![\"\u041f\u0438\u0441\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0430](\"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Pysanka-Malevycha.jpg\")
<\/a>With his father Severyn being an engineer in sugar production, which caused the family to travel a lot in the first place, Malevych was expected to pursue a similar career. Nevertheless, with encouragement from his mother that helped to conceal this passion for art from the dissatisfied father, he decided to focus on painting. The first professional steps in this direction were made in the Kyiv School of Art \u2013 an establishment founded by Ukrainian artist Mykola Murashko and financially supported by local patron Ivan Tereshchenko, ironically involved in sugar production Malevych was destined to delve into. His teacher was Ukrainian artist Mykola Pymonenko, internationally celebrated back in his own time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pymonenko and Malevych shared one important trait \u2013 both of them, at a certain point of their lives, where pushed to move from Ukraine, which was under imperial Russian rule, to the colonial center, as it was the only opportunity to build a proper career. Malevych moved to Russia and Belarus, also a part of the empire at the time, due to his father\u2019s obligations, but seized a chance to develop his own career. Logical move in the historical circumstances, unfortunately, it lays ground for cultural appropriation that Russian government still adopts today, claiming that Malevych was a Russian artist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His early works were a combination of cubism, futurism and expressionism \u2013 he himself would sometimes describe the style as cubofuturist. Cubofuturism united many artists Malevych would naturally grow very close to, from Ukrainians Volodymyr and Davyd Burliuk who Mayakovsky considered his teacher, to Mayakovsky himself, with whom he would later cooperate to create a daring avant-garde play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>And yet the true inner discovery took place in 1915, when Kazymyr Malevych founded suprematism. Explaining it as the ultimate separation between art and the portrayal of real world, he insisted that all effort should be dedicated to color, form, texture \u2013 and we will be able to perceive the object of art as it is only after we stop trying to see fragments of reality within it. Malevych published his manifesto, From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism, <\/em>where he argues <\/a>that \u201cThere is no longer love of little nooks, there is no longer love for which the truth of art was betrayed. The square is not a subconscious form. It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art. The square is a living, regal infant. The first step of pure creation in art.<\/em>\u201d And he has, indeed, made square regal \u2013 by exhibiting the yet unfinished \u201cBlack Square\u201d at the The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0,10. Interestingly, among 39 pieces that were presented at the exhibition, the \u201cBlack Square\u201d was positioned in a place that was traditionally reserved for the holy icons \u2013 and, in time, it became an icon of avant-garde itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After moving from Vitebsk to then-Leningrad, Malevych returned to Kyiv in 1927, as he started feeling pressure from the authorities. He spent 3 more years in Ukraine, teaching at the Kyiv Institute of Art and writing for the Kharkiv magazine \u201cNew Generation\u201d \u2013 an iconic supremacist outlet. Still, he was forced to leave the country once more due to the intensifying repressions of the Soviet government against Ukraine. In 1932-33, they would reach their peak with Holodomor; one of the most tragic aspects of massive death by famine, orchestrated by the central government in Moscow, was for how long this topic remained under ultimate censorship. Malevych was the only Ukrainian artist who dared to not so subtly mirror the horror in his paintings. Many of those belonging to the \u201cpeasant\u201d series feature special hints to the tragedy, such as handless and faceless pictures of Ukrainian peasants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, many of the paintings touching upon this topic where dated wrong, usually with an earlier date, to avoid repercussions for the artistic protest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite moving out of Ukraine \u2013 and seriously considering to start a new life in Europe, where he was deeply respected \u2013 Malevych remained under scrutiny of the Soviet secret services. He was tolerated by the regime due to his international fame, but the increasing dominance of \u201csocialist realism\u201d that Malevych despised left no place for avant-garde art, which was considered bourgeois. Treated with suspicion, he was on several occasions arrested by the authorities; in 1930 he was accused of being a Polish spy and questioned by NKVD. During the questioning that featured information on his nationality, Malevych allegedly insisted he was Ukrainian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His contribution to art is global. Yet, to truly understand it \u2013 which is often quite a challenge when it comes to avant-garde! \u2013 it is essential to keep the origins in mind.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go on a journey to discover more about Ukrainian culture in our materials within the #UkraineExplained<\/a> project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are on this ride along with Euromaidan Press<\/a>, Stopfake<\/a> , Internews Ukraine<\/a>, and Texty.org.ua<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/a><\/a><\/a>
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