For Clement Greenberg, modernism is born out of self-criticality. This self-criticality within painting picked up that since painting began, the flat surface of a painting has been seen as a pivotal part of what makes a painting a painting and which sets it apart from all the other arts. On top of this flat plane, a three dimensional image has been created, which in some ways negates the fact that it is on a flat surface, as nothing eludes to this within the image. 'Flatness alone was unique and exclusive to pictorial art'; Modernism, for Greenberg, focuses on the emphasising this plane and making use of it, doing away with figurative representation, as three-dimensionality is something shared with sculpture, and becoming autonomous through the individual use of a flat plane.
Artists like Piet Mondrian and Malevich have used abstraction as means of emphasising the surface of the work. In Russia, Malevich created his famous Black Square as a reduction of all representation and even that of colour. When representational art had become so tied up in bourgeoisie values, it was important if Russia was to succeed with a new regime to distance themselves artistically with this past. Alexander Rodchenko created the Last Painting in 1921, three monochrome panels that consisted of the primary colours red, yellow and blue. This was seen to be the 'death of painting', as it showed painting in its purest forms - the three primary colours, which make all colours, and the flatness of the three canvases. From this moment onwards, Rodchenko had a preoccupation with photography, especially after the rise of the Bolsheviks in 1917 deemed abstraction and suprematism to be disengaged with the everyday reality.
Mondrian emphasises the plane in a slightly different way. Whilst the monochromes in Russia are void of all representation, there are still some simple, pure elements of that in Mondrian's grids. Following a repetitive grid method that he used for 25 years, Mondrian created many works that follow the same repetitive technique but are infinitely different in their representation. The act of repetition, or 'systematic' art, uses repetition not to show similarities but to show differences. Mondrian's art shows that not all artistic license is lost when figurative painting is removed.
Two modern artists who have carried on the trope of abstraction are Barnett Newmann and Ellsworth Kelly. Both of these artists use monochromes to emphasis the flatness of the surface, and both loosely utilise grid formations. Newmann's One from 1948 is a monochrome (made in a series of 5, furthering the 'systematic' process of abstract art) with a single vertical line down the middle, showing it is conscious of the limits of the surface and the edges of the plane, whereas Kelly's Red/White from 1953 uses the grid in a more explicit way, with the whole canvas being in a grid formation. This formation is one of the most effective ways to play with the Freudian idea of chance, which many artists during this time are occupied with.
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