Refusing representation: Illustrative uses of the black square

This article will consider the recurrence of the black square as an expression of narrative (or visual) absence and its uses and meanings as an illustration. The discussion will pick up on the author’s references to the black square as a non-narrative, illustrative stratum in their paper ‘The nomadic illustration’ (2015). This article will begin with the appearance of the black page in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) which was itself a reference to memorial pages in funeral pamphlets of the 1700s whilst also considering Robert Fludd’s Infinite Square (1617) using these as starting points for a discussion of the importance of attempting to illustrate the impossible. The article will go on to look at Malevich’s Black Square and the use of empty panel’s as narrative devices in comics. These historical examples will be used to inform a discussion of today’s use of the black square as a signifier of mourning and/or protest on social media (particularly during the 2020 Black Lives Matter [BLM] uprisings). The article will examine the illustrative function of the black square and the significance of creating an illustration that refuses to function as one – a blind image. It will go on to examine the problem of representation at scale and the erasure that accompanies depiction. It will ask if the black square is the only truly egalitarian illustration and what this might mean for the discipline more broadly.