[HN Gopher] Precedents of the Unprecedented: Black Squares Befor...
___________________________________________________________________
Precedents of the Unprecedented: Black Squares Before Malevich
Author : prismatic
Score : 29 points
Date : 2022-06-28 22:33 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (publicdomainreview.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (publicdomainreview.org)
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| The core of Malevich's 'artistic expression' in his Black Square
| is buried in parentheses a paragraph or two before the end:
|
| > Black Square was not simply a two-dimensional surface, parallel
| to a single wall and projecting outwards from it in one
| direction. Judging from the way it was displayed when first
| exhibited in 1915 -- across the corner of the room (like a
| Russian icon) and as high up as possible -- it was required to
| project from two walls and the ceiling, i.e. in three dimensions,
| embracing the room over which it presided as a cubic space.
|
| Black Square's artistic merit is precisely because it was
| intended to occupy the space in the room that an icon
| traditionally would, and implied the absence (or rejection) of
| God.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I didn't know this, thank you! This just goes to show how much
| context is part of something being art!
| mcprwklzpq wrote:
| Except Malevich had written extensively about why he painted
| the Black Square and he never said it was to reject god.
|
| Malevich even wrote an essay "Bog ne skinut: Iskusstvo,
| tserkov', fabrika" (God is not thrown down: Art, church,
| factory) in which he argued that god exists because it is
| impossible to prove otherwise.
|
| From this essay it is possible to conclude that Malevich in
| Black Square painted god as he imagined it. He wrote that since
| the seventh day of creation god rests and does nothing. That is
| why it appears as if god does not exists. Black Square depicts
| nothing.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I may have overstepped with rejection. But in that essay he
| argues that there's no such thing as God, God is just the
| embodiment of perfection in the universe, and man becomes God
| by attaining perfection, calls God fallible, refutes the
| concept of the trinity, says God is not omniscient, and
| ultimately concludes that God is not cast down because God is
| a creation of man as the answer to what is essentially a
| question of semantics, and so exists as the answer to an
| exercise in philosophy rather than in any real sense.
| jahewson wrote:
| This is a fascinating article. The path from "death of Christ" to
| "death of religion" is quite a turnaround.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| This is impressively researched, and a great examination of a
| hidden through-line in art history. I appreciate that the writer
| doesn't approach the subject from an adversarially revisionist
| perspective ("Malevich was a plagiarist!") but rather builds for
| the reader a better appreciation for the cultural lineage that
| led to Black Square.
| O__________O wrote:
| Amazing depth of research, but worth noting that it's largely
| limited to works that are now within the public domain.
|
| As such, while more technical, than conceptual or historical,
| there are now blacks that absorb light to degrees that were
| impossible before and are magical to see, even in pure sunlight.
| In 2016, an Indian-born British artist named Anish Kapoor was
| given exclusive rights to use Vantablack, the darkest material in
| the world with an absorption rate of 99.96%; Black 3.0 and Musou
| Black, which absorption rates are lower were created in response
| to Kapoor being only artist allowed to use Vantablack. To see
| examples, just Google keywords like: blackest black, vantablack
| vs black 3.0 vs musou black.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-30 23:01 UTC)