These two approaches articulated
very early on in its history this kind of work's almost paradoxical
dynamic: that one can read a monochrome either as a flat surface (material
entity or «painting as object») which represents nothing but itself, and therefore representing an ending in the evolution of illusionism in painting (i.e. Rodchenko); or as a depiction of multidimensional (infinite) space, a fulfillment of illusionistic painting, representing a new evolution — a new beginning — in Western painting's history (Malevich).