Portrait of Woman in Yellow Hat 1930

Kazimir Malevich painted this portrait of a woman in a yellow hat using oil on canvas. There’s this real tug-of-war happening between representation and abstraction. It's like he's wrestling with the very idea of what a portrait should be, you know? The bold strokes, the way he fearlessly throws down color—it's like he's saying, "Here's a face, but it's also just paint." I can almost feel Malevich pushing the boundaries, experimenting with how much he can strip away while still suggesting a form, a feeling. Look at the hat, that slash of yellow. It’s so immediate, so confident. Painting is such an embodied expression. You start to wonder, what was he thinking? Was he influenced by Matisse? Or was he paving his own way?