“White on White” by Kazimir Malevich and the Reception of this Concept in Art Practices of the Second Half of the 20th and Early 21st Century

Abstract

The article examines the status and the meaning of white in the works by K. S. Malevich. Particular attention is paid to the painting “Suprematist composition. White on White” (1918), as well as to the specifics of the third period in the development of Suprematism (the period of the “white square”, according to the periodisation of the artist himself). To embrace this work, as well as all the works by Malevich of this period, the viewer has to differentiate close colours, involving his comprehensive visual experience, which stimulates the processes of sense making implying a possibility of loss of visual. Malevich in his works is reconsidering optical properties and symbolic meanings of white hereby demonstrating his personal concepts of time and absolute. The idea of “white on white” is interpreted as a concept of free creativity, as a pathway via “zero forms” towards the new. The artist exploiting a concept of “economy” to designate the fundamentals of the creative method of suprematism, which brings it closer to the interpretation of the concept in religious culture, in patristic, where it is used to define visible and speculative, as well as the paths to comprehension of truth. Malevich has left some of his works in Вerlin 1927. Later, the works have been redistributed between American and European museums, therefore suprematism directly influenced the development of neo avant-garde practices in the second part of 20 century. The idea of “white on white” was embraced by the circles of minimalistic and conceptual art in the period 1960-s – 1970-s as a significant creative modality. The continuity is defined not as much through analysing the works of art, but mainly on the level of theory and methodology due to involvement of artists in the discourse. The authors of the article noted the shift in perception of the “White on White” to literary essays at the turn of 20th and 21st as, which were mostly concentrated on analysis of substantial nature and physical qualities of white as a pigment and paint. In this context, “White on White” is perceived as dissolution and coming back to nature.

Keywords

white colour in art; K. S. Malevich; Suprematism; avant-garde; neo-avantgarde; “zero forms”; “white square”; “white on white”; third period of Suprematism; the phenomenon of “the new” in art;

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НАУЧНЫЕ ТРУДЫ
Санкт-Петербургской
академии художеств

Issues of the Foreign Art Development

When citing an article, use a bibliographic reference:
“White on White” by Kazimir Malevich and the Reception of this Concept in Art Practices of the Second Half of the 20th and Early 21st Century // Scientific Papers of St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts'69. . Issues of the Foreign Art Development. 2024 СПб. : СПб. акад. художеств, 2024. 184 с. C. . https://doi.org/10.62625/2782-1889.2024.41.68.010

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