The Black Square

Malevich’s Black Square heralded the triumph of non-objectivity, when there was nothing left to destroy in the figurative form and the object lost its materiality. This canvas, shown at the 'Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10' in Petrograd in December 1915, embodied its creator’s conception of 'the zero of form', the beginning and end of everything. All shapes and phenomena are implied within this zero, in it they expire and are born anew in an infinite and eternal space. As the artist wrote: 'The Square is not a subconscious shape. It is the creation of intuitive reason. The face of the new art! The Square is alive, a royal infant. The first step of pure creativity in art.'
The artist repeated the famous composition, which undoubtedly became an icon of 20th century painting. The Hermitage has a version dated 1930-1932, it was formerly kept in the collection of the Malevich family.