Turkish Soldier 1913

This watercolour, Turkish Soldier, was made by Kazimir Malevich, though we don't know exactly when. I imagine Malevich, faced with a blank page, slowly building up this figure, one blocky red shape at a time. There's a curious tension here. The flatness of the picture plane with its odd collection of floating motifs—aeroplanes, a fish, a crescent moon—and the figure of the Turkish soldier, who seems to be staring off into the distance, lost in his own thoughts. It’s so simple, almost childlike, yet it resonates with a kind of solemnity. I wonder if he thought about what it meant to be a soldier, to be caught up in the sweep of history. Perhaps he imagined what it was like to stand on the edge of one's own world. A world which is strange, surreal, unknowable. Painters are always in dialogue, borrowing and riffing off each other, constantly trying to make sense of the world through colours and shapes. The painting embraces ambiguity and uncertainty and I like that a lot.