Suprematist Painting 1916

Kazimir Malevich made this painting with oil paint, maybe around the 1910s or 20s. Look at how he's built up the paint! The painting is a constellation of geometric shapes floating over a pale ground. The texture of the canvas peeks through here and there. I notice in particular that the red bar angling across the middle has a kind of matte drag to it, like it’s been scrubbed with a dry brush. It looks like a really simple gesture, just dragging a loaded brush across the canvas. But this simple gesture gives the painting a sense of movement and energy, pushing the other shapes up and out. Malevich had a deep influence on minimalist painting, and you can see some commonalities with artists like Ellsworth Kelly or Agnes Martin, who also experimented with abstract forms and pure color. But Malevich had a kind of rough and ready attitude that is very much his own! It feels like he’s trying to reinvent painting from scratch.