2017 4th Quarter Challenge
My first thought for this quarter’s challenge was to choose something very old, like very first cave paintings etc, but it isn’t really an art ‘period’ and it was hard to come up with something that wasn’t too wide or too narrow a topic. Then, like Marilyn, my instinct was to choose something to do with abstract art, I was thinking abstract non-figurative, bold patches and sweeps of colour, but after a bit of searching and researching decided on: Suprematism

According to Wikipedia, Suprematism “was founded by Kazimir Malevich in Russia, around 1913, and announced in Malevich’s 1915 exhibition, The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10, in St. Petersburg, where he, alongside 13 other artists, exhibited 36 works in a similar style.” Suprematism followed the Futurism Modern Art Movement. Looking through the work of the artists featured in the first Suprematism exhibition I found I was more familiar with a lot of their work than I’d realised. Even if you don’t know the artists mentioned, you’ll probably find their work or style is familiar too. For more info about Modern Art Movements in relation to each other, I found this timeline: http://www.theartstory.org/section_movements_timeline.htm

The Art Story website explains some of the ‘Key Ideas’ of Suprematism: “The Suprematists’ interest in abstraction was fired by a search for the ‘zero degree’ of painting, the point beyond which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art. This encouraged the use of very simple motifs, since they best articulated the shape and flat surface of the canvases on which they were painted. (Ultimately, the square, circle, and cross became the group’s favorite motifs.) It also encouraged many Suprematists to emphasize the surface texture of the paint on canvas, this texture being another essential quality of the medium of painting.”

Other geometric shapes such as triangles, semi-circles, arcs and all kinds of regular and irregular quadrilaterals were also popular. The more I looked at Suprematist works, the more I thought how interesting it would be as a Challenge topic, because, even though the shapes and colours are ‘simple’, and in the case of some pieces, very minimalist, I thought their idea of emphasizing surface texture would appeal to many of us 🙂

Enjoy researching it and please share any of your projects with us on the Forum 🙂
10 thoughts on “2017 4th Quarter Challenge”
Interesting indeed. I have seen these works before. I particularly like the last one. I don’t see the texture part in the painting but I can see how it would work with felting. Great choice, I am looking forward to trying some stuff.
Yeah, the texture isn’t there or apparent in all the paintings, but I thought it was something we’d be interested in 🙂
This is a challenge Zed – I’ve never heard of suprematism before, so I’ve got some learning to do.
The ‘Airplane Flying’ reminds me of infant school art classes – we would be given a selection of squares, triangles, circles and strips of coloured, (lick-to-stick) shapes to make pictures with.
Ha ha, I’d forgotten about those lick and stick shapes! Some of the paintings I saw definitely looked like they were done with pencil crayons or powder paint too!
Very interesting Zed! I hadn’t heard of it before but the style is similar to other abstracts. I especially like the texture aspect. (You knew I would.) 🙂 But “zero degree” is a little mind boggling. I wonder what they were smoking. I’m putting on my thinking cap!
I don’t ever remember hearing the name of it either, Marilyn, and it’s right up my street 🙂 It definitely overlaps or has influenced other periods, Bauhaus definitely. I think the ‘zero degree’ is basically one step away from just a plain background, so the white on white paintings: http://radicalart.info/nothing/monochrome/MalevichRodchenko/malevitch/SCWhOnWh1918-M.jpg
Interesting, I haven’t heard of it before either. The shapes are simple but the combinations of shapes makes for a much more complex outcome. Hmmm… now to decide what to do 🙂
🙂
It doea have a lot of scope from simple to complex. I might take inspiration from Lyn and cut out some shapes in paper to work out mine!