Upâdhi (Sk.). Basis; the vehicle, carrier or bearer of something less material than itself: as the human body is the upâdhi of its spirit, ether the upâdhi of light, etc., etc.; a mould; a defining or limiting substance.

Helena Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary

The Black Square by Kazimir Malevich is, for a lack of a better description, a painting of a black square. The absence of any discernible subject matter a marked departure from bodily realism characteristic of artwork from the era. Malevich eschewing detail to invite the viewer to participate in the creative process. The significance of the black square lying in the realization the visual phenomena are, in themselves, meaningless: the significant thing is feeling. A feeling that precedes, and informs, the visual phenomena. The image constituting the psychic representation of the physical sensation of light rays. The “materialization” of the image inexorably tied to the meanings intermediating experience. How deep is the black? What proportion is the square? To what owes the power of the image? The Black Square urging the viewer to find the effect of the visual phenomena lies in the eye of the beholder. In the corpus of experience that conditions the physiological response to the stimuli. The black square recalling a feeling. The white border, the ocean beyond this feeling. The composition mimicking in this way the anatomy of the eye—the contrast between the iris and the sclera. The effect, the feeling, concealing the canvas extends beyond the white border. The medium extending to nothing less than the body itself, the message of which being: the limiting condition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Kazimir Malevich. Black Square. 1915. oil on linen. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
2. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. The Theosophical Glossary. Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973. Print.
3. McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium Is the Massage. Corte Madera: Gingko Press, 2001. Print.
	Page 26: All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us un-touched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. (Marshall McLuhan, The Medium Is the Massage)