In 1912, while studying at the Odessa Art College, Iakov Chernikhov developed a great interest in the construction of a classical ornament, which provided a kind of foundation that enabled him to develop various aspects of graphical imaging in new directions.
"The basic principles of constructing a classical ornament (symmetry, rhythm, repetition, etc.) excessively limited the range of work and did not allow for further advancement. Having abandoned those principles and replaced them with different, new ones, I discovered, through extensive experimenting, an unusually rich area where the compositional creative method found unbound space for itself. I replaced the symmetry with asymmetry and the rhythm of repetition with the rhythm of correlations."
Experimenting in the creation of the "new ornament", Iakov Chernikhov developed some principles of constructing the most complex compositions from non-figurative elements and created a system that "radically changed the whole underlying paradigm of image construction" calling this new kind of graphic art "Experematics". In Chernikhov's interpretation, the term means the best way of expression – from the French verb exprimer.
"A dot, a line, a plane, the surface and volume are the basic elements of an Exprimatic drawing."
"We will take the opportunity to arrange things outside the object, to arrange the spots and outlines in balance, to arrange images in the rhythm of their parts, to establish a special law of interplay in the elements of drafting, to revitalize incorporeal compositions with the dynamic properties of the problems we solve – in other words, we will arrange 'suprematistically'."
The fundamentals of suprematist approach to graphical constructions were laid out by Iakov Chernikhov in the book The Art of Drafting, which became a manifesto of nonfigurative graphics (Publishing House of the Academy of Arts, 1927). The publication of the book was accompanied by a huge exhibition of works (about 3000 exhibits) from the cycles "Exprimatics" and "Aristography", organized in Leningrad by the Academy of Arts in the halls of the former Kushelev Gallery.
