World-Famous Painting Has A Racist ‘Joke’ Scribbled On It

16 Nov 2015 by Sloane Hunter in Art, Celebrities

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Oh goodness.

What has been described as one of the most important paintings of the 20th century’s avant-garde movement could also be quite problematic. Experts were looking at Kazimir Malevich’s 1915 painting ‘Black Square’ under a microscope when they found an inscription that says: Battle of Negroes in a dark cave.

Eish.

The same experts reckon that the phrase is in reference to another modernist artwork painted nearly a decade before by French writer and humorist, Alphonse Allais, called Combat de Nègres dans une cave pendant la nuit (Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night).

A pretty well-spread joke at the time in Europe, it is horribly racist.

 

[source: metro]

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