1920
oil on canvas
96 õ 57
This work gives rise to a feeling of inner contradiction. On the one hand, the depiction literally hovers in a white Suprematist space that has no coordinates, and on the other hand, the geometric volumes have three points of axonometric projection and possess a texture, which tells us this composition belongs to Constructivism.
Klutsis’ work is, as it were, on the boundary between two different styles. The artist is seeking a “new strong, Revolutionary form” and in practice this means he is studying the line, plane, volume, and colour, their dependence on the material and technique of working the surface. With a view to emphasizing the material quality of the depicted “object” and likening it to the painterly style of art depicting subjects, he has added glass, metallic shavings and sand. This is a unique “thing”-painting.
“I set for myself the unusual task of applying hard work to exhaust all the currents, all the “isms” and thus to free myself from the dead weight of the past, from the old school and to find new forms for the present,” the artist wrote.
at 10, Krymsky Val, Hall 6
