes fills the figures with a spectacular full-color palette, from the brightest shade of color to a pale, fading into a plain white background.

"Portrait of a Woman" was done in 1919 in oil on a sheet of plywood. Here the artist departs from his traditional impersonality and even gives the face some expression - the eyelids above the tired eyes appear to be flabby, the lips are tightly pressed, and an orange shadow marks the thin nose. The blue collar and ribbon around his neck act as a kind of decoration of the image, but the disharmonious red color on the clothes and green background introduce into the image of a contradiction and a kind of protest.

In his later works, Kazimir Malevich returned to the landscapes and realistic portraits. Perhaps played a role understatement in Suprematist painting and the need to satisfy his creative and emotional thirst.