Why is the white circle on a black background. Optical illusions

Take a look from afar on the picture and tell me: how many black circles could fit in the free space between the lower circle and one of the upper circles - four or five? Most likely you will answer that four circles will fit freely, but for the fifth, perhaps, there is not enough space. When they tell you that exactly three circles fit in the gap, no more, you will not believe it. Take a piece of paper or a pair of compasses and make sure you are wrong.

This strange illusion, due to which black areas seem smaller to our eye than white of the same size, is called "irradiation". It depends on the imperfection of our eyes, which, as an optical apparatus, does not fully meet the strict requirements of optics. Its refractive media do not give on the retina those sharp contours that are obtained on the frosted glass of a well-trained photographic apparatus: due to the so-called spherical aberration each light contour is surrounded by a light border, which increases its size on the retina of the eye. As a result, light areas always seem to us more than black ones equal to them.

In his "Doctrine of Flowers," the great poet Goethe, who was a keen observer of nature (although not always a sufficiently circumspect theoretical physicist), writes about this phenomenon as follows:

“A dark object appears to be smaller than a light one of the same size. If we consider at the same time a white circle on a black background and a black circle of the same diameter on a white background, then the latter will seem to us about 1/5 smaller than the first. If you make the black circle correspondingly larger, they will appear equal. The young crescent moon seems to belong to a circle with a larger diameter than the rest of the dark part of the moon, which is sometimes discernible (the "ash light" of the moon. - NS.). In a dark dress, people seem thinner than in a light one. Light sources visible from behind the edge produce an apparent cut in it. The ruler that causes the candle flame to appear appears with a notch at that location. The rising and setting sun makes like a notch in the horizon. "

In these observations, everything is true, except for the statement that the white circle seems to be larger than the equal black one always by the same fraction. The increase depends on the distance from which the circles are viewed. Now it will become clear why this is so.

Move the drawing with black circles away from your eyes - the illusion will become even stronger, even more striking. This is explained by the fact that the width of the additional border always remains the same; if, therefore, at a close distance it increased the width of the light area by only 10%, then at a far distance, when the image itself decreases, the same addition will no longer be 10%, but, say, 30% or even 50% of its width. The indicated feature of our eye is usually also explained by the strange property of the following picture. Looking at it closely, you see many white circles on a black field. But move the book further and look at the drawing from a distance of 2-3 steps, and if you have very good eyesight, then from a distance of 6-8 steps; the figure will noticeably change its appearance: instead of circles you will see white hexagons in it, like bee cells.

I am not completely satisfied with the explanation of this illusion by irradiation, since I noticed that black circles on a white background also seem to be hexagonal from a distance (see the figure below), although the irradiation here does not increase, but cuts mugs. It must be said that in general, existing explanations of visual illusions cannot be considered final; most of the illusions have no explanation at all.

Illusion of color and contrast

Look at the center of the picture.
Small black circles are visible at the intersection of all white stripes. At the same time, if you concentrate your gaze on any of these intersections, then the circle disappears. The illusion is known as the "Hering's Lattice"

Do you see a chessboard with white and black squares?
Gray halves of black and white cells of the same shade. Gray is perceived as black or white.

Pay attention to the shades of the circles.
Surrounded by green, gray appears lilac-pink, and surrounded by red, blue-greenish.

How many colors are used to write this drawing?
Three: white, green and pink. The presence of different shades of green and red in the picture is just an illusion. Its appearance depends on whether the green and pink squares are adjacent to each other, or there is also a white one between them.

Which circle is lighter?
Here the circles have exactly the same shade of gray. But when compared to the saturation of the background, they appear to be a lighter or darker shade.

Look at these two squares. Which square is brighter?
The color of the shapes appears brighter and more saturated when the shapes are surrounded by black borders. In fact, both in one and in the other square, the colors are exactly the same.

Fix your gaze in the center of the picture.
Goering lattice. At the intersections of all white stripes, except for the intersection where you are currently fixing your gaze, small gray spots are visible. As you can imagine, they don't actually exist.

Which of the halves is the more saturated color?
The tone of the lower half seems to be more saturated, despite the absolute identical colors of both halves. The illusion arises from the presence of a white outline at the top of the drawing.

A well-known effect to physicists and doctors.
Mach stripes. A smooth color transition is perceived as stripes. An even whiter stripe is visible at the border of white, and an even blacker stripe at the border of black. The cause of this illusion is lateral inhibition in the retina, in other words, the features of the processes and structure of our eyes.

Look at the picture and notice the red spots that appear at the intersection of the black lines.
The reason for the appearance of this illusion is, among other things, the structural features of the retina of the eye.

Which part of the ring is darker?
The part of the ring against a white background appears darker. If you remove the pencil, the illusion disappears. Try this experiment with real paper and pencil.

Pay attention to the board.
It's hard to believe, but white cells in the shadow and black cells in the light are the same color. At the same time, our brain does not perceive this. Our perception, out of a centuries-old habit, makes allowances for the shadow that the bar supposedly creates, and automatically sends signals to the brain to "lighten" the squares in our minds in the shadow to compare them with the colors in the rest of the space.

In 1972, the English critic Henry Weits wrote:
“It would seem that what could be simpler: a black square on a white background. Anyone can probably draw this. But here's a mystery: a black square on a white background - a painting by the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, created at the beginning of the century, still attracts both researchers and art lovers as something sacred, as a kind of myth, as a symbol of the Russian avant-garde. What explains this riddle? "
And he continues:
“They say that Malevich, having written“ Black Square, ”for a long time told everyone that he could neither eat nor sleep. And he himself does not understand what he did. Indeed, this picture is the result of, apparently, some kind of difficult work. When we look at the black square, under the cracks we see the lower layers of color - pink, lilac, ocher, - apparently, there was a certain color composition, recognized at some point as failed and written in a black square. "

Infrared tomographic scanning showed the following results:

Kazemir Severinovich Malevich was born in Kiev 23 february 18 79 years old. He grew up a capable child, and in his school essay he wrote: “My dad works as a manager at a sugar factory. But his life is not sweet. All day he listens to the workers swear when they get drunk on the sugar mash. Therefore, after returning home, dad often curses at mom. Therefore, when I grow up, I will become an artist. This is a good job. No need to use foul language with workers, no need to carry heavy loads, and the air smells like paints, not sugar dust, which is very harmful to health. A good picture costs a lot of money, but you can paint it in just one day. ".
After reading this essay, Cozy's mother, Ludwig Alexandrovna (nee Galinovskaya), presented him with a set of paints for his 15th birthday. And at the age of 17, Malevich entered the Kiev drawing school of N.I. Murashko.

In August 1905, he came to Moscow from Kursk and applied for admission to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. However, the school did not accept him. Malevich did not want to return to Kursk, he settled in an art commune in Lefortovo. Here, in the big house of the artist Kurdyumov, lived about thirty "communards". They had to pay seven rubles a month for a room - very cheap by Moscow standards. But Malevich often had to borrow this money. In the summer of 1906, he again applied to the Moscow School, but he was not accepted a second time.
From 1906 to 1910, Kazimir attended classes in the studio of F.I. Rerberg in Moscow. For this period of his life, the letters of the artist A.A. Exter to the musician M.V. Matyushin. One of them describes the following.
To improve his finances, Kazimir Malevich began work on a cycle of paintings about a women's bath. The paintings were not sold expensively and required additional costs for models, but it was at least some money.
Once, having worked with the models all night, Malevich fell asleep on the sofa in his workshop. In the morning his wife came in to take money from him to pay the grocer's bills. Seeing another canvas by the great master, she boiled with indignation and jealousy, grabbed a large brush and painted over the canvas with black paint.
Waking up, Malevich tried to save the painting, but to no avail - the black paint had already dried up.
Art critics believe that it was at this moment that Malevich's idea of ​​the "Black Square" was born.

The fact is that many artists tried to create something similar long before Malevich. These paintings did not become widely known, but Malevich, who studied the history of painting, undoubtedly knew about them. Here are just a few examples.

Robert Fludd, The Great Dark, 1617

Bertal, "View of La Hogue (night effect), Jean-Louis Petit", 1843

Paul Bielhod, Negro Fight in the Basement at Night, 1882

Alphonse Allais, Philosophers Catching a Black Cat in a Dark Room, 1893

Alphonse Allay, a French journalist, writer and eccentric humorist, author of the popular aphorism “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow” has succeeded most in this kind of creativity.
From 1882 to 1893, he painted a whole series of similar paintings, completely not hiding his humorous attitude towards these "creative studies of extra-material realities."
For example, a completely white framed canvas was called "Anemic Girls Walking to First Communion in a Blizzard." The red canvas was called "Apoplexy Cardinals Picking Tomatoes on the Shores of the Red Sea," and so on.

Malevich undoubtedly understood that the secret of the success of such paintings is hidden not in the image itself, but in its theoretical justification. Therefore, he did not exhibit The Black Suprematist Square until he wrote his famous manifesto, From Cubism to Suprematism, in 1915. New Painterly Realism ".

However, this was not enough. The exhibition was rather sluggish, since by that time there were quite a lot of various "Suprematists", "Cubists", "Futurists", "Dadaists", "Conceptualists" and "Minimalists" in Moscow, and they were already bored by the public.
Real success came to Malevich only after Lunacharsky appointed him in 1929 "People's Commissar of IZO NARKOMPROSA". Under this position Malevich took his "black square" and other works to the exhibition "Abstract and Surrealist Painting and Plastics" in Zurich. Then his personal exhibitions took place in Warsaw, Berlin and Munich, where his new book "The World as Non-Objective" was also published. The fame of Malevich's Black Square spread throughout Europe.

The fact that Malevich used his position not so much for the international propaganda of Soviet art as for the promotion of his own creativity did not hide from his Moscow colleagues. And upon returning from abroad in the fall of 1930 Malevich was arrested by the NKVD on denunciation as a "German spy."
However, thanks to the intercession of Lunacharsky, he spent only 4 months in prison, although he left the post of "People's Commissar of Fine Arts" forever.

So the firstThe "Black Suprematist Square", which was discussed here, is dated 1915, now it is in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Malevich painted the second "Black Square" in 1923 especially for the Russian Museum.
The third was in 1929. He is also in the Tretyakov Gallery.
And the fourth - in 1930, especially for the Hermitage.

These museums also store other works by Malevich.

Kazemir Malevich, " Red Suprematist Square, 1915

Kazemir Malevich, "Black Suprematist Circle", 1923

Kazemir Malevich, "Suprematist Cross", 1923

Kazemir Malevich, "Black and White", 1915

Kazemir Malevich, self-portrait, 1933,
State Russian Museum

What attracts Malevich's primitive Suprematism? Precisely because it is outrageously primitive. An elementary, simplest image is capable of giving the viewer their own versions, guesses and additions with a minimum of imagination. This also applies to the "Black Circle", which is no less interesting for its square counterpart, and for me it is more.

Everyone knows the black square of Kazimir Malevich. And what is his "Black Circle"?
Malevich wrote the second version of this brilliant, complex work (like the second version of the Black Square) with the help of his students A. Leporskaya, K. Rozhdestvensky and N. Suetin. He couldn't have done it alone. Apparently, Rozhdestvensky was pulling on a stretcher, Leporskaya primed the canvas, and Suetin got hold of a compass. Malevich had only to take black paint and work as a painter for five minutes. The first version was written eight years earlier, but the circle then came out crooked, apparently Malevich did not have a compass yet, so he had to cover the canvas with a copper basin and somehow circle it around the edge.

What is this piece about? It's hard to believe, but nevertheless, it is ... about the black circle! It was not difficult for Malevich to present the concept of the work, he was an unsurpassed master of spreading noodles. Everyone will be able to draw geometric shapes; only a few will be able to present them as something outstanding.

Malevich was born on February 23, which annually darkens the day of the Soviet Army, due to his evasion of military duty. He died on May 15, which annually darkens my and Mikhail Bulgakov's birthday. In total, he lived for only 56 years, not having time to depict all the options for geometric shapes. Specifically, it has a black square on a white background, a white square on a white background, a black circle on a white background ... but no "Black circle on a black background"! And I decided to fill this gap (if you can christen this rabble with a gap). He is in front of you.

"Do you see a gopher? And I don't. And he is!" (Hera Lieberman) See the black circle? And I don’t see. But he is. And the meticulous viewer will notice it. This is the whole point of the picture, that is, not everything that you do not see - no. Another name is "The Black Hole in the Black Square, or Activated Charcoal in the Ass of an African American Sitting in a Dark Cave on a Moonless Night." Is the name politically correct? Quite. But the novel "Ten Little Indians" is racism, it needs to be renamed "Ten African American Children".

I don’t know about the rest, but I’m terribly bored to contemplate these "masterpieces" by Malevich, so I exhibit my variations of "The Black Circle". How to "revive" the black circle with minimal means, to make objectless painting objective? Here are some examples. Here, extensive conceptual explanations are not required, everything is as clear as a white night in St. Petersburg. Not every viewer has unlimited imagination, and when looking at Malevich's masterpieces, many of them do not think of a single image. So I decided to help such a spectator looking at the black circle.

"Black balloon". Don't remember if there are black balloons? Well, for example, at a gathering of ready-made people, or at a holiday of an oil worker, or you can tie it to a hearse, so that it is not so gloomy ...

And this is a paradoxical version of the black ball: "Black weight". It is heavy and at the same time weightless, it soars. But if the thread breaks, then scatter in all directions!

"Rockfall or Rolling Stones". Malevich's painting is not touched, but the image of a flying stone is there.

"Black smiley". Malevich was one step before the invention of emoticons. At least the black ones.

"Malevich's Clock". There may be more options here, but many are probably already used in watch design.

"Sewerage". And I remember that Malevich argued that he depicted the depths of the Universe. Unless the sewage system is also a kind of universe of the deep worlds.

"Black Moon". Used a real photo of the Moon in the negative. Reminds of outlandish, decorative flowers in the manner of M. Vrubel; there is something to see, unlike the original.

"Black Malevich under a pink Picasso". This refers to the pink period of creativity of Pablo Picasso. "The Girl on the Ball" was written ten years earlier than Malevich's "ball", possibly influencing the latter.

"Core". If you remove the cannon, it will also work for an athlete's throwing projectile, both as a nucleus and as a disk.

Before you is the Suprematist composition "Four white circles on a black circle in a white square". However, if you have a white shirt with black buttons, you can contemplate many copies of this composition for at least hours.

Similar to the previous one, "White circle on black circle on white square". Suprematism in all its glory! Write it Malevich - it would be a masterpiece for centuries! If it were not for one circumstance - this masterpiece is now posted everywhere, at any first available tire fitting. It's a pity, such a beautiful, elegant name, not that stupid "Tire fitting"!

"Black target". With this version of the "Black Circle" any military man will stand much longer, not to mention biathletes. And if a picture is fenced off for a small shooting gallery, then the profit from viewing such a "Malevich" will greatly increase.

And this composition is called "Crisis". He's already looming and ready to burst. The crisis is not white or pink, it is always black.

How to get rid of the crisis? It's pretty straightforward. The crisis needs to be flipped and bitten off. Add a leaf - and now we are not facing a crisis, but an elegant, expensive device from Apple. Now the main thing is not to turn it over, otherwise the crisis will return, but already broken out!

"Weapon of the proletariat". Composition of Suprematist Symbolism. The circle, having acquired the cogwheel cogwheel, symbolizes mechanical engineering and the sun of the Soviet industry. Another object - symbolizes the tool, the key of the worker, at the same time resembling the outlines of the crosshairs of a sickle and a hammer - the weapon of a worker and a collective farmer. If only Malevich had painted such a picture in time, the coat of arms of the USSR would undoubtedly have looked different. Perhaps it would have looked like this, one to one. Well, for those snickering bourgeois who do not like the symbols of the Soviet proletariat, there is a simpler name: "Beer".

"Kutuzov Suprematist. Portrait of a Field Marshal". Someone will say: this is not a portrait - where is Kutuzov himself? I will answer: firstly, the bandage is on Kutuzov's right missing eye. Secondly, every second viewer will catch the connection with Kutuzov, which means that the portrait is quite similar.

A minimum of actions with the previous picture - and we already have scrambled eggs for breakfast. Let's call it "kutuzovskaya fried eggs". If the classic fried eggs have both "eyes", then the Kutuzovskaya fried eggs are necessarily prepared from one egg! Scientifically speaking: mono-yarn. For those on a diet.

"Sisyphus". Well, many people know that. This is such a hefty, but stupid ancient Greek who did not think to use the lever. The ancient Greek did not shamefully justify the saying "there is strength - there is no need for mind".

There are works of art that everyone knows. For the sake of these pictures, tourists stand in long lines in any weather, and then, getting inside, they just take a selfie in front of them. However, if you ask a tourist who strayed from the group why he is so eager to look at the masterpiece, he is unlikely to explain why he suffered, pushed and tormented with a focal length. Often the fact is that due to the constant information noise around a particular work, its very essence is forgotten. Our task, under the heading “The Great and the Incomprehensible,” is to remember why everyone should go to the Hermitage, Louvre and Uffizi.

The first painting in our rubric was Kazimir Malevich's painting "Black Square". It is perhaps the most famous and controversial work of Russian art, and at the same time the most recognizable in the West. So, in London now there is a large-scale exhibition dedicated to the work of the artist. The main exhibit was, of course, the Black Square. It can even be argued that European critics associate Russian art not with Karl Bryullov and Ilya Repin, but with Malevich. At the same time, unfortunately, few of the visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery or the Hermitage can clearly say what this canvas is so famous for. Today we will try to fix it.

Kazimir Malevich (1879 - 1935) "Self-portrait". 1933 year.

1. It is not"Black square", a"Black square on a white background"

And this is important. This fact is worth remembering, like the Pythagorean theorem: it is hardly useful in life, but it is somehow indecent not to know it.

K. Malevich "Black square on a white background." 1915 year. Stored in the Tretyakov Gallery

2. This is not a square

At first, the artist named his painting "Quadrangle", which is confirmed by linear geometry: there are no right angles, the sides are not parallel to each other, and the lines themselves are uneven. Thus, he created a movable form. Although, of course, he knew how to use a ruler.

3. Why did Malevich draw a square?

In his memoirs, the artist writes that he did it unconsciously. However, the development of artistic thought can be traced in his paintings.

Malevich worked as a draftsman. It is not surprising that at first he was fascinated by Cubism with its correct forms. For example, a 1914 painting - "Composition with La Gioconda". Black and white rectangles already appear here.

Left - Kazimir Malevich "Composition with La Gioconda". Right - Leonardo da Vinci "Mona Lisa", aka "La Gioconda"

Then, when creating the scenery for the opera Victory over the Sun, the idea of ​​a square as an independent element appeared. However, the painting "Black Square" appeared only two years later.

4. Why exactly a square?

Malevich believed that the square is the basis of all forms. If you follow the artist's logic, the circle and the cross are already secondary elements: the rotation of the square forms a circle, and the movement of the white and black planes forms a cross.

The paintings "Black Circle" and "Black Cross" were painted simultaneously with "Black Square". All together they formed the basis of a new artistic system, but the supremacy was always just beyond the square.

"Black Square" - "Black Circle" - "Black Cross"

5. Why is the square black?

For Malevich, black is a mixture of all existing colors, while white is the absence of any color. Although, this is completely contrary to the laws of optics. Everyone remembers how they said at school that black absorbs the rest, and white connects the entire spectrum. And then we did experiments with lenses, looking at the resulting rainbow. But with Malevich, the opposite is true.

6. What is Suprematism and how to understand it?

Malevich founded a new direction in art in the mid-1910s. He called it Suprematism, which means "the highest" in Latin. That is, in his opinion, this movement should have become the pinnacle of all creative searches of artists.

Suprematism is easy to recognize: various geometric shapes are combined into one dynamic, usually asymmetrical composition.

K. Malevich "Suprematism". 1916 year.
An example of one of the artist's many Suprematist compositions.

What does it mean? Such forms are usually perceived by the viewer as children's multi-colored cubes scattered on the floor. Agree, you can't draw the same trees and houses for two thousand years. Art must find new forms of expression. And they are not always understandable for ordinary people. For example, the canvases of the small Dutch were once revolutionary and deeply conceptual. Life philosophy was displayed through objects in still lifes. However, now they are perceived rather as beautiful pictures, the modern viewer simply does not think about the deep meaning of the works.

Jan Davids de Hem "Breakfast with fruit and lobster". Second quarter of the 17th century.
Each element in Dutch still lifes carries a certain symbolic meaning. For example, lemon is a symbol of moderation.

This harmonious system collapses upon acquaintance with the paintings of the avant-garde artists. The system “beautiful - not beautiful”, “realistic - not realistic” does not work here. The viewer has to think about what these strange lines and circles on the canvas can mean. Although, in fact, there is no less sense in lemons in Dutch still lifes, just visitors to the museum are not forced to solve it. In paintings of the 20th century, one must immediately understand the idea of ​​a work of art, which is much more complicated.

7. Was it really only Malevich who was so smart?

Malevich was not the first artist who began to create such paintings. Many masters of France, England and Russia were close to comprehending non-objective art. Thus, Mondrian in 1913-1914 created geometric compositions, and the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint wrote the so-called color diagrams.

Hilma af Klint. From the SUW series (Stars and the Universe). 1914 - 1915.

However, it was with Malevich that geometry acquired a clear philosophical implication. His idea clearly flowed from the previous artistic movement - cubism, where objects are divided into geometric shapes, and each of them is painted separately. In Suprematism, they stopped depicting the original form, the artists switched to pure geometry.

Pablo Picasso "Three Women". 1908 year.
An example of cubism. Here the artist has not yet abandoned the prototype form - the human body. The figures are similar to the work of a carpenter sculptor, who seemed to have created his work with an ax. Each "slice" of the sculpture is painted over with a shade of red and does not go beyond the boundaries.

8. How can a square be movable?

Despite the outward static, this painting is considered one of the most dynamic in the history of the Russian avant-garde.

As conceived by the artist, the black square symbolizes pure form, and the white background - infinite space. Malevich used the adjective "dynamic" to show that this form is in space. It looks like a planet in the universe.

So the background and the form are inseparable from each other: Malevich wrote that "the most important thing in Suprematism is two foundations - the energy of black and white, which serve to reveal the form of action." (Malevich K. Collected works in 5 volumes. M., 1995. Volume 1.P.187)

9. Why does the "Black Square" have two dates of creation?

The canvas was created in 1915, although the author himself wrote 1913 on the reverse side. This was done, apparently, in order to bypass its competitors and assert primacy in the creation of a Suprematist composition. In fact, in 1913 the artist was engaged in the design of the opera "Victory over the Sun", and in his sketches, indeed, there was a black square as a symbol of this victory.

But in painting, the idea was embodied only in 1915. The painting was presented at the avant-garde exhibition "0, 10", and the artist placed it in the red corner, the place where icons are usually hung in an Orthodox house. With this step, Malevich proclaimed the importance of the canvas and was right: the painting became a turning point in the development of the avant-garde.

Photo taken at the exhibition "0, 10". "Black square" hangs in the red corner

10. Why is the "Black Square" in the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery?

Malevich several times turned to the theme of the square, since for him this is the most important Suprematist form, after which, in order of importance, there are a circle and a cross.

There are four "Black Squares" in the world, but they are not complete copies of each other. They vary in size, proportion and time of creation.

"Black square". 1923 year. Stored in the Russian Museum

The second "Black Square" was created in 1923 for the Venice Biennale. Then, in 1929, the artist creates a third painting especially for his personal exhibition. It is believed that the director of the museum asked him, because the original of 1915 had already been covered with a mesh of cracks and craquelure by that time. The artist did not like the idea, he refused, but then changed his mind. So the world has become one more square.

"Black square". 1929 year. Stored in the Tretyakov Gallery

The last iteration was created presumably in 1931. No one knew about the existence of the fourth option, until in 1993 a citizen came to the Samara branch of Inkombank and left this picture on bail. The mysterious lover of painting was never seen again: he never returned for the canvas. The painting began to belong to the bank. But not for long: it went bankrupt in 1998. The painting was bought out and transferred to the Hermitage for storage.

"Black square". Early 1930s. Stored in the Hermitage

So, the first painting of 1915 and the third version of 1929 are kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, the second version is in the Russian Museum, and the last one is in the Hermitage.

11. How did your contemporaries feel about the Black Square?

If there is no more hope for understanding Malevich's work, there is no need to be sad. Even the followers of the Russian avant-garde artist did not fully comprehend the artist's deep intention. The diaries of one of the master's contemporaries, Vera Pestel, have survived to this day. She writes:

“Malevich wrote just a square and painted over it entirely with pink paint, and another with black paint, and then many more squares and triangles of different colors. His room was elegant, all motley, and it was good for the eye to move from one color to another - all of a different geometric shape. How calm it was to look at the different squares, I didn’t think anything, I didn’t want anything. The pink color was pleasing, and next to it, black was also pleasing. And we liked it. We also became Suprematists. " (Malevich about himself. Contemporaries about Malevich. Letters. Documents. Memoirs. Criticism. In 2 volumes. M., 2004. Volume 1. P. 144-145)

It's like saying about the still lifes of small Dutchmen - why think about it.

However, there are also more meaningful remarks. Despite the fact that not everyone understood the philosophical implications of the canvas, they still appreciated its significance. Andrei Bely said this about Suprematism:

"The history of painting and all these Vrubel in front of such squares - zero!" (Malevich about himself. Contemporaries about Malevich. Letters. Documents. Memoirs. Criticism. In 2 volumes. M., 2004. Volume 1. P. 108).

Alexander Benois, the founder of the World of Art movement, was extremely outraged by Malevich's trick, but he still understood the meaning that the painting had acquired:

“A black square in a white frame is the“ icon ”that the futurists offer instead of Madonnas and shameless Venuses. This is not a simple joke, not a simple challenge, but this is one of the acts of self-affirmation of the beginning, which has as its name the abomination of desolation ... ". (Benois A. The last futuristic exhibition. From "Malevich about himself ...". T.2. P.524)

In general, the painting made a double impression on the artist's contemporaries.

12. Why can't I draw "Black Square" and become famous?

You can draw, but you won't be able to become famous. The meaning of contemporary art is not only to create something completely new, but also to present it correctly.

For example, black squares were drawn before Malevich. In 1882, Paul Bielhold created a painting with the incorrectly titled "Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement". Earlier, in the 17th century, the English artist Flood painted the painting "Great Darkness". But it was the Russian avant-garde artist who marked the new philosophy with the picture and exploited it for several decades. Can you do that? Then go ahead.

Robert Flood The Great Dark. 1617 year.

Paul Bilhold "The Night Fight of Blacks in the Basement." 1882 year.