Lissitzky, Lazar Markovich (1890–1941)

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El Lissitzky, educated as an architect and engineer, is best known for his explorations of spatial construction and constructivist graphics. Born in the province of Smolensk, Russia, in 1890, he left for Germany in 1909 to study at the Technische Hochschüle in Darmstadt. With the advent of World War I, he returned to study engineering and architecture at the Riga Polytechnic Institute in Moscow. He was recruited by Marc Chagall to teach architecture and graphic arts at the Vitebsk Popular Art Institute, and began his association with Theo Van Doesburg, Kazimir Malevich, Hans Arp, Mart Stam, among others, and the contructivist and suprematist movements (Lissitzky, 1976; Perloff and Reed, 2003).

With little opportunity for work in architecture, Lissitzky found an artistic outlet in graphic design: books, Soviet propaganda posters, and photomontage. In 1919 he began a series of two- and threedimensional projects he called Prouns. Lissitzky was experimenting with the ‘problems of the perception of plastic elements in space’ and the ‘optimum harmony of very simple geometric forms in their dynamic and static relationships’ (Lissitzky, 1976, p. 49). These geometric, spatial abstractions were titled for an acronym ‘Project for the affirmation of the new’ in art (Mansbach, 1987, p. 109; Perloff and Reed, 2003, p. 7).

Lissitsky had been searching for a venue beyond painting, one which extended to the creation of space (Mansbach, 1987). The Prouns questioned the tradition of perspective that used a single point by employing multiple visual points (Lissitzky, 1976). The resulting effect produced geometric compositions that seemed to float in space, with lines and planes extending in all directions. The Prouns took many forms, from prints and paintings to room-scale installations.

Both spatial and compositional, Lissitzky viewed the Proun constructions as sketches, since they referred to a beginning. They were explorations reaching toward perfection; continuously in process, they could never reach a state of completion (Mansbach, 1987). The opposite page exhibits a graphite study for a Proun. The freehand techniques and scratchy pencil lines indicate its preliminary qualities. The sketch studies overlapping planes of various values on the left, balanced by open space on the right. Many lines appear to visually extend beyond the page connecting the Proun with the space beyond it. The composition emphasizes the correlation between the object
and the ground surrounding it. More volumetrically complete, this sketch may have been the threedimensional equivalent of the large-scale exploration. The image may represent a spatial construction that was abstracted for transfer to a lithograph.

Although Lissitzky maintained positive attitudes toward the machine aesthetic, it is not surprising that this Proun has been explored freehand. The manual, of the hand, was continually a concern for him, especially in relationship to vision. For him, the hand took a primary role in any creative activity (Perloff and Reed, 2003). Thus, the constructed installation Prouns consisted of the materials of the machine age, tempered by his concern for craftsmanship and tactility. This suggests that the starting point for all of his designs emerged from hand sketches.

Lissitzky used his Prouns to speculate on the construction of elements in space. Theoretical by nature, they inherently referred to an ideology rather than their objective qualities. Paradoxically, the action of hanging these images in galleries added to the perception of them as finished objects. If all of the Prouns completed by Lissitzky were intended to be preliminary, then this sketch may actually be a preliminary for a preliminary.

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