Two Figures in a Landscape 1932

Kazimir Malevich made this oil on canvas, Two Figures in a Landscape, and when you look at the painting, you can almost feel him putting one colour next to another. I wonder what Malevich was thinking when he painted these faceless figures with their bright blocks of colour? The paint seems thinly applied, almost translucent in places, which adds to the sense of a fleeting, dreamlike encounter. His flat application of colour in bands of yellow, white, and blue suggests a landscape seen through the eyes of someone who is deeply attuned to the rhythms and patterns of nature. These red, egg-shaped heads—they are so weird!—and the simple forms remind me of Russian folk art. The way he balances the abstract and the figurative is so interesting. It is like he is in conversation with artists like Matisse, but he is also doing his own thing completely. Ultimately, painting for Malevich, and for all of us, becomes a way of thinking through colour and form, inviting us to engage in a visual dialogue that transcends time.