Russian Art
Malevich, K. S.
"Head of a Peasant". 1928 - 1932
Notes: Head of a Peasant.
Kasemir Malevich used the faceless face to communicate the shocking anonymity of a large-scale catastrophe -- in this case, the horrible famine that swept the Russian countryside at this time. Though faceless and anonymous, Malevich's figures nonetheless convey a sense of pride and stature. Portrayed as types rather than individuals, they pose the tragedy of the times as a collective rather than personal experience and thus become a lens through which the viewer can conceive the greater world.
In his draft of 1924 entitled "Through My Experience as a Painter," Malevich argued that a painted portrait was not a portrait of a specific person in the sense that a snapshot was, but only a portrait of a painting. Like formalist critics, Malevich contended that the subject was secondary to the way paint was applied and the forms set down.
