Samovar 1913

Kazimir Malevich made "Samovar" with oil paint to chop up a humble household object into a flurry of shapes. The colors are muted and earthy, kind of like Cubism, but there's something else going on here, a push and pull. The surface has a slightly rough texture with visible brushstrokes, and you can see how the paint has been applied in layers, almost like he's building up a collage. Check out how he uses these overlapping geometric forms. Is it a bird's eye view or a worm's eye view? It's like the object has exploded, with the pieces reassembled in a new, abstract way. Malevich's "Suprematism" came right after this, and you can see how he's already starting to break free from the world of recognizable objects, pushing towards pure abstraction, just like Picasso did. It's an ongoing conversation about how we see, and what we think we know.