Around 1915 during the Russian revolution Kasimir Malevich became the first painter to embrace pure abstraction. The first of these works were, minimal, often consisting only of a single circle, square or triangle. As the paintings developed more shapes were added, always of a primary geometry. Malevich believed that by purging his work of all traditional imagery he could create a wholly new art suitable to a radical new society and probe to the purer regions of human feeling and thought. He professed that this work had a spiritual underpinning and many historians agree, pointing to the similarities between Suprematism, the style he fostered, and icon painting.