The Color Yellow: The Yellow Stripe

Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Malevich, The Yellow Stripe, 1917-1918
The Color Yellow
By MEGAN GANNON
We live. We die. The act of death isn’t difficult understanding it is. You will hear “he is in a better place,” “everything happens for a reason,” and “I’m sorry for your loss” more times than you can count. Eventually those phrases will bring on a numbing sensation. The point of those phrases is supposed to comfort you, but that comfort soon fades when you realize death doesn’t care. It takes and leaves you to cope. 

When an older person dies we talk about their achievements, their children or grandchildren if it applies, their job, their hobbies. However, when a child dies, we struggle with what to say because at ten your life hasn’t even started yet.

In Malevich’s Yellow Stripe I see Trevor’s life as a fleeting brushstroke across the canvas. He did not get enough time, but in his abbreviated stay he left a lasting impression. As my older brother he led me through life. He acted as my twin in a family of four children. The only one with eye color, the T to my M. In his 10 years he lived more fully than most adults I know.

Malevich’s quick strokes hint that our time is short, we must live in the moment. Cherish those whom we hold dear, and care deeply for them. Unfortunately in loving people you will get hurt, they will disappoint you, and you will feel responsible for keeping the balance of universe. You can’t but you’ll try.

You’ll learn that the little things carry little importance and the holidays lose their gleam without them. Staring at Malevich’s Yellow Stripe, watching as it fades into the white, you are faced with the inevitably of what is it come. What will you leave behind? Your legacy? That’s up to you.

Good Luck.


  • 7:00 AM

The Black Square

Kazimir Malevich
Malevich, The Black Square, 1915 
By MEGAN GANNON
For the purpose of this blog post I ask you to ignore the Rothko vibe The Black Square gives off and believe in Malevich for a little while. Kazimir Malevich, the artist behind the Suprematist movement, attempted to reduce art to what he called “zero form.”  Malevich started the suprematist movement on the cusp of the Boshevilick Revolution in Russia and painted The Black Square in 1915 to demonstrate the hope he felt communism possessed. 

According to Malevich suprematism existed in three levels black, colored, and white. For Malevich his journey started with black. You may look at his painting and simply see a black square with a white border, but I urge you to imagine more.

Malevich first displayed The Black Square in a Moscow exhibition in 1915. Placing the painting in the corner of the room, a place usually reserved for Russian religious icons. With his strategic placement Malevich made a statement about his geometric art. An opinion that he translated as “only with the disappearance of a habit of mind which sees in pictures little corners, madonnas and shameless Venuses, shall we witness a work of pure, living art”.

To Malevich his white border messed with the perception of the painting, forcing the observer to not find meaning in a single tree or misplaced flower, but to appreciate art in true form.

Unfortunately Malevich’s dreams of communism came to a crashing halt with leaders like Stalin and Lenin. With the new regime eventually banning his artwork after his death. A tragic ending for a man who believed whole-heartedly in their cause.

Today some will critique The Black Square as piece of communist propaganda or a mediocre Rothko, but then there will be those who recognize the power of the image. The immense amount of hope it possesses and how one man altered the course of modern art with a square and some black paint. 

  • 7:00 AM

Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying

Drew Bierwirth
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: Airplane Flying, 1915

At about this time last year, I wrote a blog post that I feel is very dissimilar to this one. I wrote about growing up, about my first day in art history; all with a distinct tone of fear, excitement, and naïveté. The piece I chose was a colorful, but dark Van Gogh with trees extending like prison bars and a couple dissolving in the center.

This piece, on the other hand, is meant to be nothing but what is seen. Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist theory and goal was to find the "zero degree," or the point where art cannot be viewed as anything but what is on the canvas. Where it cannot be interpreted as a picture of the world, but rather a world in and of itself. Malevich's goal was to separate the viewer entirely from the world around them, painting the piece over so much that even the texture of the canvas vanishes and only the colors and shapes exist. These shapes are given to the viewer and the viewer must exist with them or look away. Much like Rothko's works, the piece is meant to be viewed up close, with only the piece within their sights.

The change from the Van Gogh to the Suprematist work is a dramatic one - as growing up always is. It involves, for me, whiting out the Van Gogh and putting flat shapes on top of the restraining trees. This year was one of clean slates and violent color, one of painting over and of breaking apart. When I spoke of the year ahead what seems like so long ago, the barring trees felt like a preview of what I was about to do, the struggles of the year ahead.

At the "zero degree," this year can be viewed as a transition, as the last period anywhere always is. I'm preparing to take a step into the real world, whatever that may be. But, also at this degree, all of the darkest moments of the year fit within the shapes of the airplane flying, even the most painful memories blending into just another shape on the canvas. John Logan's play, Red, started this year of Art History class for me. One line encapsulates my senior year - mostly because I have never felt closer to Rothko than when he states that "the only thing [he fears] in life... is that one day the black will swallow the red."

There's quite a bit of black on this canvas.

  • 7:00 AM

Self Portrait

Kazimir Malevich

Malevich, Self Portrait, 1933
 The Russian Revolution was winding down, and a new government emerged from within the rubble. The injustices that the people vocalized were temporarily quelled, and Russia put down their weapons of civil destruction to welcome the government’s new Stalinist regime. While the change in power placated Russia’s public, artists quickly realized that Russia’s acceptance of modern abstraction died with Lenin and Trotsky.

Stalin’s regime rejected modern art, condemning them as a type of “bourgeois” art that did nothing to represent contemporary society. As a result, many works of art were confiscated, and painters now had to follow a set of guidelines through which to paint their future works.

Kazimir Malevich, founder of the Suprematist movement, gained international recognition before he returned to Russia. While his return to St. Petersburg offered the artist a nostalgic feeling of comfort, the artist was quickly derided for his suprematist paintings, which often consisted of geometric shapes and fundamental colors.  Critics complained of the drab-ness of his paintings, arguing that a black square did nothing to represent the injustices of society or knowledge gained from his travels.

The Stalinist government confiscated Malevich’s works, offering the artist only a blank canvas and small black book of “artistic guidelines” that they recommended him to follow. As a result, Malevich’s Self Portrait of 1933 followed all of Russia’s guidelines.  To the perusing eye, the audience would catch no hint of the artist’s rebellion.  The Russian government accepted the painting and displayed it at their next convention.

It was not until the Stalinist regime collapsed, however, that the government noticed the small-superimposed image of a black and white box located at the bottom right corner of the portrait. Malevich had autographed his portrait, the same portrait that Stalin had previously deemed “acceptable” and “respectable in all forms,” with the embodiment of anti-Stalinism. The black and white box was a  Suprematist logo.

  • 12:00 AM