Kazimir Malevich : Head of a Peasant Print (1927)
Meet Kazimir Malevich's most revolutionary portrait - Head of a Peasant! This Russian legend was completely reinventing portraiture in 1927, deconstructing the human face into that stunning white geometric form against vibrant landscape bands. While everyone else was painting boring realistic portraits, he was creating the world's most avant-garde face. This groundbreaking late-period masterpiece shows Malevich applying his Suprematist genius to human portraiture.
This revolutionary beauty represents one of Malevich's most daring experiments in applying Suprematist principles to traditional portraiture. The stark white geometric face dominates the composition with an almost mask-like presence, while those piercing blue eyes and bold yellow nose strip create an otherworldly intensity that's both human and completely abstract.
What makes this piece so groundbreaking is how Malevich has completely reimagined what a portrait can be. The face is constructed from pure geometric forms - that dramatic black and grey hair framing the white oval, the simplified features reduced to their essential elements. It's portraiture stripped of all pretence and convention, revealing something more essential about human identity than any realistic painting ever could.
The background is equally revolutionary - those vibrant horizontal bands of colour create a landscape that's both recognisable and completely abstract. You can see hints of Russian countryside with tiny houses and fields, but they're rendered as pure colour and form. The interplay between the monumental geometric head and the fragmented landscape creates a sense of timelessness and universality.
This isn't just a portrait of a peasant - it's a meditation on humanity itself, on what makes us essentially human when stripped of all surface details. Malevich has taken the most intimate of art forms and transformed it into something cosmic and eternal. It's revolutionary portraiture that speaks to the soul rather than the eye.