1913
oil on canvas
106,5 õ 106,7
Mikhail Vasilievich Matiushin (1861–1934), composer, artist, active participant of the Russian Avant-Garde of the 1910s–1920s, like-minded friend of Malevich.
Towards 1913, an artistic movement called Cubo-Futurism developed among Russian Futurists. Its creators strived to achieve a synthesis of the ideas of Futurism and Cubism.
Malevich builds the portrait on the basis of a Cubist break-up of forms, wherein the outlines of the subject literally collapse into the constituent elements which assume geometric figures. All these figures are turned in various perspectives to one another, and this creates the impression of their mobility. The main task of Futurism is to convey a sense of movement.
But the work also carries a story about the person being drawn: a fragment of the depicted head with characteristic part in the coiffure, which enables us to “recognize” the person portrayed; the depiction of a keyboard, reminding us of the musical activity of the model; a fragment of the case of a writing desk – Matiushin was a broadly educated man who was busy with the theory of art.
at 10, Krymsky Val, Hall 6
