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The current book aims to reveal, under a different perspective, how Malevich transmutes the basic principles of religious painting and creates certain pre-Suprematist and Suprematist artworks. Even though the significance of icons in the formation of Suprematism has oftentimes been highlighted by experts, meaningful discussions on the seminal effect of Eastern Christianity on modern and contemporary art have failed to penetrate museums and have only recently started to emerge in academic studies. This book, therefore, stands out by offering an alternative interpretation of the legendary Black Square through the aesthetic of icons. A new light is shed on how Malevich reshapes the spiritual principles and the fundamental qualities of the icon in order to create a kind of "secular hagiography". Furthermore, by focusing on a series of artworks created between 1928 and 1932, a more nuanced and coherent explanation is suggested concerning Malevich´s problematic abandonment of abstract Suprematism towards the end of the 1920´s. This monograph aspires to be addressed to both an international expert audience (post-graduates, researchers, academics etc.), as well as the art enthusiasts.

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Iliana Zarra, PhD. Studied History of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her main fields of interest concern Greek and European Modern Art. Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies, University of Patras, Greece.

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