The artwork titled “What a Crash,” created by Kazimir Malevich in 1914, belongs to the Naïve Art (Primitivism) movement and is classified under the genre of a poster.
The artwork depicts a scene of intense dynamic action, where a central figure dressed in traditional Eastern European attire, characterized by a red tunic and blue-striped trousers, commands attention. He wields a whip-like object while standing on a hill, and his substantial presence is surrounded by smaller figures in a state of movement and distress. The background features a simple blue sky and rolling grassy hills. There’s a combination of cartoony figures on horseback and on foot, evocative of a battlefield or a chase. The overall composition is rendered in a straightforward, naive style typical of Primitivism, with emphasis on bold colors and simplified forms. At the bottom of the artwork, there is text in Cyrillic, which appears to convey a narrative or commentary relevant to the scene depicted above.
