Suprematism with Blue Triangle and Black Square 1915

Kazimir Malevich made this painting of a blue triangle and a black square sometime in the early 20th century, using oil on canvas. The palette is so reduced, like he's boiled painting down to its bare essentials, and this feels so connected to the idea of artmaking as a process of stripping away the unnecessary to find some fundamental truth. Look at the surface of the black square, it's not just a flat, dead black, is it? There's texture, a kind of breathing quality to the paint. You can see the strokes, feel the hand of the artist moving. This is the physicality of the medium on full display. Now, check out that blue triangle, butting up against the square like it's pushing into the picture plane. It's like a conversation, or an argument, about space and form. This piece is so of a time when artists were questioning everything, trying to create a new visual language and reminds me a little of some of the Bauhaus artists. Malevich invites us to see the world differently, to find meaning in the simplest of forms, and to embrace the ambiguity that makes art so endlessly fascinating.