The artist is Malevich
"Portrait of Klun" is one of the most stable motives in the work of Malevich. The frontal image of the male person – “peasant”, “builder”, “Orthodox” (according to definitions belonging to the artist itself) – is traditionally associated with the appearance of one of his closest friends and followers, artist Ivan Vasilyevich Klyunkov (Kluna). The so -called “improved portrait of Klun”, first exhibited at the 1913–1914 union exhibition, is one of the most characteristic examples of cubotourism – not only in Malevich’s work, but also in Russian painting of this period. In the spirit of the time, giving tribute to the god -tooth moods of those years, frequent among artistic youth, Malevich “dissects” his icon prototype in this portrait – the image of a merciless rescue, giving special expressiveness to a huge dissection, which becomes a kind of paraphrase of an all -seeing sear. It is interesting that Klun himself completely identified himself with the image created by Malevich, as evidenced by a self -portrait written in 1914–1915 and now stored in the Astrakhan art gallery. (E. B.).
Klyunkov Ivan Vasilievich (1878–1942) – artist, friend and follower to. With. Malevich.
Russian portrait. XX century: St. Petersburg, 2001. With. 157.
Malevich does not create a portrait of a particular person. The image is built from a variety of geometric shapes. As if deployed in different spatial zones, they make up a complex composition in which individual fragments of objects are recognized. Moreover, there are fragments eloquently “telling” about the model. Thus, part of the log hut log of the village hut indicates the peasant origin of the Klun, and the pile of white-blue faceted volumes and a smoking pipe may well be associated with a sugar factory, where the future advent of the avant-garde has been working from the age of 19. But in combination with a saw-the instrument with which the author cuts, destroys the form in order to transform it in new artistic reality, all depicted fragments of the material world acquire the meaning of objects symbolizing the activities of the creator-builder-the creator of the new life, the new society, the new one, the new art. In this context, the word “improved”, introduced by Malevich into the name of the work, means a certain more perfect form, something new, the best in relation to what was before.
Klun (K.) AND. AT. Gramophone. 1914
