El Lissitzky

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky {{Audio|ru-El_Lissitzky.ogg|listen}} (?????? ???????? ????????, November 23, 1890 – December 30, 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (??? ????????), was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. He was one of the most important figures of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his friend and mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designed numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus, Constructivist, and De Stijl movements and experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th century graphic design.

The avant garde

Suprematism

In 1919, upon receiving an invitation from fellow artist and Jew Marc Chagall, Lissitzky returned to Vitebsk to teach graphic arts, printing, and architecture at the newly formed People's Art School — a school that Chagall created after being appointed Commissioner of Artistic Affairs for Vitebsk in 1918. Chagall also invited other Russian-Jewish artists, most notably the painter and art theoretician Kazimir Malevich and Lissitzky's former teacher, Jehuda Pen. Malevich would bring with him a wealth of new ideas, most of which both clashed with Chagall and greatly inspired Lissitzky. After going through impressionism, primitivism, and cubism, Malevich started developing and aggressively advocating his ideas on suprematism. In development since 1915, suprematism rejected the imitation of natural shapes and focused more on the creation of distinct, geometric forms. He replaced the classic teaching program with his own and disseminated his suprematist theories and techniques school-wide. Chagall advocated more classical ideals and Lissitzky, still loyal to Chagall, became torn between two opposing artistic paths. Lissitzky ultimately favored Malevich's suprematism and broke away from traditional Jewish art. Chagall left the school shortly thereafter.

Related Topics:
1919 - Jew - Marc Chagall - 1918 - Painter - Kazimir Malevich - Impressionism - Primitivism - Cubism - Suprematism - 1915 - Geometric

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At this point Lissitzky subscribed fully to suprematism and, under the guidance of Malevich, helped further develop the movement. Some of his most famous works derive from this era, with perhaps his most famous being the 1919 propaganda poster "Beat the white with the Red wedge" (pictured right). Russia was going through a civil war at the time which was mainly fought between the "Reds", who were the communists and revolutionaries, and the "Whites" who were the monarchists, conservatives, liberals and socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution. The imagery of the red wedge shattering the white form, simple as it was, communicated a powerful message that left no doubt in the viewers mind of its intention. The piece is often seen as alluding to the similar shapes used on military maps and, along with its political symbolism, was one of Lissitzky's first major steps away from Malevich's non-objective suprematism into a style his own. He stated:

Related Topics:
1919 - Poster - Civil war - Bolshevik Revolution - Symbolism

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:The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything that is already finished, already made, or already existent in the world — it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by the way of the people 2

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Also in 1919, Lissitzky joined and took a prominent role in the short-lived but influential UNOVIS group (Russian abbreviation for "The Champions of the New"), a proto-suprematist association of students, professors, and other artists. Formerly known as MOLPOSNOVIS and POSNOVIS, the group was re-branded as UNOVIS when Malevich became leader. In February of 1920, under the leadership of Malevich, the group worked on a "suprematist ballet", choreographed by Nina Kogan, and the precursor to Aleksander Kruchenykh's influential futurist opera, Victory Over the Sun. Interestingly, Lissitzky and the entire group chose to share credit and responsibility for the works produced within the group, signing most pieces with a single, solitary black square. This was partly as a homage to a similar piece their leader, Malevich, and a symbolic embrace of the Communist ideal. This would become the de facto seal of UNOVIS and took the place of individual names or initials. The group, which disbanded in 1922, would play a pivotal role in the dissemination of suprematist ideology in Russia and abroad as well as launch Lissitzky's status as one of the leading figures in the avant garde.

Related Topics:
1919 - UNOVIS - Abbreviation - 1920 - Ballet - Nina Kogan - Aleksander Kruchenykh - Futurist - Opera - Victory Over the Sun - Homage - Communist - Seal - 1922

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Proun

During this period Lissitzky proceeded to develop a variant suprematist style of his own, a series of abstract, geometric paintings which he called Proun (pronounced "pro-oon"). Proun was essentially Lissitzky's exploration of the visual language of suprematism with spatial elements, utilizing shifting axes and multiple perspectives; both uncommon ideas in suprematism. Suprematism at the time was conducted almost exclusively in flat, 2D forms and shapes, and Lissitzky, with a taste for architecture and other 3-dimensional concepts, tried to expand suprematism beyond this. His Proun works (known as Prounen), spanned over a half a decade and evolved from straightforward paintings and lithographs into fully 3-dimensional installations. They would also lay the foundation for his later experimentations in architecture and exhibition design. While the paintings were artistic in their own right, their use as a staging ground for his early architectonic ideas was significant. In these works, the basic elements of architecture — volume, mass, color, space and rhythm — were subjected to a fresh formulation in relation to the new suprematist ideals.

Related Topics:
Abstract - Painting - Spatial - 2D - Lithograph

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Jewish themes and symbols also sometimes made appearances in his Prounen, usually with Lissitzky using Hebrew letters as part of the typography or visual code. For the cover of the 1922 book Teyashim (Four Billy Goats) , he shows an arrangement of Hebrew letters as architectural elements in a dynamic design that mirrors his contemporary Proun typography. 5 This theme was extended into other works, namely his illustration for the books "Shifs-Karta" (Passenger Ticket) and "Shifs-Karta." The exact meaning of the word Proun was never fully revealed, with some suggesting that it is a contraction of "proekt unovsia" ("Architectural design of UNOVIS"), or "proekt utverzhdenya novoga" ("Design for the confirmation of the new"), and with it later being defined by Lissitzky ambiguously as "the station where one changes from painting to architecture" 3

Related Topics:
Jewish themes and symbols - 1922 - 5 - 3

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Return to Germany

In 1921, roughly concurrent with the demise of UNOVIS, suprematism was beginning to fracture into two ideologically adverse halves, one favoring Utopian, spiritual art and the other favoring a more utilitarian art that serves society. Lissitzky was fully part of neither and left Vitebsk in 1921. He took a job as a cultural representative of Russia and moved to Berlin where he was to establish contacts between Russian and German artists. There he also took up work as a writer and designer for international magazines and journals while helping to promote the avant garde through various gallery shows. He started the very short-lived, but impressive, periodical Veshch-Gerenstand Objekt with Russian-Jewish writer Ilya Erenburg. The periodical was intended to show off contemporary Russian art to Western Europe, mainly focusing on new suprematist and constructivist works, and was published in German, French, and Russian languages. In the first issue Lissitzky wrote:

Related Topics:
1921 - Berlin - German - Magazine - Gallery - Ilya Erenburg - Western Europe - German - French - Russian

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: We consider the triumph of the constructive method to be essential for our present. We find it not only in the new economy and in the development of the industry, but also in the psychology of our contemporaries of art. Veshch will champion constructive art, whose mission is not, after all, to embellish life, but to organize it. 4

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During his stay he also developed his career as a graphic designer with some historically important works such as the book Dlia Golossa (For the Voice), a collection of poems from Vladimir Mayakovsky, and the book "Die Kunstismen" (The Artisms) together with Jean Arp. There he also met and befriended many other artists, most notably Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy-Nagy, and Theo van Doesburg. Lissitzky, together with Schwitters and van Doesburg, presented the idea of an international artistic movement under the guidelines of Constructivism while also working with Kurt Schwitters on the issue Nasci (Nature) of the periodical Merz (pictured right), and continuing to illustrate children's books. After the publishing of his first Proun series in Moscow in 1921, Schwitters introduced Lissitzky to the Hanover gallery Kestner-Gesellschaft in 1922, where he held his first solo exhibition. The second Proun series, printed in Hanover in 1923, was a success, utilizing new and sophisticated printing techniques. Later on, he met Sophie Kuppers, a widow of an art director of a gallery which Lissitzky was showing at, who he would later marry in 1927.

Related Topics:
Graphic designer - Vladimir Mayakovsky - Jean Arp - Kurt Schwitters - László Moholy-Nagy - Theo van Doesburg - Constructivism - Merz - Moscow - 1921 - Hanover - Kestner-Gesellschaft - 1922 - Solo exhibition - 1923 - 1927

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