
Kasimir Malevich, Painterly Realism of a Football Player: Color Masses in the 4th Dimension, 1915, acquired by The Art Institute, Chicago, 2011.
When a Malevich came on the auction block,
Someone paid out, in dollars, sixty million.
Then another, from the same batch, was sold
To Chicago’s Art Institute, for undisclosed sum.
What a catch, what a prize, in one hundred years,
Nay!, In one hundred and thirty-two years, rarely
A piece so significant- for this be one of the rarest
And most storied of Russian Suprematist paintings.
Now what is that, you say! A supreme Russian painting,
Or a Suprematist painting from Russia? Why the big deal?
It’s clear: The Institute lacked a Russian avant-garde work.
What a coup, to fill, in the collection, such a glaring gap!
Joe, in the newsroom, glanced at the picture, thought Hum!
Turned to the title for enlightenment, but found none.
What to make of the Painterly Realism of a Football Player,
When all he saw was one green circle, and seven other shapes.
Glancing back at the subtitle, searching for a lead, he finds
“Color Masses in the 4th Dimension,” and a date, 1915.
Looks again, seems but two dimensions, flat, colored shapes
Laid over a neutral whitish-gray field, and starts to do the math.
Hypothesize some sixty-million dollars – perhaps even more!
Imagine what that looks like, laid out in glimmering gold bars!
Imagine what that purchases, besides a flashy fleet of fine cars!
Then he looks back at the canvas, as if back in the artist’s studio.
Kasimir Malevich must have been one heck of a man! – Surely bold.
By 1912, he already had a name, painting cubo-futuristic works,
Inspired by the famed bohemians of the Paris art world. Ah Paris!
And then there was the Dutch Mondrian, heading the same way.
While Mondrian, in nineteen-twelve, still let in the hint of a tree,
A Russian could become a Suprematist, and why not me?
So Kasimir prepped his canvas, a mere 70 x 44 centimeters,
A monotone ground, all off-white-gray! – Then almost done!
Two black rectangles, and one more off-black and skewed;
Four wedges of primaries, red, blue and yellow, all floating
Above the off-white-gray ground, seemingly sprung from
One small neat circle, colored a monochrome green!
That should do it, muses Malevich, less would end as
White-on-White – yes, why not, but just not yet, because
What then comes next? Could he have dreamed, some day,
Some other would value his day’s work at some sixty million!?
Did I say, sixty million? Sixty million dollars – no less?
Now, how many people, worked how many days,
For how many years, over how many lifetimes –
To put aside sufficient surplus to pay for that?
A 70 x 44 cm canvas, with but eight daubs of color?
-- JW, January 30th, 2011.