Suprematist and Constructivist artists rejected figuration and used a non objective approach to space and form which greatly influenced future artists, architects and designers. Suprematism and Constructivism both grew out of political and social changes which were occurring during the revolutionary period in Russia. Both were also influenced by earlier Modern movements such as Cubism and Futurism. In this essay the connections between Malevich and Rodchenko as well as differences in their personal ideologies will be highlighted. Finally, the influence that the main artists enjoyed immediately after the Revolution and the subsequent decline of the movements will be briefly outlined.

Both movements were quite short lived due to post revolutionary changes. Suprematism had its origins around 1913. The key figure in Suprematism was Malevich , Rodchenko and El Lissitsky were just two of the artists who were drawn by his particular non objective art philosophy. Constructivism originated with Tatlin’s mixed media relief sculptures which were originally inspired by Picasso’s cubist collages. Although Tatlin’s sculptures were geometric and non-objective he had a different aim from Malevich and therefore the artists could not work as one movement. The Constructivists were initially called the Productivist School. The aim of the Productivists was to translate “the “spirit of the machine age and the new society into a practical visual form.”1 Rodchenko was influenced to a lesser extent by Malevich and heavily by Tatlin. Rodchenko”s Black on Black paintings were a response to Malevich’s White on White paintings.Tatlin’s subsequent influence directed Rodchenko in a Constructivist direction and this was evident in Rodchenko’s 1917 hanging constructions from the “laboratory phase”. Constructivism officially emerged at the start of the 1920s although artists had previously been producing constructions and designs on paper which had utilitarian leanings.

Before the revolution Malevich had strongly articulated the aims and values held by him and other Suprematist artists. However despite resisttance against Suprematism by artist such as Tatlin, Constructivism only officially began in 1921 with the First Working Group of Constructivists. The strong ideological difference between Malevich and Rodchenko is not so easy to detect visually in earlier works. At times there are strong visual similarities between the works of Malevich and Rodchenko. Two examples that will be discussed here are Malevich’s Untitled (Suprematist Painting), 1915 and Rodchenko’s Composition, 1919. Although both pieces are non representational and are composed of simple shapes and lines, Malevich has produced a larger work in oil on canvas showing his continued attachment to easel painting. Rodchenchko on the other hand, has produced a much smaller design using gouache on paper. His aim was not painting for its own sake but rather as a way of exploring connections between forms and the relationships between forms and the relationship between this and real life.

In Untitled (Suprematist Painting), Malevich has painted two groups of coloured rectangles sloping diagonally against a white background. The two groups are divided by two floating diagonal lines. The top group of red, yellow, blue, green and brown rectangles are painted over the top of a large black trapezoid which is narrowing as it angles towards the top of the canvas. In Rodchenko’s Composition 1919 the background is less prominent. His array of colourful overlapping shapes resemble cogs and pipes in a machine. Where as Malevich’s shapes are completely flat in colour, Rodchenko has used his gouache with a dry brush technique creating tones. This gives some of the shapes a slightly three dimensional quality. The dominant shapes are the large yellow circle and a smaller orange circle below it, followed by a metallic looking, partially hidden square and a green and black diamond shape. Rodchenko’s work was completed four years after Malevich’s. Arwas (1993) described Rodchenko’s admiration for Malevich and his work and dislike of Malevich himself back in 1916. During the year of 1916, Rodchenko decided to align himself with Tatlin and this paved the way for his later commitment to Constructivism, both as an artist/designer and as an educator.

Despite superficial similarities in the non objective compositions, the philosophies behind them were very different. “Art, Malevich believed, was meant to be useless. It should never seek to satisfy material needs. The artist must maintain his spiritual independence in order to create.” 2 Malevich wanted to challenge the way people and artists responded to the world around them. His way of issuing this challenge was to create a new reality or world within his paintings. “He wanted the world within his paintings to be no less significant than the realities of nature herself.”3 This aim was similar to that of the Surrealists in the way they both wanted to create a second world (alternative realities) within their art. While Surrealists kept traces of the real world in their imagery Malevich was able to break away totally from imitating reality. Malevich’s visual language was based on a straight line. This was because it was the opposite of reality in nature where no line is straight. The basic element of Suprematism was the square showed his rejection of themes in traditional art. The square to Malevich was full of meaning and referred to the absence of other objects and to Malevich this was a very important concept.

It was so important that in the 1915 “0,10” exhibition he placed his “Black Square” at the top corner of the gallery: in the place normally reserved in Russion homes for a family’s religious icon. “Black Square” was quite misunderstood by art critics and the newspapers responded angrily to the Suprematist works. Tatlin also detested Suprematism and he even forbade Malevich to exhibit Suprematist works in his 1916 exhibition, “The Store”. There was another side to Suprematism. In Malevich’s drawings 1913-17 he wanted his shapes to show evidence of having been created by the human hand. Although the shapes themselves in Suprematism, Splitting of Construction Form 78, 1917 did not resemble natural forms, Malevich wanted to show the human touch in the shading which he achieved with gentle graduations of tone across the main diagonal line and arcs. Interestingly, Rodchenko also used softened edges to his shapes in his 1922 designs Tea Cups and Tray. The circular motifs resemble both Malevich’s pencil shading and Rodchenko’s own earlier treatment of circles in Composition 1919. However by 1922 Rodchenko was steeped in the Constructivist philosophy that “art and life should be merged through mass production and industry.”4 Artists were encouraged to function as designers through designing utilitarian items, which could be manufactured in a factory.

Rodchenko came to reject pure art as a parasitical activity and he had little patience with Malevich’s distance from the real world. Rodchenko was not only an industrial designer, he also worked in typography, film, stage design, propaganda posters and photography. After the 1917 Revolution artists were encouraged to promote revolutionary ideals and the avant-garde artists began working in Russion art schools. Rodchenko produced advertisements and propaganda posters promoting the machine age and the Revolution. He became highly skilled in the area of photomontage. Outstanding examples of his Contructivist designs were produced for the covers of the journal Lef between 1923 and 1927. Bold areas of flat colour with two colour typography were sometimes combined with powerful photographic images. Such functional design is indeed far removed from Malevich’s dreamy conceptions of outer space and new worlds as depicted in his White on White paintings.

In his Suprematist Composition: White on White Malevich has placed an off center large tilted square inside another larger square. The two squares are painted in contrasting tones of white, the inner square does not quite touch the edges of the outer square. All references to the human form have disappeared. Suprematist Composition: White on White is said to be a product of Malevich’s interest in cosmic landscapes and his love of a diagonal upward pull and the sensation of weightlessness is evident in the work. Malevich also discovered through this painting an ideal state of consciousness and harmony through space and time itself. The White on White paintings represented outer space and an inner freedom found in the mind. Black Square is another example of Malevich’s reference to symbolic meaning without reverting to traditional symbols or images in order to accomplish this. This emphasis on non utilitarian creation is diametrically opposed to the Constructivist approach which was concerned with materials, production and the real new world of the machine age.

Even Rodchenko’s non objection Hanging Constructions 1920-21 have a relationship with practical considerations.In these constructions, concentric geometric shapes such as circles and ellipses were cut out of a sheet of ply wood. The shapes were then turned on different angles to form three dimensional spatial compositions. The shapes were held together with wire and hung from the ceiling. Conveniently, the constructions could be stored flat where necessary. In Rodchenko’s experiments of growing forms from simple geometric shapes “there (was) for the first time a clear example of how the mode of production and the principle of economy of material, which later became central tenets of the Constructivist doctrine, were being treated as significant constraints upon the creation of the art object.”5 To add to the spatial effects Rodchenko shone lights on to the constructions to emphasise the lights and shadows and various thicknesses of the plywood shapes as they turned in the air. The relationship between these constructions and Rodchenko’s earlier Compass Drawing from 1915 seems to be quite direct. Compass Drawing consists of black and white sections of circles, arcs and arches. The dominant elements of design are line and shape. In Spatial Contruction/Spatial Object line is still dominant and the surrounding space forms similar shapes those seen in Compass Drawing.

Rodchenko and the Constructivists have been criticised for their use of poor materials for their constructions. However, around the time of the Revolution materials were scarce, as were food and other resources. By using cheap materials Rodchenko was able to produce his ideas more quickly and easily because he did not need special skills or machinery. After the Revolution both Malevich and Rodchenko obtained education positions. In 1919 Malevich accepted a position at the Popular Art Institute at Vitebsk which had been started by Marc Chagall. Malevich later became director of the Petrograd Institute of Artistic Culture. Rodchenko had a position at The Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture. In such positions they were able to exert considerable influence on students. However the political tide turned when Stalin gained power and Trotsky went into exile in 1927. Trotsky had been supportive of avant garde artists such as the Suprematists and Constructivists but under Stalin the artists were viewed with suspicion. Their formalist works were considered to be obscure and elitist. Stalin banned artistic organizations and introduced a new official art style: Social Realism. Rodchenko produced documentary style photography and Malevich returned to a more figurative style of painting. Despite their passionate differences, Suprematist and Constructivist artists were both viewed as suspect by the new regime. In the Stalinist years their ideologies were firmly out of favour and Malevich was even imprisoned for a short period.