St Petersburg полностью

Malevich’s letter to Matiushin explains the origin of the term the artist used for the new direction in art he had created: “I think that suprematism is the best because it means sovereignty.”57 The painter’s symbol of suprematism originated in a sketch he had done for Victory Over the Sun, when the artist first drew the square on paper. Later Malevich wrote about that sketch, “This drawing will have great significance in painting. That which had been done unconsciously is now yielding extraordinary fruits.”58

Zheverzheyev understood the importance of Malevich’s sketches for Victory Over the Sun. At the same time as Dobychina’s exhibit, Zheverzheyev was showing “Monuments of Russian Theater” in Petrograd, consisting of precious materials from his legendary collection. Right after the performances of Victory Over the Sun, he bought nineteen sketches for the opera from the artist. Now they were in the exhibit of Zheverzheyev’s collection, next to posters from the early eighteenth century.

Malevich pronounced, “Color is the creator of space…. The keys of suprematism open what is still unconscious. My new art does not belong to the Earth exclusively … in man, in his consciousness lies the striving for space, the desire to break away from the planet Earth.”59 Like every real missionary, Malevich tried to conquer avant-garde Petrograd with his philosophy. And for that, he had first to conquer Nikolai Punin’s circle.

At meetings of the club, the intense, brooding Malevich, according to Punin, spent hours “convincing you with astonishing pressure that was hypnotizing and forced you to listen, spoke as if piercing you with a rapier, putting things to you from the most unexpected angles; pushing hard, he would leap back from his interlocutor, shaking his hand and his short fingers, which trembled nervously.”60

But Malevich had a mighty rival in his battle for Petersburg’s heart. Someone brought a masterful cubist drawing by the Muscovite Vladimir Tatlin to Punin’s circle. The members of the club were astonished, and chipping in ten to fifteen kopeks apiece, sent Tatlin a collective telegram: “Come! All Petrograd’s young artists and critics await you as our teacher, laying a new path in Art. We’re waiting!”

Tatlin immediately showed up in Petrograd. “He had a unique look,” recalled a member of the Punin circle. “He was tall and ugly … his whitish hair lay in some kind of tresses on the back of his head. He resembled a pelican.”61 At that time, Tatlin, who had renounced painting, was obsessed with his innovative “counterreliefs.” These were sculptural paintings that heralded constructivism—beautifully arranged strange and powerful combinations of various materials: metal, wood, and glass.

Tatlin’s ideas were even more radical than Malevich’s. His counterreliefs did not serve as symbols of some mystical yearnings, as did Malevich’s paintings. They were not intended to give viewers spiritual impulses but simply stated the right of various materials and objects to sovereign existence as objects of art. The prosaic and utilitarian qualities masking the refined beauty of Tatlin’s counterreliefs found resonance in restrained Petersburg, besides which Tatlin himself made an indelible impression on young artists there. As Punin recalled, “Then his every opinion, every thought he expressed about art was a breakthrough to a new culture, to the future.”62

Under the powerful influence of Tatlin’s ideas, the avant-gardists in Punin’s circle began working enthusiastically

on constructing expansive models, on various kinds of selection of materials of different qualities, characteristics, and shapes. We sawed, planed, cut, rubbed, stretched, and bent; we almost completely forgot about painting; we talked only about contrasts, combinations, tensions, aces of intersections, textures. From the side, it might have looked rather strange, but actually, this was the creative tension of people who thought that through their efforts the world would at last shift away from the age-old canons and “enter into a new Renaissance.”63

And so, Space Composition by the Petrograd Wunderkind Lev Bruni utilized a large steel linchpin, stretched leather, glass, mica, and tin. Bruni’s piece didn’t make it through the years of the revolution; his widow, Nina, told me about it.64 Pyotr Miturich’s composition consisted of plywood, glass panes marked with wax, purple paper, and “silver” foil.

Punin spoke of the incessant rivalry between Tatlin and Malevich.

For as long as I can remember them, they always divided up the world between them: the land, and the sky, and interplanetary space, establishing their spheres of influence everywhere. Tatlin usually claimed the earth for himself, trying to shove Malevich into the sky because of his abstractness. Malevich, not refusing the planets, did not yield earth, either, justly assuming that it too was a planet and therefore could be abstract as well.65