suprematism

Suprematism is an art movement devoted to the supremacy of pure artistic feeling over the depiction of objects. It emerged in Russia in the 1910s, led by Kazimir Malevich, and is considered one of the earliest movements to pursue geometric abstraction.

Core ideas center on reducing imagery to basic shapes—such as squares, circles, rectangles, and straight lines—and a limited palette, with a focus on composition and spatial relationships rather than representational imagery.

The theoretical basis was articulated by Malevich in 1915, and the movement is best known for radical works that seek to convey pure sensation. Iconic examples include Black Square (1915), which Malevich described as a "zero of painting," and White on White (1918), a further reduction toward pure form.

Other artists associated with the movement, including El Lissitzky, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, and Ivan Puni, contributed to its development and exhibitions in the 1910s. The ideas of Suprematism influenced later geometric abstraction and had links with the broader Russian avant-garde, including Constructivism, though the two pursued different aims.

In the Soviet era, Suprematism was marginalized under Socialist Realism but experienced renewed interest in the mid-20th century. Today it is recognized as a foundational moment in abstract art, notable for its insistence on non-objective form, the primacy of color and composition, and the claim that form can convey feeling in its own right.