Examining the written accounts of Kazimir Malevich as not just supplements to his artworks, but as independent strokes of genius concerning philosophical truths, Jean-Claude Marcadé's essay presents an in-depth approach to better understand the philosophies behind the man and the movement.

For Malevich... writing is necessary to understanding his own creation. Two aspects coexist in his writings: the development of a thought on being, on what is, an ontology; and an explanation, according to this ontology, of Suprematism as the outcome of a pictorial process that began with Paul Cézanne. Malevich's texts thus present us with both an original philosophy—several theorists, in particular the French philosopher Emmanuel Martineau, have been able to place it within the history of Western philosophy—and an account of the different stages and meaning of Suprematism.