Raku Kichizaemon XV

Kasimir Malevich

Raku Kichizaemon XV		Annely Juda Fine Art

Annely Juda Fine Art

Kasimir Malevich

Kasimir Malevich
Raku Kichizaemon XV
Kasimir Malevich drawings and Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū tea bowls

12 May - 9 July 2022

Annely Juda Fine Art
23 Dering Street London W1S 1AW
ajfa@annelyjudafineart.co.uk
www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk
Tel 020 7629 7578 Fax 020 7491 2139
Monday - Friday 10 - 6 Saturday 11 - 5
front cover: Raku Kichizaemon XV Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl
named ‘Gyō’ (dawn, attain enlightenment, become clear) 2022back cover: Kasimir Malevich Construction 3 h 1916 pencil on squared paper 16.6 x 10.8 cm

Contents
5		 Introduction
		David Juda
7		 From the Encounter with David to Kichizaemon X Malevich
		Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū
23		
Malewicz’s Suprematist Adventure: from the 0,10 Exhibition to Infinity
		Andréi Nakov
64		

Chōjirō and Raku Tea Bowls and Family Tree85		 Kichizaemon X Malevich
		Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū
142		

List of works

I first saw drawings by Kasimir Malevich in 1970. I had only been working in my mother’s
gallery for a few years when Annely Juda Fine Art mounted an exhibition of the NonObjective World 1914 – 1924, in June 1970, which included 12 Malevich drawings and two
manuscripts, one of which was about his Suprematist theories. I was immediately struck by
how much presence these small, subtle, beautiful avant-garde drawings had, especially forthe time they were made, in Russia at the beginning of the 20th Century.
I met Raku Jikinyū in 2004 when I had the honour to be invited to his home to meet him
and his wife, Fujiko. I knew very little about his work, but I was again struck by the subtle
and avant-garde beauty of his tea bowls, just as I had been by Kasimir Malevich’s drawings
in 1970. Over the years I was invited a few times to Raku Jikinyū’s home to see his recent
work, and to his museum also to see previous generations’ ceramics. Slowly, I got tounderstand his work a little more.
I was not so surprised when Raku Jikinyū told me that he would like to make an exhibition
jointly with Kasimir Malevich in the Sagawa Museum in Japan in 2021, where he had been
making annual exhibitions of his work juxtaposed with an artist he particularly appreciated.
I immediately thought that this was a great idea, and suggested that the juxtaposition of
Malevich drawings with his tea bowls would look wonderful in the Sagawa Museum, and I
would be very honoured to make the exhibition in our gallery the following year. I’m now
thrilled that a similar exhibition is being held at our gallery.
My mother and I met Andréi Nakov in 1973, who was studying Malevich and wasembarking on the exciting adventure of writing the Monograph and the Catalogue
Raisonné of Kasimir Malevich. More than 30 years later, the Catalogue Raisonné and the
4-volume Monograph were published. We have known each other for nearly 50 years,
bonded by Kasimir Malevich, and without his help, this exhibition would not be possible. I
am most grateful for his insightful essay in this catalogue, which was first published in the
Sagawa exhibition catalogue.
There are many people who have helped to make this exhibition possible. I would
particularly like to thank Junko Ando, Daisuke Hayashi, Rupert Faulkner and Kyoko Andofor all their tremendous help. I am most grateful to the lenders to this exhibition. Finally, I
would like to thank Raku Jikinyū for his brilliant essay and introduction to the catalogue,
but most of all for the fabulous tea bowls he has created. I am sure that this exhibition
would not have come to fruition without the immense input by Fujiko, his wife.
David Juda, February 2022

5

From the Encounter with David to
Kichizaemon X Malevich
by Raku Kichizaemon XV JikinyūThis exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art has come about thanks
to my friendships with David Juda, Rupert and Kyoko Faulkner,
and Kyoko’s sister Junko Ando. It is the successor to an exhibition
entitled Kichizaemon X Malevich that opened last autumn at the
Sagawa Art Museum in Shiga Prefecture. This featured some 20
drawings by Kazimir Malevich kindly lent by David and otherowners, together with a similar number of Raku tea bowls from myrecent White Rock series.
Kichizaemon X refers to a series of exhibitions held annually at the
Sagawa Art Museum since the opening of its Raku Kichizaemon
Pavilion in 2007. The exhibitions have been momentous andchallenging events in which I have presented the best of my mostrecent work. The ‘X’ indicates a theme, a work of art or an artist bywhom or by which I have been especially moved. Interaction withthe subject of the ‘X’ stimulates me to reflect on and recalibrate
myself. Encounters of this kind are rare and very special. They
are much more than taking a liking to something or indulging apassing interest. They can be life-changing experiences that inspireas well as terrify. There have been times when it has felt like being
struck by a bolt of lightning. Each interaction has opened up a path
to a new way of making and has broadened my artistic horizons.
On reflection, this sequence of encounters has been something
truly miraculous and the Kichizaemon X series has become alifework of sorts. Prior to Kichizaemon X Malevich, there wereseveral other exhibitions that have remained especially close to
my heart. These are Kichizaemon X Indonesian Native Art (2007),
Kichizaemon X Wols (2018) and Kichizaemon X Saitō Takashi(2020). Each time the encounter was transformative and pushed me
towards a new realm of creativity. The works I produced sought toresonate with their counterparts with both intensity and in a spiritof profound empathy.
7

As regards Malevich, my interest in him became all the greaterin 2015 when the exhibition Raku: The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl was
shown at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Pushkin
Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. It was a large-scale exhibitionof 170 works covering the sixteen-generation history of the Raku
family from the time of our founder Chōjirō up to the presentday. There was one work by Malevich I particularly wanted to see
while I was in Russia. It was his Black Square of 1915 owned by the
Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Its pure blackness has long affected
me and has rooted itself deeply into my consciousness. I say more
about this in my main essay so will not elaborate here.
Although I am personally captivated by the Black Square, I associate
it less with myself than with the philosophy embodied in theBlack Raku tea bowls of Chōjirō, which resonate more directlywith Malevich’s painting than my own work. As to the connection
between Chōjirō and contemporary art, I touched on this in the
catalogue of the Raku: A Dynasty of Japanese Ceramists exhibition
that toured Europe in 1997. I wrote about Chōjirō in relation to
the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. It was a discussion about
the underlying cognitive and existential raison d’être of art, andhow art always transcends language. Thinking that there might
be sympathy for the idea of commonality between Chōjirō andmodern European art, I approached the Cartier Foundation forContemporary Art in Paris with the idea of an exhibition about
the meeting of sixteenth-century Japan and contemporary westernartistic philosophy. Unfortunately, this never came to anything.
When I mentioned this to Rupert Faulkner and David Juda,they were both very interested, and David suggested a project
juxtaposing my tea bowls with drawings by Malevich, of which
he showed me several examples when I visited London in 2019.
They did not have the absolute and ultimate profundity of theBlack Square, but rather a playfulness that released the spirit tohover freely as if dancing a cosmic dance. I was fascinated. Outof this came the idea of Kichizaemon X Malevich at the Sagawa
Art Museum and its subsequent showing at Annely Juda Fine
Art. David generously organised the loan of the many drawings
from Europe shown in Japan. Until now there has never been an
exhibition in the UK focusing on my work. Although I suspect
the British public are not very familiar with Raku ceramics fromJapan, I am interested to see how they respond to the interplay
between the drawings and tea bowls in what could be considered asomewhat unusual juxtaposition.
8

The planning of this exhibition, which was very much David’s
brainchild, marked the beginning of a new adventure for me.
Without his advice and encouragement, I would almost certainly
have given up. I cannot thank him enough for his enthusiasm andsupport.
The exhibition features 20 tea bowls from my White Rock series,
some of which were shown at the Sagawa Art Museum and others
that I have made more recently. It also includes a Black Raku tea
bowl by Chōjirō. This is in order to explain the background to myinterest in Malevich and to show where my artistic roots ultimatelylie. As far as matters of display and the catalogue are concerned, I
left these entirely up to David. How an exhibition is organised is areflection of the organiser’s aesthetic sense and way of thinking. I
am intrigued to see the outcome of his vision.
It was unfortunate that because of the Covid pandemic, David was
unable to come to Japan to see the exhibition at the Sagawa Art
Museum. While this was regrettable, David’s wife, the contemporary
artist Yuko Shiraishi, was able to see it while she was in Japanvisiting her mother. As it happens, Yuko’s mother, Kazuko Shiraishi,
is one of Japan’s most famous poets by whose work I have always
been moved. The 1960s and 1970s, when she came to prominence,corresponded exactly with my youth. Her poetry was scintillatingin how it challenged accepted conventions and left an indelible
impression on me. As well as thanking David, I would like to use
this opportunity to thank Yuko and Kazuko for all they have done.
I would also like to thank Rupert and Kyoko Faulkner and Junko
Ando for having been so supportive of me over the years andfor having translated my various writings. I would similarly liketo express my sincerest gratitude to Andréi Nakov, Daisuke andToshihiko Hayashi and the team at Mitochu Koeki, the staff ofAnnely Juda Fine Art, and the many other people who have madethe exhibition possible.
I know that Malevich, the remarkable precursor of contemporary art
who lived through the early years of the Soviet Union, will continue
to occupy a central place in my heart.
Raku Jikinyū XVJanuary 2022
Among the swaying grasses of Kuta
9

Kasimir Malevich
Born near Kiev in 1879. Died in Leningrad (St Petersburg) in 1935.
Kasimir Malevich was a Russian avant-garde artist famous as the pioneer of Suprematism and thechampioning of non-objectivity. His most representative works are his Black Square of 1915 and his
White on White of 1918. These seminal modernist works had a major influence on the developmentof 20th century abstract art and minimalism.

1 Flight of the feather, Spring 1915
pencil on paper, 8.3 x 17.7 cm
12

2 Flight of the Boulevard, Spring 1915
pencil on paper, 17.8 x 9.4 cm
13

3 Composition 12 k, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 10.8 cm
14

15

4 Composition 9 m, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 17.7 x 11 cm
16

17

5 Composition 1 a, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 17.9 x 11.2 cm
18

6 Magnetic planetary composition, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
19

7 Magnetic movement, early 1920s, motif of 1916
pencil on paper, 19.3 x 14.5 cm
20

21

Malewicz’s Suprematist Adventure: from the0,10 Exhibition to Infinity
by Andréi Nakov
This essay was first published in the catalogue for the exhibition “KICHIZAEMON X
MALEVICH” at the Sagawa Art Museum, Japan, 14 September 2021 - 16 January
2022

Dr. Andréi Nakov is the author of the Catalogue Raisonné of Kazimir
Malewicz, published by Edition Adam Biro, Paris 2002, and the 4-volume
monograph, published in 2007 Paris (English version by Lund Humphrey’s,
London 2010).
The numbers in the essay refer to the Catalogue Raisonné reference numbers.
The artist’s name is spelled in its original form in the essays contributed
by Dr Andréi Nakov for this exhibition, as in the Catalogue Raisonné andMonograph.
Born in Bulgaria in 1941, Andréi Nakov is a French art historian specialisingin the Russian avant-garde, Futurism, Dada, Constructivism, contemporary
art and European abstract art. Following the publication in 1975 by Champ
Libre (Paris) of a critical body of essays on Malevich, Nakov went on to study
the activities of the Suprematist group Unovis founded by Malevich in 1919.
Nakov has lectured at many universities across Europe, and his publications
have been translated into multiple languages.

Striking though it was, owing to the austerity of therenowned Black Square (1915), Suprematism was closeted
for decades under the category of “geometrical” art, towhich it was soon relegated. The geometrical reductionof the original Quadrilateral (1915) to a “Black Square”
by the critic Alexander Benois was a grave mistake: fromthe outset Malewicz’s art was highly expressive and even,for different periods, distinctly “Expressionistic.” Theconceptual specificity of his creative approach is by nomeans incompatible with the expressive dimension; indeed,
the latter acts essentially as a counterweight to the artist’s
pictorial practice. In fact, the conceptual intensity of his
imagination brings to his production an entirely novel
acuity, that of forms invented ex-nihilo, i.e. Non-Objective
forms. Deprived of the anecdotal aspect of non-painterly(literary) subjects, the new creative approach is obliged to be
all the more expressive, inasmuch as its expressivity places it
instantly in the level of “living” abstract forms. From the very
beginning of its modernist rise (around 1908) the formation23

of new concepts, that is to say new forms, became central
to Malewicz’s creative manner, as attested by the strange
artist’s self-portrait (F-167, c.1908 -1909) (i) from the periodof the young artist’s studies at the Theodore Rerberg Schoolin Moscow. In this impressive drawing titled At Home hedepicts himself seated, displaying huge hands on his knees,a particularly impressive detail1 (which was to reappear in
Bather F-193 (ii) from 1911 and On the Boulevard F-125 (iii)of the same year2): obviously it was matter over mind?
The most striking thing about the self-portrait isthe emptiness of the face: the eyes are not just closed, but
non-existent. This attitude — an extremely original one
for a portrait, it must be said — indicates that the picture’s
subject, in this case inspiration, derives from the “sphereof thought”; the domain of concepts, rather than fromthe visible realm as was the case for his Impressionist
predecessors (Manet, Cézanne) and for the Expressionists.
It was the “mysterious center of thought” (Gauguin’s phrase)that drew Malewicz powerfully to the French painter, that“cerebral” artist “did not paint things as common-senseeyes saw them” (Malewicz, 1916). This ex-nihilo practice ofSymbolist invention was to guide Malewicz’s practice fromthis point on. Hence, we are far removed from the manual,even “tactile” practice (to use Henry Wölfflin’s vocabulary)of Matisse, the Expressionists (Kirchner and Larionov),
Kandinsky, even Paul Klee (before 1920); far too from the
Romantic approach of Delacroix, Puvis de Chavannes andRedon, who were inspired by it. Nor is the conceptualization
being contrasted to their manner, that of the classical(academic tradition of Ingres) for, by referring to the realmof literary subjects, the latter occasion’s anecdotal themes
constitute a world foreign to the new plasticity of the 20th
Century to come. Malewicz blazed an altogether different
trail, the path of a total visual invention based on no priormodels. His inventiveness embraced the unknown, theNon-Objective, a universe of hitherto unrecognized abstract
forms. It led to the art of Suprematism.
Malewicz was to accomplish the break with old models and,in general, the whole tradition of Western figuration, by
invoking a “superior reason,” i.e. the revolution of Alogism
which, as early as February 1914, unconditionally rejected
all references to non-pictorial models. In Western Europe
24(iii) On the Boulevard, 1911, 72 x 71 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: F-215(i) At home, 1908-09, 8.2 x 4.1 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: F-167(ii) Bather, 1911, 105 x 69 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: F-193

this fundamental change of aesthetic parameters gave rise to
Dadaism and shortly afterwards, very differently but possibly
even more decisively, to Surrealism and especially further
abstraction (Kupka, Kandinsky, Picabia, Mondrian andothers).
The first signs of this trend were Marcel Duchamp’s readymades (for instance his Pharmacie of 1914).3 Three years later
they would give rise to the iconoclastic provocation of theartist’s famous Fountain (an upside-down urinal presented
in New York), followed in the same iconoclastic vein by the“rectified readymade” LHOOQ of 1919, in which the artist
sought to wring the neck of the myth of da Vinci’s Mona
Lisa by adding a mustache to a commonplace reproductionof that famous painting (in this a simple postcard).4 With
this gesture Duchamp altered Leonardo’s iconic work, notrealizing that Malewicz had already done so five years
earlier.5 The coincidence of these anti-classical revolts
confirms similar aesthetic preoccupations of two artists
engaged in a parallel fashion in deconstructing the cultural
myths of the Western tradition.
Duchamp’s challenge to the narrative tenor ofWestern tradition was to lead in short order to the highly
provocative and so sacrilegious image of the Holy Virgin(March 1920)6 by the French artist Francis Picabia, aprotagonist of the Dada movement who had come to public
notice as early as 1915 with a sarcastic treatment of themechanistic stereotypes of masculine and especially feminine
images. In the present case, Picabia’s favorite subject of erotic
attraction is sublimated through anti-academic irony, as
was Malewicz’s attitude in 1916 in his sarcasms about the“pornography of lubricious Venuses” and the statement that“lascivious bodies” were henceforth not the aesthetic concernof artists. Both Picabia and Duchamp were inclined to givethe critique of figuration the form of erotic, hence intimately
personal, provocation, whereas Malewicz’s aesthetic revolt
was by and large cultural. It was ambitiously philosophicaland above all socially subversive. With the system of the
new Non-Objective art, the logical foundations of art and, tobegin with, language, were demolished. The very meaningof how we conceive reality was declared obsolete. Through afundamental reversal of our figurative values all traditional,
so-called realist or fundamentally mimetic values, were
replaced by a new logic. The world, as it was henceforth to be25

depicted, was now the antipode of the “old order.”Thus, we begin to understand how in the processof creating a new visual universe drawing, by capturing the
instantaneousness of hitherto novel, inevitably personal,
conceptualized forms, played a crucial role. But how was
the artist to stride forward amidst the tangle of invented
forms? Malewicz has left us few precise indications about themanner in which his Suprematist sequence should be read.
The only trace we know of that seething proliferation of ideas
is a vague attempt at classifying the compositions identified
in 1916 under the heading “Supremus” (barely a dozen works
in all).
Later, in the mid-Twenties (approximately 1924-1925),
once more with the help of his corpus of drawings, theartist embarked on a more systematic categorization of his
Suprematist oeuvre. Under his guidance, his Leningrad
assistant Anna Leporskaya (who related this episode to me),inscribed letters and numbers on the back of his drawings.7
But again we are faced with a stylistic interpretation rather
than a chronological record. In contrast to Kandinsky or
Paul Klee (who kept an almost obsessively precise register of
his output) Malewicz left behind no notebook to keep trackof his work — no orderly, systematic, fully explicit record
at all. Very few, indeed extremely exceptional, drawings areaccompanied by the indication “year . . .”, which suggests thatthe artist viewed them occasionally as milestones at a later
date. These inscriptions were probably intended as teachingaids, as was the case of the album Suprematism. 34 Drawings(i.e. compositions), produced in December 1920 in thelithographic studio at the Vitebsk Art School. This booklet
contains reproductions of Suprematist compositions datingfrom 1915 to 1919 but neither their date of creation nor theirtitle is specified.
In 1927 the artist reproduced 24 compositions, again
represented by drawings, in his book Die gegenstandslose
Welt [The Non-Objective World] published by the Bauhauspress. Thus, once again drawings rather than paintings
played the role of primal images. In the German-language
book produced at the behest of the Bauhaus Institute eachcomposition is scrupulously given a date and a title, yet eventhese indications need to be approached with caution, as they
have an indisputably interpretative function. Here again theartist is referring to the emergence of an idea rather than26(vi) Construction 3 h, 1916,
16.6 x 10.8 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-273(iv) From the Series of Suprematist Drawing,
1917-18, 17.8 x 11 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-451
Collection Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo(vii) Composition 2 c, 1915,
16.6 x 11.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-27

to the physical creation of the composition corresponding
to the drawing reproduced in the book. That is why the
production of the foremost Suprematist compositions isstill open to stylistic and chronological discussion. Equallyunsettled is the question of how to classify the different types
of works, ranging from extremely allusive sketches S-451 (iv)and S-528 (v) to completely finished compositions like S-27((vii) cat.no. 13) and S-273 ((vi) cat.no. 10) which are often
all we have of works (oil paintings) that have succumbedto the torments of history which Malewicz was thoroughlyfamiliar with.
In the completely finished works, as the reader may
recall, the forms are rendered with remarkable precision
and an admirable clarity, for they are rooted in the realm of
the absolute; as a rule the artist articulates Non-Objective(abstract) forms with a stunning accuracy. This is patent
from as early as his Symbolist period (1908-1909) right up
through the Post-Suprematist phase of 1928-1933. Stemmingfrom the absolute world of ideas, this conceptual sharpness
is invariably manifested in an exemplary fashion, in images
whose crystal-clear limpidity recalls the artist’s experience of
the arabesques of Art Nouveau and are discreet evocationsof the expressivity of Japanese prints (vitally important, as
we know, for the development of the Symbolist images of
Gauguin and such Viennese artists as Klimt and Moser that
Malewicz and his contemporaries Kandinsky and Mondrian
esteemed greatly). Definite draftsmanship being part andparcel of conceptual definitiveness, this accorded well withthe appositeness of the aesthetic and even philosophicalposition of his peers (Kandinsky, Klee or Kupka). We must be
especially attentive to the work of the artist’s hand and pencil,
for it is always of a great formal efficiency corresponding to
the conceptual ambition driving it, the necessity of clarity
underlying new forms.
* * *(v) Composition, 6 f, 1920, 11 x 8.7 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-528

In every instance the graphic creation of Non-Objective
planes — Suprematist forms — is particularly strong. The
forms appear with a staggering simplicity and accuracy yet
also with undeniable feeling. As Kandinsky puts it at the endof his life , “under the ice” one perceives “the fire” (of the newform). Thus a modernist Russian critic in Moscow was right27

to group in 1922 the two painters, Kandinsky and Malewicz,
under the same “Expressionist” banner.8 Far from any ideaof “padding” a passive form, each Suprematist item is theaffirmation of an incontrovertible intensity of matter—matterin motion if not in a state of seething activity.
Hence the outlines of Non-Objective planes can beviewed as the shore of a Suprematist lake, who’s quivering
the artist delimits vigorously. This material quality is visible
in the fluidity of the lines that suggest a vital liquid, energy
boiling over. The forces brought into play in the creation of
Non-Objective planes are revealed to careful scrutiny, notonly in the vibration of the surfaces but also through theintensity with which each outline is traced. This is equallyperceptible in the execution of the border enclosing eachcomposition, to such an extent in fact that one has theimpression of being able to witness the almost biologicalquiver of a vital progression in the dynamic rendering of theperiphery.
This vitality manifests itself too in the border’sirregularity, usually not a perfect rectangle but one thatweds the direction of the forces produced by the orientation(movement) of the Suprematist planes. The forces marshaledin the composition result in irregular, not strictly rectangularborders; frames that seem to be “alive” because they areslightly pulled to one side. The line that delimits the spaceof the composition, and that defines its “frame” in thestrict sense, appear to lift off in flight due to the dynamicorientation of the neighboring forms within that space.
The movements of the artist’s hand in response to the vitalnature of the subject-matter is especially expressive in thedrawings from the phase of “dissolving” forms (1917). In
them, the Suprematist planes are involved in a symbiotic
movement with the space in which they evolve. The intensityof the matter is totally freed from the descriptive limits
imposed by an apparently geometric external form — arecognisably planar entity — an externally defined form, as
it were. Like a cosmic magma the vitality of matter dictates
the pulsation of the forms within the composition. The artist
himself describes this later phase of the superior intensity of
the Suprematist moment as a “dissolving” state (he actuallyuses the term “pulverising”).928(ix) Magnetic electric sensation, 1917-18,
20 x 16.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-551(viii) Spherical evolution of the plane, 1917,
14 x 21.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-446

With these compositions, all geometrical impulses are left far
behind in a desire to transcend geometry. In fact, geometry
as such becomes obsolete. Matter has “matured” to such an
extent in this phase of liberation that the very notion of form
as outline is exploded. Form opens up to space, giving riseat this point to a symbiotic relationship between form andspace. In “colorless” (or “white”) Suprematism form reaches
a level of sublimation beyond any and every rigid formal
definition, i.e. the stratum of infinite transformation, of pureenergy. Beyond definition, forms attain fluidness throughthe boundless explosion of energy and become endless new
constellations in fusion; they transform into autonomous
worlds, constantly renewed and renewable.
The “dissolving” compositions usher in a totallynew chapter in the history of modern painting, a chapter
beyond closed forms. This phase can be regarded as definitely
transcending the “classical” aesthetic set in motion by the
Italian Renaissance, in particular the thought of Leonardo
da Vinci. For Malewicz, Leonardo stopped at the unlimited,the infinite, the boundary of visibility. The infinite was
unknowable for the Italian master because “the form thathas no limits cannot be represented,” can simply not be
grasped. Whereas, for Malewicz the infinite was precisely a
new challenge to the intellect and to the creative imagination.
Thus the artist’s “white” period heralded a new era, for which
he was dubbed in Germany “the new Moses.”10
After fascinating German and Polish artists andcritics on the occasion of the 1927 exhibition (Warsaw andBerlin) this type of work, based on open, “cosmic” forms had
an impressive posterity in the art that László Moholy-Nagy
produced in the second half of the 1930s. The successive
dematerializations of Non-Objective planes initiated byMalewicz as of 1917 manifested itself in Moholy-Nagy’s
work in the late 1930s in translucent materials (perspex)
and particularly in his last sculptures which, like Malewicz’s“dissolving” compositions, took the form of open structures(perspex hanging sculptures), as they did later in the lastperiod of Georges Vantongerloo. But this already propels us
into post-war art, the art of Yves Klein, the Zero group in
Germany and its Japanese counterpart exemplified by artists
like Yamaguchi.
At this point in the Suprematist evolution it is important29

to remember that a few rare works by Malewicz straddle
the borderline between painting and drawing. These areminuscule compositions, combining drawing with oils andother greasy substances (S-133 (x) and S-134 (xi)). Paul
Klee’s contemporary work offers similar instances of thekind of alchemy that the Swiss artist was particularly fondof. The materials that one finds in S-133 and S-134 attest
to a particularly rich and complex state which, especiallyin the latter case, impart a quasi alchemical note to thecompositions. Much the same degree of intensity is present
in the small gouache S-7 ((xii) cat.no. 12), included in thisexhibition, not only because it belongs to the category of
the artist’s very first Suprematist experiments by its sizeand physical intensity, but principally owing to the two
quasi-rectangular shapes it contains. The position of these
two rectangles suggests a kind of exploded composition
that translates into a visual enlargement of the surrounding
border. This inherent movement is too subtle at this earlyphase of Suprematism not to be pointed out.
Two compositions from the artist’s “dissolving”
planes phase merit mention here as well: S-446 ((viii) cat.
no. 15) and S-551 ((ix) cat.no. 16). In the former drawing,
we observe forms that belly out like the sails of a boat riding
the waves; they evoke the curves of some romantic vessel
and suggest an indefinable poetic refinement. In the lattercomposition the romanticism of energy straddles the barrierof modernity, that of the electric and especially magnetic
current that, at this stage of the Suprematist invention(1917-1918), appears to have struck the artist’s imagination
vividly. His fascination with these energies is all the morecomprehensible that, at the time in question, it was altogether
in tune with supreme notions of the transformation ofenergy.
Only a few drawings of this type, and no paintings
at all, are known to have survived.11 The elements thatannounce this theme are already visible in 1916 in paintings
in which an extraordinary liveliness of movement translates
into a linear transformation of planes (S-240 (xiii) in theformer Hack Collection and in S-287 (xiv)). In their case theacceleration of the planes results in their being transformed
into straight lines and thus into prime symbols of a maximalenergetic tension.
30

As early as 1916 works of this type paved the way for the
future Constructivist painting, a trend that inspired not
only Moholy-Nagy but also, in the early 1920’s, Kandinsky
and a number of other artists - Russian, Polish and German- attracted to abstraction. The infinite transformation ofenergy and subjects — such was the unlimited trajectory of
Non-Objective art in this period, a magnificent and, above
all, prophetic overture.

(x) Composition 12 c, 1915, 6.8 x 9.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-133© Andréi Nakov, 2021
(xiii) Magnetic consruction, 1916,
49 x 44 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-240(xi) Two squares, 1915, 6.5 x 8.8 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-134(xiv) Magnetic consruction, motif of 1916,
73 x 40.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-287(xii) Composition 11c, 1915, 10.5 x 9 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-7

1

F-167, pencil on paper, 24,9 x 12,3 cm, Russian Art and Literature Archives,
Moscow. The information concerning Kazimir Malewicz’s work refers to Nakov,
A., Kazimir Malewicz. Catalogue raisonné, Paris: Société Nouvelle Adam Biro,
2002. The drawing in question follows another drawing in which the artist
portrays himself with blank eyes but from the chest up (F-168, pencil on paper,
9,8 x 7,5 cm., Russian Art and Literature Archives, Moscow).
2 Catalogue raisonné, op. cit., F-193 and F-215, both at the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam.
3 Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. Jindrich Chalupecky considers this“rectified reproduction” one of the artist’s very first ready-mades (seeChalupecky’s important study, “Les ready-made de Duchamp et la théorie dusymbole,” Artibus et Historiae, vol. 7, no. 13, Craców, 1986, pp. 153-163.
4 This by now celebrated image measures only 19.7 x 12.7 cm. Under the heading“Tableau dada par Marcel Duchamp” [Dada Picture by Marcel Duchamp], it was
reproduced in March 1920 in Picabia’s periodical 391, no. 12, Paris, two pages
after the latter’s Holy Virgin.
5 See the latter’s Partial Eclipse, oil and pasted paper on canvas, 1914, RussianState Museum, St Petersburg (see the Catalogue raisonné, op. cit., F-453). Notethat the title has still not been confirmed. Most likely it is an Alogist, i.e. cryptic,
title.
6 Reprinted a month after being reproduced in 391 opposite Ingres’ Sainte Vierge
in Les Hommes du Jour, Paris, April 1920.
7 See Nakov, A., introduction (“L’approche méthodologique d’une création qui seveut extra-temporelle” [Methodological Approach to a Creation that Seeks to
be Timeless]) to the Catalogue raisonné, op. cit., pp. 25-45.
8 See Arvatov, Boris, “Dve gruppoviki” [Two Groups] in Zrelisca [Spectacles],Moscow, 17 October 1922. translated in Fr. by Michel Petris and Andrei Nakov
in Change, N°26-27, Paris 1976 p.252-253.
9 Malewicz uses the Russian word razpylenie.
10 Kemény, A., “Die abstrakte Gestaltung vom Suprematismus bis heute” in Das
Kunstblatt, no. 8, Potsdam, 1924, p. 245 ff.
11 Malewicz reproduced three examples of this type in his book Die gegenstandslose
Welt, ills. 85, 86 and 87.

31

8 Construction 16 r, Summer 1915
pencil on squared paper, 11.2 x 16.4 cm
32

33

9 Composition 8 i, 1915
pencil on paper, 16 x 11.2 cm
34

35

10 Construction 3 h, 1916
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 10.8 cm
3637

11 Composition 5 i, 1915-16
pencil on paper, 14.2 x 11.2 cm
38

39

12 Composition 11 c, 1915
pencil and gouache on squared paper, 10.5 x 9 cm
40

41

13 Composition 2 c, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 11.2 cm
42

43

14 Rotating plane 12 i, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16 x 10 cm
44

45

15 Spherical evolution of the plane, 1917
pencil on paper, 14 x 21.5 cm
46

47

16 Magnetic electric sensation, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
48

49

17 White Square and plan for dissolution, 1918
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
50

51

18 Composition with plan for dissolution and magnetic elements, 1918
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
52

19 Planetary composition, 1915-16
pencil on paper, 17 x 10.5 cm
53

20 Black face, 1930-31, motif of 1920-22
pencil on paper, 16.9 x 20.1 cm
54

55

21 Magnetic sensations, c. 1929-30, motif of 1917
pencil on paper, 35.5 x 22 cm
56

57

22 Composition 1d, motif of 1919-20, c. 1925
pencil on paper, 11.3 x 18 cm
58

23 Three Suprematist Compositions, motifs of 1915, 1917, 1920, c. 1924-26
pencil on paper, 20 x 25 cm
59

24 Landscape with prisons, c. 1930-31
pencil on paper, 35.5 x 22 cm
60

61

Chōjirō and Raku Tea Bowls
Raku tea bowls were first made in Japan’s historical capital of Kyoto by a potter named Chōjirō (d.
c. 1589). Then, as today, their purpose was for drinking whipped tea (matcha) in the tea ceremony(chanoyu). In terms of technology, they were related to lead-glazed three-colour ceramics (sosansai)
produced in southern China in the late 1500s. Sosansai wares were imported into Japan during theMomoyama period (1573-1615) and the arrival of Chinese artisans with the necessary technicalknowledge led to the establishment in and around Kyoto of workshops producing domestic versionsof them. It was in one such workshop that Chōjirō, whose father Ameya was originally from China,
worked with three other potters, Tanaka Sōkei and his two sons Jōkei and Sōmi (see family tree
opposite).
The earliest identifiable example of Chōjirō’s work is a powerfully sculpted two-colour lead-glazed
tile ornament in the shape of a lion-dog inscribed with his name and the date 1574. It was Chōjirō’s
sculptural ability that attracted the tea master Sen Rikyū (1522-1591) and led him to commission
Chōjirō to make tea bowls for use in wabicha, the wabi way of chanoyu, of which Rikyū was Japan’s
foremost and most renowned advocate.
Records of utensils used in chanoyu gatherings indicate that Chōjirō began making monochrome
Red Raku tea bowls in the late 1570s and started experimenting with Black Raku tea bowls fromaround 1580. These became increasingly sought after by followers of wabicha and were described
as ima-yaki, literally ‘now wares’, which is indicative of how innovative and avant-garde they were
thought to be.
The Raku (樂) of Raku ware and the Raku family derives from Jurakudai (聚樂第), the name of thepalace built in 1586-1587 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), the de facto ruler of Japan from 1582
until his death, near Chōjirō’s workshop. A devotee of chanoyu who employed Rikyū as his official
tea master, Hideyoshi presented Chōjirō with a seal bearing the Chinese character for Raku. As therecipient of the Raku seal and the pioneer of wabi tea bowls, Chōjirō is celebrated as the founderand first-generation head of the Raku dynasty. This is now in its sixteenth generation, its traditions
and principles having been passed down from father to son, normally the eldest but sometimes thesecond or an adopted son, without written instructions.
Starting with Jōkei, heads of the Raku family have taken the first name Kichizaemon whensucceeding to the family headship. The names in the family tree ending with ‘nyū’ are lay Buddhist
names adopted on retirement or assigned at the time of death if this occurs prior to retirement.
These names are used when referring to deceased family heads or a retired but still living former
family head. Because this is not easy to understand, Jikinyū, who retired in favour of his elder son
in 2019, sometimes - as in this exhibition - combines his former and current names as Kichizaemon
Jikinyū XV.
Jikinyū has long been at pains to convey to non-Japanese audiences the proper meaning of Raku interms of it being the name of a family dynasty that has been making Raku tea bowls continuously
for nearly 450 years. Raku does not mean ‘raku’ in its usual Japanese senses of ‘easy’ or ‘enjoyable’.
Furthermore, it signifies much more than what is implied by the now widespread non-Japanese
use of the term to mean a way of making ceramics using a firing method ultimately derived fromJapanese Raku practice that was introduced to the West by the British potter Bernard Leach in 1940
whereby earthenware pots are removed from a kiln and rapidly cooled in the outside atmosphere.
62

25 Raku Chōjirō I
Black Raku tea bowl 1580s
Yorozuyo (Thousands of Years, Eternity, All Generations)64

65

Yorozuyo tea bowl boxes and the tea bowl in the tea room66

67

Raku Kichizaemon XV
Raku Jikinyū* was born in 1949 as the eldest son of Raku Kakunyū. He studied in Italy after
graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1973. In 1981, after the death of his father, hesucceeded to the Raku family headship as Raku Kichizaemon XV. As the 15th generation of thefamily founded by Chōjirō during the Momoyama period 450 years ago, he has devoted his career
to exploring the possibilities of the traditional tea bowl format in a constant search for new modesof expression. His avant-garde style is characterised by sculptural modelling achieved by bold
trimming and the creative use of the yakinuki firing method.
*Jikinyū is the name assumed by Raku Kichizaemon XV on his retirement from the Raku family
headship on 8 July 2019.

26 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
So (as it is, element)
70

71

27 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Gyō (dawn, attain enlightenment, become clear)
7273

28 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Ru (peak, polar point)
74

75

76

77

29 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Jō (graceful, whiteness wavering supplely, supple white ryhthm,
white wavering, rhythm wavering)
78

79

80

81

30 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
Kan (trunk, core)82

83

KICHIZAEMON X MALEVICH
by Raku Kichizaemon XV JikinyūThis essay was first published in the catalogue for the exhibition “KICHIZAEMON X
MALEVICH” at the Sagawa Art Museum, Japan, 14 September 2021 - 16 January 2022

With a single sheet of polarising filter I try to merge my two
cravings for darkness into one. An intense magnetic field that sucks
in and swallows up all manifestations of existence in to the depths
of infinity. What lies beyond this all-absorbing blackness? Perhaps
somewhere without coordinates to signal a vanishing point, thegrandeur of the universe finds its resting place in the infinitesimallysmall. At the coordinates of the point at infinity, the uniting of
maxima and minima gives rise to time. All things circulate in acontinuum of space-time.
What am I trying to ascertain?
My gaze fixes simultaneously on the black of Kazimir Malevich’s
square and the black of the Raku tea bowls of Chōjirō. I filterout certain wavelengths and amplify others. My filter seeks todiscern within the multi-layered depths of darkness the meeting
point between real and imaginary, between essence and outward
appearance. Confined by the limitations of individual existence,
my mind cannot easily distinguish between truth and illusion.
85

This is because the world we perceive is only a reflection of what
consciousness and the filters in our brains allow us to register.
Consciousness tries to grasp the paradoxes of our phenomenal
world and the constant inversion of truth and illusion. If we negate
as meaningless our existence and the beliefs that underpin it, weare left with nothing but a dark void. But if we accept the ideaof constant circulation in a continuum of space-time, our world
begins to make sense.
Even in the statement ‘red apples taste good’, what is true and what
is fiction? What is what depends on a person’s point of view, justas the principles of physics can only be said to hold good in thecontext of our earthly environment. Everything is mediated via theself. When I look at a work by Malevich, an image registers itself
in my brain. What I see is not an objective truth but somethingfiltered and interpreted by me. I am not able to discuss Malevich
in an objective, academic way, but he unquestionably exists within
and for me. Because the filters operating in my brain are constantly
changing in focus and intensity, they generate myriads of further,overlapping filters. A polarising filter is formed by clusters ofimages interacting with a particular cognitive process. Even if I
proceed boldly, I do not expect to find truth or truths as such. I
find meaning in the process of analysis itself and the sequences ofrelated images they open in my mind. I question whether there
is such a thing as ‘real truth’, which is to say one that is not the
product of an agenda of one kind or another. Such truths must
exist. If they do, they must in my view lie in a realm where ‘truth’and ‘faith’ come together outside the karmic cycle.
Through the filter born of my particular experiences as a maker,
I try to overlay Kazimir Malevich onto Chōjirō, the inventor of
the Raku tea bowl. There is a divide of 400 years between the late
sixteenth century, when Chōjirō lived, and the early years of thetwentieth century when Malevich was active. There is also a gap
between the world of modern art and the culture of chanoyu (teaceremony) for which Raku tea bowls were created. Despite thesedifferences, I try to use my filter to identify areas of commonality
between Malevich’s and Chōjirō’s philosophies. Encountering
these two artists always moves me powerfully and causes me toreview my own way of thinking. How can the culture of chanoyu insixteenth-century Japan be connected with artistic expression in theearly twentieth century?

86

The answer is that they each had an enormous impact on thesociety of their time in ways that still resonate today. In both cases
they upturned prevailing value systems and social structures. The
arts saw the rejection of stylistic conventions and the appearance of
new forms of creativity as they struggled for expressive freedom.
Japan’s Momoyama period (1573-1615) lasted only a few decades.
Similarly, in just a few decades either side of 1900, the westernworld saw the collapse of conventions in all areas of the arts, frompainting and sculpture to music and literature, as it was swept by atidal wave of invention and experimentation.
In the field of music there was Arnold Schoenberg’s pioneering of
atonality. This was preceded by Claude Debussy’s seminal opera
Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) in which the seamlessness of the musicsuggests a melting of souls steeped in fin-de-siècle romanticism.
The indulgent beauty of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (1899)is redolent of the intoxicating feeling of floating in a fog. Bothof these works move me especially deeply and send me into areverie in which I completely lose myself. Schoenberg went on to
reject the comfort of tonality in his development of the twelvetone technique, whereby each note is treated independently andaccorded equal weight. Why did Schoenberg abandon the bittersweet sounds of post-romanticism and, as if flouting every rule thatever existed, seek limitless freedom in a wild frenzy of invention.
Malevich called this ‘desert’. He reminisced, ‘The ascent to theheights of non-objective art is arduous and painful … but …’. An
artist must push forward into the unknown by letting go of any urge
to control and by overcoming the petit bourgeois fear that infinite
freedom might lead to a barren nothingness. Schoenberg’s act of
demolition was motivated by much more than just a strong desire
for reform. The agony of waking from dreams of romantic lyricism
to face the terror of liberated, isolated notes was matched by theintensity of his yearning for freedom. Schoenberg’s every thought,
feeling, and emotion condensed themselves into a momentary but
fateful and life-changing awakening.
In 1912, after a period in which chaos followed periods of inspired
creativity and destruction spawned brilliance, Schoenberg brought
to the world his landmark atonal masterpiece Pierrot lunaire. Could
anyone stem the resultant flood of single, autonomous notes thatgushed forth from the constraints of harmony? The path to artistic
independence begins with the assertion of individuality cut off
from, and unfettered by any kind of bond. Did Schoenberg prepare87himself for how freedom would bring with it the fear and pain ofloneliness?
The early years of the twentieth century saw the beginning of
the emancipation of the individual from strictures deriving fromreligion, ethics, morality, patriotism and social hierarchy. The priceof emancipation was loneliness, isolation and existential sufferingof a kind never known before. Who could have anticipated theagony of being cut off and isolated from the mothership and left tofloat eternally and meaninglessly in the darkness of the universe?
As atomized individuals we no longer know where we belong. The
only way to survive is to keep shouting that we are free and thatanything goes in this world. But where does freedom lie? No plan
yet exists explaining the relationship between isolated individuals
and the whole. And we have still to find answers to the questions
posed in the early twentieth century about the pain of isolation
and alienation. Why do we keep forging ahead? Questions abouthuman existence are too profound to be answered by art theorisingobsessed with isms.
At the same time as Schoenberg composed Pierrot lunaire, Igor
Stravinsky wrote a song cycle entitled Three Japanese Lyrics (19121913). Based on poems by Yamabe no Akahito, Minamoto no
Masazumi, and Ki no Tsurayuki, it may not have been coincidental
that Stravinsky sought inspiration in the minimalism of waka
poetry. It also happens that Alban Berg’s String Quartet Op. 3, awork I particularly admire, was composed in 1910. Its twistingand searing atonal sounds evoke intense pathos and feelings ofpassion. Although one can still discern in it traces of romanticism,it abandons God and spurns harmony and gentleness. A shriek ofthe soul witnessing the fin-de-siècle destruction of the time, it is an
overture to the terrifying destiny we face in the present day. I am
moved to tears every time I listen to it.
The term contemporaneity resonates particularly strongly when one
thinks of the early twentieth century. In 1910 Vassily Kandinsky
embarked on his series of Composition paintings, in which hedisassembled figurative forms into lines and colours. Composition
no. 8 consists of circles, squares and other abstract shapes in a
way not dissimilar to Malevich’s Suprematist works. Slightly later,
Piet Mondrian began experimenting with purely abstract forms
in which he reduced objects into flat, geometric shapes. In 1912

88

Marcel Duchamp abandoned painting in favour of exploring
Readymades, of which his Fountain of 1917 enjoys a mythicalstatus within the annals of modern art. Art engaging with art,
literature with literature, music with music. Everything was to dowith severing connections with conventional forms and modes ofcognition. By dismissing representation as debris from the past,
Duchamp put paid to the notion of artistic style. His Fountainwent even further by seeking to reject cognition. Duchamp had
opened the floodgates and thrown a torch into the munitions store.
Readymades had to be ordinary objects that would never ordinarily
impinge on people’s awareness.
The great problem was the act of selection. I had
to pick an object without it impressing me and, as
far as possible, without the least intervention of
any idea or suggestion of aesthetic pleasure. It wasnecessary to reduce my personal taste to zero. It isvery difficult to select an object that has absolutely
no interest for us not only on the day we pick it
but which never will and which, finally, can never
have the possibility of becoming beautiful, pretty,
agreeable, or ugly …’ (from Octavio Paz, Marcel
Duchamp: Appearance Stripped Bare, trans. Donald
Gardner)
By Readymades Duchamp meant things that had no sensual
or cognitive appeal to the eye. They were meaningless, without
attributes and independent of anything else. His aim was totranscend cognition and language. Yes, let us go beyond our world
and the way it is structured according to statements such as ‘red
apples taste good’. Let us destroy the fortress called preconception.
We live among the rubble of received meanings. In our illusory
nests of comfort and mundanity, we have forgotten how to think.
All we do is mechanically perform the roles expected of us. Ourinertia needs to have a bomb put under it. The complacencies bywhich we live – whether concerning beauty, cause and effect, or
comforting ideas about pre-established harmony – need stabbing
with a dagger. How far should we go in our efforts to transcendand dismantle? And at the end of this, what form will art take?
Everything has become null and void. If we reject accepted ideas oflandscape being beautiful or of red apples being delicious, there isnothing to guarantee the truth of existence or meaning. Does any

89path lie ahead? In his later years Duchamp abandoned art and took
up chess. The way he created worlds on a gameboard and played
at the interface of chance and inevitability surely suggests what theend point for art should be.
It was only natural in a period when so many different ideas werebeing explored that reductionism should have come into being. In
traditional artistic disciplines such as painting and sculpture, thistook the form of abstraction and simplification. The Suprematismof Kazimir Malevich was one manifestation of this. Reductionism
and its rejection of the place of narrative and meaning in art
culminated in the adoption of geometric forms. Malevich did notcome to Suprematism easily and went through his own darkness on
the way. Had he been Duchamp, he would probably have given up
along the way, but Malevich started conceptualising abstract forms
as ‘non-objective art’. After phases of exploring Cubism, Futurism,
analysis of colours and forms, and various other isms, Malevich
suddenly, in 1913, started working with black planes. One wonders
what was going on in his mind to have caused him to take such aradical step. The difference from his previous work is so enormous,
it is impossible to fathom what this could have been. However, themoment I saw his Black Square in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery,its overwhelming presence swept away my niggling doubts. I was
totally captivated. It hung in front me as a negation of everything.
As I stood there, images of Chōjirō’s black tea bowls began tofloat between me and the painting. The barrage of intense blacktranscended beauty, form and stylistic individuality. It was resolutein its will to go beyond cognition. What was going on in Malevich’s
mind? What change of consciousness did he undergo? What led
him to the end point of a single black square? These were some ofthe questions that came to me after I had calmed down from therush of awe and emotion that had overcome me.
The discovery had been made that under the surface of the
Tretyakov Gallery’s Black Square there were two earlier paintings
and an inscription reading ‘Negroes battling in a cave’. This had
generated a great deal of interest. The title is very similar to that ofa black square painted in 1897 by the French humorist AlphonseAllais. I am interested in a gossipy way whether a connection
exists between Allais and Malevich, but in truth it doesn’t matterto me. The only thing of importance is the Black Square itself
and the fact that it was created in the early twentieth century.

90

Who painted it and the isms the artist engaged with prior toits creation are of little concern. All products, irrespective of
their origin, be they art or the outcome of other types of humanactivity, take on meaning the moment they come into being. The
origins of something, why it was made, whether it was createdby accident, whether falsehood was involved in its making, noneof these matter. Over time, everything is repeatedly subjected toanalysis, categorization, and definition. The cycle continues ad
infinitum. Things are commented on, narrated upon, and validated
within the contexts of different languages and cultures. Whether
created in search for truth or in order to deceive, once somethingcomes into being, it stands independently of its maker. It exists
in silence insulated from the interfering noises of analysis andcommentary. It does not matter to me that the Black Square is nota perfect square, nor that Malevich devoted himself to learning
about colours, composition, and proportions. Nor do I care that
it is said he painted it in a cosmic trance. And it doesn’t interestme particularly that in The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings(1915) he displayed it high up on the wall in the so-called ‘redcorner’ traditionally reserved in Russian households for hanging
icons. None of these interpretations or hypotheses is useful. Surely
it is impossible to determine what his motives and state of mind
were when he painted it. In short, as with anything else, the only
thing I can say with certainty is that the meaning of the Black
Square exists solely in relation to myself. The one and only point ofimportance is that the first showing of the painting in 1915 marked
the moment when ‘non-objectivity’ came into the world. The Black
Square is a negation of meaning, objectivity, and individuality. It
goes further than alogism and denies even its authorship. While
the painting is the outcome of Malevich’s personal ambition andworldly concerns, it exists separately and remotely from the mental
processes that operated during its creation. All you see in front of
you is a terrifying world of blackness that seals over all traces of
the cognition that gives rise to narrative and meaning. It belongs
to the same world as Duchamp’s Fountain in the way it subverts
its viewers’ preconceptions. It is a plain black nothingness thatnegates the cognitive foundations on which our value systems
and understanding of the world are predicated. Is it possible to go
further than this in effacement and transcendence? What can wefind on the other side of the darkness of the painting’s nullifying
presence? Malevich went on to use abstract geometric forms
dancing ‘cosmic dances’ across his surfaces. What meaning do

91

these have and what more do they say than Malevich had alreadyexpressed? Were he Duchamp, he would probably have stopped at
this point.
In Japan there was a person in the sixteenth century who ventured
into a similar realm of expression as Malevich and lost his life on
account of it. His name was Sen no Rikyū. Rikyū invented the twomat tearoom, whose floor area measured a mere 180 centimetres
square. It was the ultimate in minimal spaces ever designed. Rikyū
commissioned Chōjirō to make Raku tea bowls covered in deep
black glaze. His power of invention was extraordinary.
I mentioned earlier how images of Chōjirō’s Black Raku tea bowls
floated in front of me as I looked at Malevich’s Black Square.
Raku tea bowls are a very special type of vessel made for use inchanoyu. Their inventor Chōjirō is my ancestor. His tea bowls
reflected the profundity of the philosophy of Rikyū, who isregarded as the person who brought chanoyu to full maturity. The
technical origins of Raku tea bowls lie in Chinese sancai wares,
which are among the most colourful ceramics ever made. They arecharacterised by greens, yellows, purples, and browns. That Chōjirō
should have abandoned polychromy in favour of monochromatic
black is a measure of the profundity of his thinking. To reject colour
is to deny both individuality and difference. In terms of shapes,
Chōjirō avoided formal variation, lyricism and decorativenessin order to expunge any trace of intentionality and authorship.
He took a path diametrically opposite to that of normal creative
practice, which is essentially additive. Isn’t it the case that even
Malevich, after creating his Black Square, went on to experimentwith geometric shapes arranged on white surfaces. Applying
colours, shapes and lines to white canvases was the only option
left to him. What form would his work have taken, if, rather thanchanging direction, he had tried to go beyond ultimate minimalism
and continued to subtract? Chōjirō’s tea bowls are the outcome ofthe struggle to reach that place. A canvas by Malevich painted witha black square, a tea bowl by Chōjirō clad in black glaze. It has been
noted that the black of Malevich’s Black Square is not due to his useof black pigment but a mixture of several other pigments. This is ofno great consequence, just as it doesn’t matter that the blackness ofthe glaze used by Chōjirō is the product of mixing together several
minerals. The important point is that they both tried to transcend

92

the perception of black as colour. Malevich’s Black Square is adissolving of the self into blackness. Although we describe Chōjirō’s
tea bowls as ‘black’, the black is not truly black, nor deep purple,
nor dark grey, but the fount of existence inexpressible in language.
‘Mystery upon mystery – The gateway of the manifold secrets’(Lao Zi, Daodejing I. 1, trans. D. C Lau). This is to say the ultimate
source of every existence. It is interesting that when children who
come to the Raku Museum and see a black tea bowl by Chōjirō,they cleverly announce that it isn’t black at all. Children’s intuitionis uncorrupted by preconception, so they immediately sense that‘black’ is not the right word to describe the colour of a Chōjirō
Black Raku tea bowl. If not black, what should it be perceived as?
The black of Chōjirō’s tea bowls is beyond description. It points toa realm which can only be reached by self-negation. But what did
a little child philosopher once say about a Chōjirō tea bowl? ‘Madeof mud, innit?’ Which is spot on! ‘Mud’ … enigmatic stuff, neither
black nor brown, which becomes liquid if mixed with water andsolidifies when dried.
When thinking about this, the words of the fourteenth-century
essayist Yoshida Kenkō come to mind.
Are we to look at flowers in full bloom, at themoon when it is clear? Nay, to look out on the rain
and long for the moon, to draw the blinds and not
be aware of the passing of spring – these arouseeven deeper feelings. There is much to be seen inyoung boughs about to flower, in gardens strewn
with withered blossoms. (Tsurezuregusa [Essays in
Idleness], trans. Donald Keene)‘A moon on a rainy night’. Not to see the moon when you seek
it, and to beg the rain to lift and reveal it, this saying means thatwhen the interplay between clouds and the moon is shrouded in
darkness, one is left to imagine the beauty of the view. The presenceof total and all-encompassing darkness. This is the world of ‘nonobjectivity’, the alogism of non-reason and non-meaning, and thedarkness of the void. Despite the fact that Chōjirō and Malevich
lived 400 years apart in very different social environments, I
am convinced their respective blacks are reflections of identicalworld views. Everything is contained in a metaphor transcending
vocabulary. Absolute darkness from which nothing can be drawn

93

out. Once a maker has experienced this darkness, how do they
proceed? Chōjirō died a few years after inventing the Black Raku
tea bowl. Rikyū was wrongly accused of insubordination and hubris
by the authorities of the time and forced to commit ritual suicide.
He accepted this fate without saying anything in defense. I wish I
could ask Chōjirō and Rikyū what lies beyond darkness. I have asense of what it might be, but I am fearful and hesitant in the faceof the infinite depth of the darkness and the magnetic force withwhich it swallows up every kind of existence. What of Malevich?
His advocacy of Suprematism, his referencing of icons, the cracked
and textured surface of his painting, and the ‘Suprematist Funeral’
for which he left instructions in his will, to me these all seem to beunnecessarily grandiose considering that with his Black Square hehad emphatically passed through and beyond Alogism. Why did
he continue so energetically? What meaning did he find in playing
with minimalist arrangements of abstract forms? What did he see
after having experienced total nothingness? Where in life did hefind meaning?
The world is constantly giving meaning to things to whichmeanings should not be given. It repeatedly classifies things andallocates fixed values to them. Despite the original intention of its
creator, the Black Square has been subjected to imprisonment into
the world of meaning and narrative interpretation. This is why art
has always to be avant-garde. It has to bear its fangs, howl, andattack in order to break out. The phrase ‘[activité] terroriste del’esprit’ coined by André Breton in praise of Alphonse Allais is very
apposite in this regard. It seems to me that like the chess in which
Duchamp engaged, terrorism and playing games complement eachother on the gaming board. When I say terrorism, of course I don’tmean killing. What I mean is striking against stagnant values andoutdated value systems.
Malevich’s career was subject to the mercy of the systemsof imperial Russia and the Soviet state. Following his early,
polychromatic Cubo-Futurist work, all of a sudden he painted
the Black Square. Having then explored the minimalist worldof geometric forms, he returned to colourful figuration. I don’tknow whether there was a common thread connecting thesedifferent phases of activity. Malevich stated, ‘Under Suprematism
I understand the supremacy of pure feeling in creative art’ (trans.
Howard Dearstyne) www.tfo.upm.es). But was there anything94

new in the idea of ‘supremacy of pure feeling’? He went on, ‘To
the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are,in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, assuch, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth’(trans. ibid). One can see the logic and intention behind Malevich’s
negation of objectivity, but to me the argument he derives fromthis about the significance of Suprematist non-objectivity seems
unimportant. Why I say this is because surely all art, be it Cubism,
Surrealism or anything else, involves delving into feelings andthe senses. The senses are nothing more than the slaves of ourphenomenal world. In this respect the argument developed by
Marcel Duchamp is more acute. Writing retrospectively, Malevich
stated, ‘When, in the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art
from the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the square form andexhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a blacksquare on a white field’ (trans. ibid). The reaction of the critics
and the public were, of course, predictable. Malevich’s reminisced,‘Even I was gripped by a kind of timidity bordering on fear entering
into this desert’ (trans. ibid). By ‘desert’ he meant ‘leaving theworld of will and idea’ (trans. ibid). No one can fail to be terrified
when faced with an ultimate negativity that says ‘NO’ to ideas,
representation and even cognition. Malevich concluded, however,by saying, ‘But a blissful sense of liberating non-objectivity drewme forth into the “desert”, where nothing is real except feeling …
and so feeling became the substance of my life’ (trans. ibid). Was
Malevich really sure, I wonder, that non-objectivity was ‘blissful’and ‘liberating’? But let me stop questioning what Malevich meant,because no one will ever know what the answer is. All we can say isthat he negated everything.
‘Is a milk bottle, then, the symbol of milk? (trans. ibid)’, Malevich
questioned. With his Black Square he destroyed the fictions of
our world and its lazy preconceptions about cognition, and about
objects and their representation. This is the only argument, I think,he should have been clear about.
It may be possible to reduce the truth about the universe into asingle mathematical equation. If it can, like this, be expressed interms of geometry, Suprematism must be one form of ultimate
truth finding expression through mathematics and geometry.
Malevich’s geometric forms oscillate across his two-dimensionalsurfaces, overlapping and combining in a never-ending ‘cosmic

95

dance’. Each sheet or canvas contains the universe in its entirety.
I have some more questions. Malevich, what did you find on
the other side of your Black Square’s darkness, and beyond yourresolve to embrace the nothingness that strips away all vestiges ofindividuality? Did you fully absorb into your being the nothingnessof existence and then return to the world of separateness andindividuality? Were your compositions of geometric forms dancing‘cosmic dances’ joyous celebrations of living in the moment? Why
did you need to return to the world of meaning through yourexploration of geometric forms?
Kichizaemon X Malevich began when I started thinking about
Malevich’s Black Square not so much in relation to my own work
but to the black tea bowls of Chōjirō. Several years ago I had theidea of organising in Paris a collaborative exhibition combining
the ‘ultimate blackness’ of Black Raku tea bowls with the workof modern and contemporary artists including Malevich andDuchamp. Unfortunately, this never came about. It would nothave been a simple juxtaposition and superficial comparison of
sixteenth century tea bowls with twentieth century works of art. It
would have been a more profound exploration of the existential,
cognitive, and expressive commonalities between monochromatic
works created at different times in history and in different
geographic locations. Why did Chōjirō abandon coloured glazes
in favour of black? Why have so many modern and contemporary
artists rejected figuration in order to explore the anonymity of
monochromes? I wanted to get to the bottom of these questions. I
don’t mean that Chōjirō and Malevich had identical philosophies.
But it is surely true that despite working at different times and indifferent places, they occupy a similar space to one another in theway they were both searching for the universal truth of existence. It
is only in the context of the present day that comparing these twoartists from the West and Japan respectively is either possible ormeaningful.
What I have written in this essay is the background to the stagingof the current collaborative exhibition with Malevich. Since hisBlack Square cannot be loaned from Russia, I requested fromamong Malevich’s Suprematist works a selection of his drawingsof abstract geometric shapes. Thanks to the generous cooperationof David Juda of Annely Juda Fine Art in London, we have been
extremely fortunate to have been able to borrow a total of 22 suchworks. While my focus has on the whole been directed to the96

connection between Chōjirō’s black tea bowls and Malevich’s Black
Square, this time my tea bowls are being shown in conjunction
with Malevich’s drawings of the type I have referred to in thisessay as ‘cosmic dances’. I felt I did not need in this essay to dwellat too much length on these drawings, but I hope I have offered asufficiently convincing rationale for the validity of the exhibition.
My main observation about the drawings is the wonderful way
in which they project the feeling of rhythmic space. The ‘cosmic
dances’ they evoke in their universes of white suggest the birth of,or perhaps the return to, primordial forms in which all matter isinterlinked. For the last ten years I have been making a series of tea
bowls that I have tentatively called the ‘rock’ series. I have used thistitle because of the ruggedly sculpted shapes into which they arecarved. Nobody has ever made tea bowls like these before. They are
so new and fresh that it would be premature to give them individualnames. Hence the temporary series title ‘rock’. Although I liken
them to rocks, it is not that I have been imitating or incorporating
rocky features from nature. Like ‘pebbles on the roadside’, they are‘anonymous’ and simply exist in the world. I try to create themas artlessly as possible. I have discussed in another essay entitled
Chaire kō (Thoughts about tea caddies) what I mean by ‘pebbles on
the roadside’. I have shown examples of my ‘rock’ tea bowls in two
previous Kichizaemon X exhibitions. They by no means all look
the same and have gradually changed during the time I have been
making them.
In last year’s Kichizaemon X exhibition, I collaborated with thenihonga painter Saitō Takashi. I had long been fascinated by thedepth of the darkness residing in his soul. The tea bowls I showed
next to his were of the ‘black rock’ type. Made from rough red clay,
they stood there like precipices devoid of all colour beside Saitō’s
monochromatic black surfaces.
For the current Kichizaemon X Malevich exhibition I responded
to Malevich’s ‘cosmic dances’ and the whiteness of the surfaces
on which they are drawn by making a group of ‘white rock’ tea
bowls. Compared with Malevich’s geometric abstractions, therough surfaces of these tea bowls are more organic, amorphous,
irregular, and unstable. While the drawings are not as impactful as
the Black Square that figures so prominently in my mind, I believe
I have tuned into and responded to their distinctive qualities
quite successfully. For me, the drawings are very significant in thesense that they have, hovering in the hinterland, the Black Square.
97

Interestingly, with my ‘black rock’ tea bowls, I had been reducing
gradually the range of colours I used. Blood red disappeared, thengreen, then blue, and finally rust red. However, steered away fromthe monochromatic by Malevich’s ‘cosmic dances’, I was pleasantly
surprised at what I managed to achieve by using colour again, albeit
this was to only a small extent.
The question of whether or not tea bowls are works of art is futile
and irrelevant. What concerns me is that as an individual born intoa modern world that places so much importance on individualism,
I can feel so alienated, so unsure of my identity, and so rootless.
The struggle of being alive makes me want to cry out in pain. As I
am not a social scientist, I am not able to analyse and explain theworkings of the world. I am only able to gaze deeply into myself
and try to believe that what is reflected within me through myinteraction with the outside world is true and real. I recall thephrase ‘an umbrella on an operating table’ cited by André Breton. I
am both the umbrella on the operating table and the surgeon with ascalpel dissecting myself.
The term Suprematism derives from the Latin supremus. For
Suprematists it meant the primacy of pure feeling in art. I do notplan to delve into the progression of Malevich’s thinking, but if
there is a connection between his Black Square, which was his mostprofoundly expressive achievement, and his ‘cosmic dances’ with
their abstract geometric shapes, it may well have been one of themeans by which he rescued himself from point zero.
Raku Jikinyū
Summer 2021
Among the swaying grasses of Kuta

9899

31 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Kō (vast, generous, expansive light, vast sky)
100

101

32 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Sai (white and pure, tall and steep)
102

103

104

105

33 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Tan (sever, cut out)
106

107

34 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Ryū (soaring peaks, mountains upon mountains)
108

109

110

111

35 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Kō (clear and white, pure, innocent)
112

113

114

115

36 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
Shin (immerse, soak in)
116

117

37 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
Tan (turbulent, fast flowing)
118

119

38 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
Zen (gradual progress)
120

121

39 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2021
I (be pleased, enjoy)
122

123

40 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Ji (seasons, time, flow of time)
124

125

41 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Gai (soften, peaceful)
126

127

42 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Tan (moving gently with the wind and waves)
128

129

130

131

43 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Kan (clarity)
132

133

44 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Hō (heavy snowfall)
134

135

136

137

45 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl 2022
Gai (end, edge, finishing point)
138

139

140

141

List of Works
Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū

Kasimir Malevich
1

Flight of the feather, Spring 1915
pencil on paper, 8.3 x 17.7 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: F-480

13 Composition 2 c, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 11.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-27

26 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘So’ (as it is, element) 2021
φ9.2-13.5, H11.3 cm

38 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Zen’ (gradual progress) 2021
φ11.9-12.9, H12 cm

2Fight on the Boulevard, Spring 1915
pencil on paper, 17.8 x 9.4 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: F-479

14 Rotating plane 12 i, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16 x 10 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-196

39 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘I’ (be pleased, enjoy) 2021
φ9.9-12.8, H10.9 cm

3Compositions 12 k, 1915
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 10.8 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-190

15 Spherical evolution of the plane, 1917
pencil on paper, 14 x 21.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-446

27 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Gyō’ (dawn, attain enlightenment, become clear)2022
φ15.6-11.1 cm, H12.9 cm

Composition 9 m, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 17.7 x 11 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-529

16 Magnetic electric sensation, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-551

5

Composition 1 a, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 17.9 x 11.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-516

17 White Square and plan for dissolution, 1918
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-550

6

Magnetic planetary composition, 1917-18
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-538

7

Magnetic movement, early 1920s, motif of 1916
pencil on paper, 14.5 x 19.3 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-303, Monograph 		
supplement addendum Volume IV

18 Composition with plan for dissolution and magnetic
elements, 1918
pencil on paper, 20 x 16.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-111

4

8

9

Construction 16 r, Summer 1915
pencil on squared paper, 11.2 x 16.4 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-336

20 Black face, 1930-31, motif of 1920-22
pencil on paper, 16.9 x 20.1 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: PS-36

Composition 8 i, 1915
pencil on paper, 16 x 11.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-28

21 Magnetic sensations, c. 1929-30, motif of 1917
pencil on pape, 35.5 x 22 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-355

10 Construction 3 h, 1916
pencil on squared paper, 16.6 x 10.8 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-273

22 Composition 1d, motif of 1919-20, c.1925
pencil on paper, 11.3 x 18 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-582

11 Composition 5 i, 1915-16
pencil on paper, 14.2 x 11.2 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-219

23 Three Suprematist Compositions, motifs of 1915,
1917, 1920, c.1924-26
pencil on paper, 20 x 25 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-22

12 Composition 11 c, 1915
pencil and gouache on squared paper, 10.5 x 9 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-7

142

19 Planetary composition, 1915-16
pencil on paper, 17 x 10.5 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: S-111

24 Landscape with prisons, c. 1930-31
pencil on paper, 35.5 x 22 cm
Catalogue Raisonne no: PS-108

28 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Ru’ (peak, polar point) 2022
φ11.5-11.4 cm, H12.5 cm
29 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Jō’ (graceful, whiteness wavering supplely, supple
white rhythm, white wavering, rhythm wavering)2022
φ15.4-11 cm, H12.4 cm
30 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Kan’ (trunk, core) 2021
φ10.3-10.8, H12 cm
31 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Kō’ (vast, generous, expansive light, vast sky) 2022
φ14.3-11.3 cm, H12.6 cm
32 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Sai’ (white and pure, tall and steep) 2022
φ12.1-12.1 cm, H12.5 cm
33 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Tan’ (sever, cut out) 2022
φ11.6-11.2 cm, H11.8 cm
34 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Ryū’ (soaring peaks, mountains upon mountains)2022
φ13.6-11 cm, H12.4 cm

40 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Ji’ (seasons, time, flow of time) 2022
φ11.1-11.1 cm, H12.6 cm
41 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Gai’ (soften, peaceful) 2022
φ12-10.5 cm, H12.1 cm
42 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Tan’ (moving gently with the wind and waves) 2022
φ14.5-9.4 cm, H11.9 cm
43 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Kan’ (clarity) 2022
φ10.5-11 cm, H11.5 cm
44 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Hō’ (heavy snowfall) 2022
φ13.5-8.9 cm, H12.8 cm
45 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Gai’ (end, edge, finishing point) 2022
φ12.9-8.5 cm, H11.6 cm

Raku Chōjirō I
25 Black Raku tea bowl named Yorozuyo (thousands ofyears, eternity, all generations) 1580s
φ9.7-9.7 cm, H7.1 cm

35 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Kō’ (clear and white, pure, innocent) 2022
φ15.2-9.9 cm, H12.6 cm
36 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Shin’ (immerse, soak in) 2021
φ10.0-11.5, H12.5 cm
37 Yakinuki-type ‘Rock’ White Raku tea bowl named‘Tan’ (turbulent, fast-flowing) 2021
φ11.0-12.4, H10.8 cm

143

ISBN 978-1-904621-94-2
Photography of tea bowls: Takashi Hatakeyama
Essay © Andréi Nakov
Essay © Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū
Translation: Kyoko Ando, Rupert Faulkner
Tea bowls © Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū
Catalogue © Annely Juda Fine Art / Raku Kichizaemon XV Jikinyū 2022
Printed by Albe de Coker, Belgium

Raku Kichizaemon XV

Kasimir Malevich

Raku Kichizaemon XV		Annely Juda Fine Art

Annely Juda Fine Art

Kasimir Malevich