Poster The Transformations of the Black Square

Or urban legends about the great artist Malevich

The Beginning
Not many people know that when the great Russian artist Kazimir Malevich was creating his famous "Black Square" he was actually starting to draw a window wih a cat sitting on the windowsill with the blue sky being at the background. But it was so hot in the studio that Malevich wanted to finish painting as soon as possible in order to go and have a swim. That's why he was draw at a very fast pace.

Suddenly the cat left, as it had some business of its own, all the clouds msteriously disappeared that is why Malevich just painted what he saw at that moment: single-colour blue square.

The Middle

A bit later, when Malevich was almost absolutely happy after having has a swim on his way back home he noticed huge, almost square red apples, lit by the hot yellow sky. The artist could not make out the shape of the sun, as it was impossible to look at it without a dark film square. That is why Malevich naturally thought that the sun is also square.

Being a bit hungry and greatly impressed by everything that he had seen, at first Malevich decided to draw a huge red apple, but then he remembered the sun and painted a yellow square. As the artwork was repainted several times, there was just something greyish instead of the blue sky, red apples and the bright sun.

The Middle 2.0

Malevich looked sadly at his paintig and and painted over the whole work with the black colour. And after that he immediately went to sleep.

Kazimir Malevich's dream

Malevich dreamt about someone strange, looking very much like a cat. This creature was teaching Malevich how to mix paints: "If you mix blue and yellow, you'll get green, blue and red - will make up violet".

Still, Malevich somehow no longer loved any colour except for the black one.

Conclusion

It is only now that we know that all the infornation about mixing the colours came from the aliens as a goodwilll gesture. But Malevich told no one this secret as for his "Black Square" all that hustle and bustle was irrelevant.

And as far as the aliens are concerned, they made no more goodwilll gestures. They made some other gestures, but this story is not about them.

The End

They say that from time to time Malevich liked to wrap himself up in his very first black canvas and haunt Mozart, and it was he - Malevich of course! - who was the first to think of painting the piano black as well as half of the keys.

But those are quite different stories from a different cycle (about a dark-black room and dark-black hand painting in the dark-black colour).

But all those stories are top secret information and we should never speak of them again. That is why, please, forget everything you have just read and, please, never ever think of the BLACK SQUARE again!

- The End -