(1890-1941) worked in several fields of art. He was an architect, artist, book graphic artist, designer, theater decorator, photomontage master, and exhibition designer. In each of these areas, he made his contribution, entered the practice and history of the development of art in the first half of the 20th century. Lissitzky graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Technical School in Darmstadt (1909-1914) and the Riga Polytechnic (1915-1918). The universality of Lissitzky as an artist and his desire to work in several areas of art is not just a feature of his talent, but to a large extent the need of that era, when the features of modern aesthetic culture were formed in the interaction of various types of art. Lissitzky was one of those who stood at the origins of the new architecture and had a significant influence on the formal and aesthetic searches of innovative architects with his creative and theoretical works.
Lazar Markovich (Mordukhovich) Lissitzky was born into the family of a craftsman-entrepreneur Mordukh Zalmanovich Lissitzky and a housewife Sarah Leibovna Lissitzky on November 10 (22), 1890 in the village. Repair of the Smolensk province. He graduated from a real school in Smolensk (1909). He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Polytechnic School in Darmstadt and at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow during the First World War (1915-1916). He worked in the architectural bureau of Velikovsky and Klein.
Since 1916, he participated in the work of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts, including in collective exhibitions of the society in 1917 and 1918 in Moscow and in 1920 in Kyiv. Then, in 1917, he began illustrating books published in Yiddish, including contemporary Jewish authors and works for children. Using traditional Jewish folk symbols, he created a brand for the Kyiv publishing house "Yidisher folks-farlag" (Jewish folk publishing house), with which he signed a contract on April 22, 1919 to illustrate 11 books for children. In the same period (1916), Lissitzky took part in ethnographic trips to a number of cities and towns of the Belarusian Dnieper region and Lithuania in order to identify and fix Jewish antiquity monuments; The result of this trip was the reproductions of the murals of the Mogilev synagogue at Shkolishche published by him in 1923 in Berlin and the accompanying article in Yiddish “Memories of the Mogilev synagogue”, the Milgroim magazine is the only theoretical work of the artist dedicated to Jewish decorative art.
In 1918, in Kyiv, Lissitzky became one of the founders of the Kultur-League (Yiddish: League of Culture), an avant-garde artistic and literary association that aimed to create a new Jewish national art. In 1919, at the invitation of Marc Chagall, he moved to Vitebsk, where he taught at the National art school (1919-1920).
In 1917-19, Lissitzky devoted himself to illustrating works of modern Jewish literature and especially children's poetry in Yiddish, becoming one of the founders of the avant-garde style in Jewish book illustration. In contrast to Chagall, who gravitated towards traditional Jewish art, since 1920, under the influence of Malevich, Lissitzky turned to Suprematism. It is in this vein that later book illustrations early 1920s, for example, to the books "Shifs-card" (1922), poems by Mani Leib (1918-1922), Rabbi (1922) and others. It was to the Berlin period of Lissitzky that his last active work in the Jewish book graphics(1922-1923). After returning to the Soviet Union, Lissitzky no longer turned to book graphics, including Jewish ones.
Since 1920, he performed under the artistic name " El Lissitzky". He taught at the Moscow Vkhutemas (1921) and Vkhutein (since 1926); in 1920 joined Inkhuk.
Formation of a new architecture in the first years after October revolution took place in close interaction between architects and figures of the "left" visual arts. During these years, a complex process of crystallization of the new style took place, which proceeded most intensively at the junction of fine arts and architecture.
Being an architect by education, Lissitzky was one of the first to understand the significance of the artistic search for "leftist" painting for the development modern architecture. Working at the intersection of architecture and fine arts, he did a lot to transfer to the new architecture those formal and aesthetic discoveries that helped shape modern architecture. artistic culture. One of the active figures of the Vitebsk UNOVIS headed by K. Malevich, Lissitzky and in 1919 - 1921 creates his own PROUNs (projects for the approval of the new) - axonometric images of geometric bodies of various shapes in equilibrium, either resting on a solid foundation, or, as it were, floating in outer space .
In 1921-1925 he lived in Germany and Switzerland; joined the Dutch group "Style".
In his formal aesthetic searches of those years, Lissitzky consciously relied on architecture, considering PROUNs as "transfer stations on the way from painting to architecture." PROUNs were one of the links in the process of passing the baton from leftist painting to new architecture. These were original models of new architecture, architectonic experiments in the field of shaping, the search for new geometric and spatial representations, some compositional "blanks" of future volumetric and spatial constructions. It is no coincidence that he gives some of his PROUNs such names as “city”, “bridge”, etc. Later, Lissitzky used some of his PROUNs in the development of specific architectural projects (water station, horizontal skyscrapers, residential building, exhibition interiors, etc. .).
In the early years of Soviet power, Lissitzky also acted as a theorist, substantiating his understanding of the process of interaction between the leftist trends in fine arts and architecture. However, the role of Lissitzky in this process of interaction was not limited to his creative and theoretical works. He takes an active part in such complex creative associations as UNOVIS, INHUK and Vkhutemas. He was associated with the Bauhaus, with members of the Dutch group De Stijl, with French artists and architects.
Lissitzky did a lot to promote achievements Soviet architecture abroad. In 1921-1925 he lived in Germany and was treated for tuberculosis in Switzerland. During these years, he establishes close relations with many progressive Western artists, delivers reports and articles on the problems of architecture and art, takes an active part in the creation of new magazines (Thing in Berlin, ABC in Zurich).
Lissitzky's close attention to artistic problems shaping led him to rapprochement with the rationalists and to join ASNOVA. He was one of the editors and main authors of the Izvestia ASNOVA (1926) issue, which was planned to be turned into periodical. However, the creative credo and theoretical views of Lissitzky do not give grounds to consider him an orthodox rationalist. Although in a number of his works he criticizes the desire inherent in constructivism (and functionalism) to emphasize the functional and constructive expediency of a new architectural form, nevertheless, much in Lissitzky's views brought him closer to constructivism. It can be said that in the creative credo of Lissitzky, many features of rationalism and constructivism turned out to be largely united - these were the main innovative trends in Soviet architecture of the 20s, which largely complemented each other in matters of shaping. It is no coincidence that Lissitzky had close creative contact with both the rationalist theorist N. Ladovsky and the constructivist theorist M. Ginzburg. Rapprochement with the constructivists was facilitated by the work of Lissitzky as a professor of the woodworking and metalworking faculty of the Vkhutemas, where under his leadership modern built-in furniture, transforming furniture, sectional furniture and individual elements of typical furniture were developed, many of which were intended for economically planned living cells.
A significant place in the work of Lissitzky in the early years of Soviet power was occupied by works related to propaganda art - the poster "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge" (1919), "Lenin's Tribune" (1920-1924), etc. In 1923 he completed sketches for an unrealized staging of the opera "Victory over the Sun".
A certain contribution was made by Lissitzky to the development of the urban planning problem of vertical zoning of the city's development. The work of Soviet architects in this area differed significantly in those years from the projects of foreign architects. The buildings raised on supports were proposed to be built not over pedestrian paths, but over transport routes. Of the three main elements of vertical zoning - pedestrian, transport and buildings - preference was given to the pedestrian, whose position in the spatial planning structure of the city was considered inappropriate to change. The main reserves of vertical zoning were seen in the use of space for building over highways. In the project of “horizontal skyscrapers” developed by Lissitzky for Moscow (1923-1925), it was proposed to erect eight similar buildings at the intersections of the boulevard ring (ring A) with the main radial traffic arteries (directly above the roadway of the city) for headquarters in the form of horizontally elongated two-three-story buildings, raised above the ground on three vertical supports, in which elevators and stairs are located, with one support connecting the building directly with the metro station.
Lissitzky takes an active part in architectural competitions: The House of Textiles in Moscow (1925), residential complexes in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (1926), the House of Industry in Moscow (1930), the Pravda plant. He designs a water station and a stadium in Moscow (1925), a village club (1934), takes an active part in the planning and design of the Park of Culture and Rest named after. Gorky in Moscow, creates a project (not implemented) for the main pavilion of the Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow (1938), etc.
In 1930-1932, according to the project of El Lissitzky, a printing house for the Ogonyok magazine was built (house number 17 on 1st Samotechny Lane). Lissitzky's printing house is distinguished by an amazing combination of huge square and small round windows. The building in plan looks like a sketch of Lissitzky's "horizontal skyscraper".
Closely connected with the development of modern interiors is Lissitzky's work in the field of exhibition design, in which he introduced a number of fundamental innovations: design for the Soviet pavilion at the exhibition of decorative arts in Paris (1925), the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow (1927), Soviet pavilions at international exhibition presses in Cologne (1928), at the international fur exhibition in Leipzig (1930) and at the international exhibition "Hygiene" in Dresden (1930).
The theoretical and architectural works of Lissitzky cannot be considered separately from other aspects of his creative activity. It is the complexity artistic creativity Lissitzky allowed him to play a significant role in the difficult and controversial period of the early 1920s, when in the process of interaction various arts were born new architecture and design.
Lissitzky made a significant contribution to the development of new techniques for the graphic design of books (the book Mayakovsky for the Voice, published in 1923, etc.), in the field of posters and photomontage. One of the best images of this area is a poster for the "Russian Exhibition" in Zurich (1929), where a cyclopean image of two heads, merged into a single whole, rises above generalized architectural structures. Lissitzky made several propaganda posters in the spirit of Suprematism, for example, “Beat the whites with a red wedge!”; designed convertible and built-in furniture in 1928-1929. He created new principles of exhibition exposition, perceiving it as an integral organism. An excellent example of this is the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow (1927).
The fate of Lissitzky the theorist was such that most of of his work was published abroad in German (in the 1920s in articles in the magazines Merz, ABC, G, etc., in the book Russia. Reconstruction of Architecture in the Soviet Union”) or remained unpublished at one time (some works were published in 1967 in the book “El Lissitzky” published in Dresden). Collected together, Lissitzky's theoretical statements give an idea of him as one of the original representatives of Soviet architecture of the period of its formation.
A source: "Masters of Soviet Architecture on Architecture", Volume II, "Art", Moscow, 1975. Compilation and notes: S.O. Khan-Magomedov
E.L. Nemirovsky
«... New job over the book has not yet gone so far as to blow up the traditional form of the book even now. Despite the crises that book production is experiencing along with other types of products, the book glacier is growing every year. The book has become monumental piece of art, she is not only caressed by the tender fingers of a few bibliophiles, hundreds of thousands of hands grab her. This statement is unusually modern, yet it is taken from the article "Our Book", published on the pages of the "Gutenberg Yearbook" about 80 years ago. Its author, Lazar (Eliazar) Markovich Lissitzky, or, as he usually signed his works, El Lissitzky, had a tremendous influence on the development of the art of the book of the twentieth century.
Lazar Lissitzky was born on November 10, 1890 in the small town of Pochinok, lost among the forests of the Smolensk province. He became a Russian by pure chance. His father, Mark Lissitzky, went to seek his fortune in distant America, succeeded there and wrote to his wife to come to him with two-year-old Lazar. But the future artist's mother, a devout Jewess, decided that the rabbi should be consulted first. Wise for years, the rebbe said that one should not leave the land where the graves of grandfathers and fathers are located. As a result, the aspiring American entrepreneur Mark Lissitzky returned to Russia, because he could not imagine life away from his beloved wife and son, on whom he had high hopes.
Soon the family moved to Vitebsk. And little Lazar was sent to study in the provincial Smolensk, where his grandfather had a small hat workshop. The boy comprehended the basics of science in the Smolensk real gymnasium, and spent the holidays at home. Here he attended the school-workshop of the artist Yudol Pen (1854-1937), a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The passion for drawing in young Lazar was still unconscious, but quite definite. Peng was a solid realist, but, oddly enough, his students, of whom Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was the most famous, became the initiators of all sorts of “isms” so characteristic of the 20th century.
After graduating from high school, Lazar Lissitzky decided to follow the path of his Vitebsk teacher and went to St. Petersburg to enter the Academy of Arts. But he was not accepted. Then the young man went to Germany to Darmstadt, where he became a student of the architectural faculty of the Polytechnic High School. In the summer of 1911, he visited the Mecca of artists Paris, where he was invited by Osip Zadkine (1890-1967), another native of Vitebsk, who became famous French artist. In the summer of the following year, 1912, Lissitzky traveled around Italy. He painted a lot, mostly landscapes, his works with views of Pisa and Ravenna have been preserved. Careless pre-war Europe generously opened before the young artist the cultural values accumulated over the centuries.
El Lissitzky. From a 1919 photo
The newly minted architect received his diploma just before the start of the First World War, and in 1914 he had to flee from Germany and with great difficulties through Switzerland, Italy, Serbia get to Russia. The young man settled in Moscow, where he became an assistant to the architect Roman Ivanovich Klein (1849-1925), who built opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, contrasting with its Byzantine luxury, the neoclassical Museum of Fine Arts (now State Museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin). Then Lissitzky first took up book graphics made a cover for the poetic collection "The Sun is Decaying" by Konstantin Aristarkhovich Bolshakov (1895-1938), which was published in Moscow in 1916. It was the second collection of the author, adjoining the Futurists. K.A. Bolshakov did not become a great poet - during the Civil War, he fought in the Red Army, and then wrote novels and historical and biographical stories. Lissitzky's work for Bolshakov's collection was largely eclectic, but his next graphic experiments attracted the attention of book experts.
Case of the "Prague Legend" by M. Broderson
In the spring of 1917, the Moscow publishing house "Shamir" published unusual book « Prague legend", a collection of poems by M. Broderzon (1890-1956). These poems were written in Yiddish, a largely artificial language, which the snobs contemptuously called jargon, but which was spoken by a considerable Jewish population of Russia, Poland, and Romania at that time. M. Broderson was young and was under the strong influence of the futurists. Subsequently, he will work in dramaturgy and journalism, and during the war years he will write the poem "Jews", which was called an indictment against Hitlerism.
M. Broderson. Prague legend. M., 1917. El Lissitzky hand-colored copy
The circulation of the "Prague Legend" was small - only 110 copies. The text reproduced by the lithographic method was not typed, but handwritten by a master calligrapher. Lissitzky colored 20 copies by hand. They were made in the form of a scroll, which, like the Torah (as the Jews call the Pentateuch of Moses the initial part of the Bible), was enclosed in a wooden box-coffin. Scroll pages Lazar Lissitzky decorated watercolor drawings and patterned ornamental frames. The amazing color scheme was a delight to the eye. The book was distributed to bibliophile collections. Today, one of the copies of this rare edition is kept in the Museum of Russian Books. state library. The second can be found in the State Tretyakov Gallery.
El Lissitzky. Drawing from "The Tale of the Goat" (Kyiv, 1917)
The traditions of small-town Jewish folklore formed the basis of another work by Lazar Lissitzky "Tales of the Goat", published in 1919 in Kyiv. 75 copies of this book were illustrated with color lithographs. The text of the tale echoes the legend "Rabbi from Bacherach" recorded by the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). This allowed the Berlin publishing house "Der Morgen" to reproduce in the new edition of the legend, published in 1978, facsimile copies of the lithographs by the Russian artist.
El Lissitzky. Sheet from the album "PROUN". 1919
The turning point in the life of Lazar Lissitzky was May 1919, when, at the invitation of Marc Chagall, who led the People's art school in Vitebsk, he moved to his native Belarusian city, where he headed the Faculty of Architecture and the workshop of graphics and printing.
Today it is customary to scold the October Revolution, pejoratively calling it the Bolshevik coup. There are no words, the revolution has led to the suffering of many innocent people. But at the same time, it contributed to a powerful cultural upsurge, the awakening of cultural forces dormant in the provinces, which made a significant contribution to the formation new literature and art. In the article by Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, an excerpt from which we quoted at the beginning of the article, there are the following lines: “During the revolution, hidden energy accumulated in our young generation of artists, which was waiting only for a big order from the people in order to reveal itself. The audience was a huge mass, a mass of semi-literate people. The revolution has done colossal educational and propaganda work in our country. The traditional book was torn into separate pages, enlarged a hundred times, enhanced with color printing, and taken out into the street as a poster.
In the history of fine arts in the first post-revolutionary years, Vitebsk played approximately the same role as Odessa in the region. fiction. It was a school of talents, in which, under the wing of Marc Chagall, young people, seeking to blow up traditional forms. The names of those raised are here Kazimir Malevich, Lazar Lissitzky, Robert Falk, Solomon Yudovin in history national culture no less glorious than the names of Odessans Eduard Bagritsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Valentin Kataev, Isaac Babel, Vera Inber, Evgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf.
The country was Civil War. The sympathies of Lazar Lissitzky were on side of the revolution, with which he inextricably linked the formation and further development of the new art. The artist also took part in the agitation and propaganda work launched by the authorities. At that time, it was largely in the hands of enthusiasts and romantics, who did not even suspect that they would soon begin to destroy each other. In this regard, it should be noted the poster made by Lissitzky in 1919 "Beat the whites with a red wedge." In his graphic solution, the features of the direction, which later received the name of constructivism, are guessed.
El Lissitzky. Poster "Beat the whites with a red wedge." 1919
Together with Kazimir Malevich, Lissitzky organizes art workshops in Vitebsk, which were called UNOVIS in the newspeak of the revolution, which meant "Affirmation of the new in art." The brochure "Suprematism" by K. Malevich, issued in Vitebsk in 1920, became the manifesto of the commonwealth. It was small: four pages of handwritten text, reproduced in a lithographic way, and 34 black-and-white lithographs. In 1977, at an auction in New York, this book was valued at $22,500.
An edition of seven typewritten copies was published in the UNOVIS almanac, illustrated with lithographs, on the pages of which Lissitzky published the articles “Suprematism of Creation” and “Suprematism of World Construction”. The ideas of Kazimir Malevich had a decisive influence on the formation creative personality Lazar Lissitzky.
I.G. Erenburg. 6 stories about easy ends. M.; Berlin, 1922. Cover by El Lissitzky
In Vitebsk, the album "PROUN" was also conceived, the name of which stands for "Project for the Approval of the New", published already in Moscow, where Lissitzky returned in early 1921. Eleven lithographs in it were preceded by a "Declaration". Some of the lithographs had the names "City", "Bridge", while others were indicated only by numbers. The circulation of the almanac was 50 copies. There was something cosmic in the Suprematist constructions. “We are now experiencing an exceptional era of entering our consciousness of a new birth in space,” wrote the artist.
At the end of 1921, Lissitzky went on a business trip to Germany to Berlin. This city at that time was the center cultural life both emigrant, opposition to the regime established in Russia, and sympathetic to it. Russian publishing houses worked there, magazines were published, exhibitions were held. Russian intellectuals used to gather at the Nollendorfplatz café, where they held a kind of public reading on Fridays. Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan, Andrei Bely, Boris Pasternak, Viktor Shklovsky have been here... Lissitzky met the young poet Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (1891-1967) here. The first novel that made him famous, The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito and His Disciples, had not yet been published. Together with Ehrenburg, Lissitzky began publishing the journal Veshch, which they opened with a joint declaration. On its cover, the title was given in Russian, German and French, some articles were published in the same way in the journal. The magazine did not last long: the first double issue came out at the beginning of 1922, the next in May; Unfortunately, there was no continuation. “The Thing,” Ehrenburg later said, “was published by the Scythians publishing house. It is easy to guess how far the revolutionary Slavophiles and incorrigible populists were from the ideas of constructivism that we preached. After the first issue, they could not stand it and dissociated themselves from us in print. But the magazine was conceived on a grand scale. The first 32-page issue had six sections: art and the public, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, theater and circus, music, cinema. The "Literature" section published poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Yesenin, Boris Pasternak, Nikolai Aseev, French and German poets. In 1976, The Thing magazine was translated into English and published with detailed comments.
The opening page of the magazine "Thing"
In the same 1922, Lissitzky also made a cover for the book “6 Stories about Easy Ends” by Ilya Ehrenburg, published in Berlin by the Helikon publishing house. Two colors dominated here - black and red, contrasting, but miraculously and harmonizing with each other. For several years, such a decision became the main one for Lissitzky - it was as if other colors did not exist for him. Whether Lissitzky knew about it or not, at the same time he followed the old national tradition: in the early printed Russian book in Cyrillic type, only these two colors were also used.
El Lissitzky. Cover of the magazine "Thing"
Friendly relations with Ehrenburg remained with Lissitzky until the end of his days. Subsequently, already at the end of his life, Ilya Grigorievich recalled: “Lissitzky firmly believed in constructivism. In life, he was gentle, extremely kind, sometimes naive, fell ill, fell in love, as they fell in love in the last century, blindly, selflessly. And in art, he seemed an adamant mathematician, inspired by accuracy, raving about sobriety. He was an extraordinary inventor, he knew how to arrange a stand on exhibition so that the poverty of the artifacts seemed to be an excess; knew how to build a book in a new way.
great love Lissitzky was Sophie Küppers, a recently widowed woman with two small children, the owner art gallery in Hannover. It is difficult to say what attracted a young, beautiful and rich German woman to a frail, half-poor and, moreover, sick (Lissitzky had tuberculosis) Jew. Sophie followed Lissitzky to the Soviet Union, tasted all the delights of the Stalinist regime here, was exiled to Siberia during the war years and died in Novosibirsk on December 10, 1978, having outlived her second husband by 37 years.
But back to Germany in the early 1920s. finest hour struck for Lazar Lissitzky in 1922-1923, when two of his books, “A Suprematist Tale about Two Squares” and “For a Voice” by V.V. Mayakovsky, were published in Berlin. Lazar Markovich designed many books, but these two he considered the main ones - it was they he named, answering on February 25, 1925, the corresponding question in the questionnaire of one of the German encyclopedias.
"Skaz" was "built" in 1920 in Vitebsk. It was published by the Berlin publishing house "Scythians". The activities of this publishing house, founded by E.G. Lundberg, did not last long from 1920 to 1925. The book was printed in the printing house of E. Haberland in Leipzig.
El Lissitzky. Spreads of the collection "Mayakovsky for Voice". 1922
"Suprematist tale about two squares" is a 10-page brochure addressed to "everyone, all the guys." There is almost no text in it. The plot, quite transparent, but not immediately perceived, unfolds in pictures. Two squares black and red are flying towards Earth from distant space. Here they see the dominance of black and "disturbing". Striking black and harmony is established. Red buildings are erected on black soil. The subtext is the story of eternal struggle good with evil, as well as a premonition of the great upheavals that the twentieth century was preparing for humanity. For Lissitzky, first of all, the play of forms and colors was important, to which everything is subordinate. The design of the Tale was far from politics, because in it red was opposed not to white, but to black.
The little book was a success and in the same 1922 was reprinted in The Hague (Netherlands). Her cinematography, so to speak, immediately caught the eye. "The Tale" was even going to be filmed, but this idea, unfortunately, was not implemented.
For the collection "For the voice" V.V. Mayakovsky selected 13 poems. The Moscow State Publishing House, which until the NEP proclaimed in 1921 was almost a monopoly on the book market, did not like the collection. It was not exactly banned, but it was clearly not recommended for publication. It was then that the idea came to release the collection in Berlin. The representative of the People's Commissariat of Education and the State Publishing House in Berlin, Zinovy Grigorievich Grinberg, helped in this. With his blessing, the heading “R.S.F.S.R. State publishing house. Berlin 1923". Moscow did not give permission for this.
Actually, it must be said that V.V. Mayakovsky did not experience difficulties with the publication of his books, although Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was brought up on the Russian classics 19th century, once publicly said that he did not belong to the fans of his work. But he immediately admitted his incompetence in this area. In 1923 alone, 15 collections of Mayakovsky's poems were published. Among them is a kind of two-volume collected works "13 years of work".
The “well-wishers” immediately informed Moscow about ZG Grinberg's decision. The authorities immediately made him an appropriate suggestion. On June 23, 1923, the head of the State Publishing House Nikolai Leonidovich Meshcheryakov (1865-1942) wrote to Grinberg:
“According to the information we have received, in Berlin, according to your order, the printing of V.V. Mayakovsky’s book “Mayakovsky for Voice” is currently being completed with the indication on the cover: State Publishing House, Berlin.
If this information is quite true, then, although for commercial reasons we do not find it possible to make changes to the already finished publication, delay the publication and sale of it, nevertheless we point out to you that it is completely inadmissible for you to give orders for the publication without the sanction of their editor Gosizdat, because Gosizdat bears ideological responsibility for all publications to the party and Soviet power editorial board of the State Publishing House.
At the same time, we bring to your attention that, according to the decision of the Administrative Commission of the State Publishing House of the 21st of this month, you personally bear all responsibility for all misunderstandings, both commercial and legal, that may arise in connection with the above-mentioned publication of the book by V. V. Mayakovsky ".
El Lissitzky. Cover of the collection "Mayakovsky for Voice". 1922
ZG Grinberg asked for permission to print the book after the fact, but received no answer from Moscow. The case was not completed even more than a year later. On November 22, 1924, Grinberg wrote to Moscow: “... the third question concerns the detention here also of Mayakovsky's book “For the Voice”. As you probably know from my letter, Mayakovsky published a collection of his poems "Mayakovsky for Voice" here. At the request of the author, considering his book not harmful to Gosizdat as an author with big circle readers, I bought here 2000 copies. and gave the corresponding order to the book publishing department of 15/XI 22. The book publishing department put a publisher's mark on the book without asking my consent. When I asked whether this book should be sent to Gosizdat, the latter did not give me any answer. The book is still here. Bringing to your attention the above, I beg you to tell me what to do with Mayakovsky's book in the amount of 1000 copies. One thousand copies Mayakovsky took with him for transfer to the State Publishing House.
So, we learn that the book publishing department of the Berlin trade mission supposedly, without Grinberg's knowledge, put the stamp of the State Publishing House on the book. At that time, this department was headed by Ivan Pavlovich Ladyzhnikov. In his handwritten memoirs, kept in the V.V. Mayakovsky Museum, there is a short mention of the book “For Voice”: “In Germany, V.V. Mayakovsky set out to publish a book. The fact is that it was difficult to publish in Moscow at that time - there was no paper. I was in charge of the publishing department of the trade mission in Berlin and tried to help in the publication of his volume of poetry. He was fascinated by appearance form. Someone inspired him, it seems, Lissitzky. There was not much original in the form, but since a person likes it, why not do it, not help. And I helped in every possible way." Ladyzhnikov, as we can see, was skeptical about the concept of book design developed by Lissitzky. Let's talk about the decision proposed by the artist to make sure how wrong the official of the trade mission was.
Lissitzky designed the book as a telephone directory with a ladder-register, allowing you to quickly find the right poem. On the cutouts of the register there are abbreviated names of poems "March", "Kuma", "Love", "Sun", as well as symbolic two-color drawings made up of rectangles and circles. As in The Tale, only two colors are used in this book (except for white color paper) black and red. Their struggle, turning into cooperation, continues.
The register gave the book a volume that you immediately feel when you take it in your hands. Art historian Yuri Yakovlevich Gerchuk in this regard wrote about the “dynamics of the book”: “The table of contents-register,” he argued, “organizes many “entrances” into the book, gives quick access to the beginning of each poem” .
The collection "For Voice" was printed by a small Berlin printing house "Lutze und Vogt" ("Lutze & Vogt G.m.b.H."). The book was published in January 1923. She was "dressed" in a cover made of soft cardboard, painted in Orange color. The book is prefaced with an inset title page with a hand-drawn composition and typesetting in red text. This is the only sheet of the book printed from a halftone block. As a frontispiece, a composition in the form of a circle was used, inside which a triangle, a circle, a square and the letters L Yu B were placed. These are the initials of V. V. Mayakovsky's beloved Lily Yurievna Brik. If you read this inscription counterclockwise, it turns out "LOVE". Thus the frontispiece is at the same time an initiation.
The circulation is not indicated in the publication. From the above letter from ZG Grinberg it is known that he purchased 2,000 copies and that 1,000 of them were given to Mayakovsky, who took them to Russia. The poet liked the book, but, oddly enough, he only mentioned it once, in an interview given in 1924. He said the following: “The Berlin publishing house of the RSFSR published the book “Mayakovsky for Voice” (design by the artist Lissitzky), which is exceptional in terms of the technique of performing graphic art.” The phrase is clumsy; one feels that these are not the words of Mayakovsky, but of the journalist who interviewed him.
El Lissitzky. Cover of the book "About 2 squares". 1922
Lissitzky himself spoke about the history of the publication "For the Voice" in an interview that he gave on February 19, 1939. “At the end of 1922,” he said, “we learned that Mayakovsky was flying to Berlin. This was characteristic of Mayakovsky he always used the latest transport possibilities. Mayakovsky informed me that the State Publishing House was going to publish his book. For this, a branch of the State Publishing House was created in Berlin. Mayakovsky suggested that I take over the graphic design of the book, while he would act as the author, and Lilya Brik as the editor. We selected 13 poems. The book was intended for public reading. To help the reader quickly find the right poem, I came up with the idea to use the principle of register here. Vladimir Vladimirovich agreed with this. Usually our books were printed in large printing houses. Lead technical editor Scaponi found a small print shop for us. He said: "This venture is better done in a small establishment, where you will be understood more quickly." The typesetter was German. He dialed completely mechanically. For each page I made a special sketch for it. He thought we were a little touched. In the process of work, the management of the printing house and typesetters were fascinated by this unusual book and realized that its content required original design. At their request, I translated poetry for them.
As you can see, the circumstances of the publication of "For the Voice" are told by Lissitzky differently than in the correspondence between Z. Grinberg and N. Meshcheryakov. Something the artist forgot for a long time. For example, he called the technical editor of the State Publishing House Bruno Georgievich Scamoni Scaponi.
"For the Voice" is not a rare book. The Book Museum of the Russian State Library alone has eight copies of it. Among them are those that belonged to the famous bibliophiles V.A. Desnitsky, A.K. Tarasenkov, N.P. Smirnov-Sokolsky. But in famous library Russian poetry of Ivan Nikanorovich Rozanov did not have it.
I was fortunate enough to purchase this book in August 1945 in a second-hand bookstore on what was then Sovetskaya Square. I paid for it a symbolic amount for those times - 35 pre-reform rubles. Books in the first post-war years were fabulously cheap. At that time I was fond of Mayakovsky, but I had not heard anything about Lissitzky. And only many years later did I discover what a treasure I own. The copy I bought was complete and clean. In the poem “The Story of How the Godfather Interpreted Wrangel,” it even preserved the lines:
Censorship mercilessly blacked out these lines, and in subsequent editions they were thrown out altogether.
To be continued.
Poster of El Lissitzky's lecture "Modern Art in Russia" in Hannover 1923
Paper, lithograph 41.3 x 58.5 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Introduction. How Lissitzky ended up with Shukhov
These days a retrospective exhibition of El Lissitzky is taking place in Moscow. The organizers decided to take an interesting step to divide it into 2 parts, geographically separate: Part I - in the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, and II - in the New Tretyakov Gallery.
I decided to write down my impressions immediately after visiting the Jewish Museum, without going to the Tretyakov Gallery. I suppose there will be 3 notes: I, II - dedicated to the exposition of the Tretyakov Gallery and containing the chronology of the artist's life, and III - I would like to shine a light on EL book graphics.
The placement of part of the exhibition in the Jewish Museum seems symbolic. It's not about nationality, but about the museum space itself. The Tolerance Center occupies the building of the former Bakhmetevsky garage - an architectural monument of the Soviet avant-garde. It was built in 1927 according to the design of Konstantin Melnikov and Vladimir Shukhov for the English buses of the Leyland company. That is, the building itself sets the viewer in the right mood.
The Jewish Museum is the most technologically advanced in Moscow (interactive technologies, etc.). I'm sure Lissitzky the engineer would have liked it.
"Constructor". self-portrait
According to Nikolai Khardzhiev, the impetus for the creation of this self-portrait was Michelangelo's quote from Giorgio Vasari: "The compass should be kept in the eye, not in the hand, for the hand works, but the eye judges." According to Vasari, Michelangelo "followed the same thing in architecture."
Lissitzky considered the compass an essential tool contemporary artist. The motif of the compass as an attribute of modern artistic thinking the creator-designer repeatedly appeared in his works, serving as a metaphor for impeccable accuracy.
In theoretical writings, he proclaimed a new type of artist "with a brush, hammer and compass in his hands", creating the "City of the Commune". In the article "Suprematism of Peacebuilding" Lissitzky wrote:
“We, who have gone beyond the limits of the picture, have taken into our hands the plumb line of economy, the ruler and the compass, because the splashed brush does not correspond to our clarity, and, if we need, we will take the machine into our hands, because to reveal creativity and the brush, and the ruler, and the compass, and the machine are only the last joint of my finger that traces the path.
Holy Trinity Church, Vitebsk, 1910
Paper, graphite pencil, gouache 30 x 37.7 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Vitebsk branch of the Russian avant-garde
I've always had trouble with terminology. A huge number of isms invented by art critics puzzled me. But if we assume that the first third of the 20th century is the era of the avant-garde (without going further). You might be surprised how many artists of this era gave Belarusian land. , Chagall (Vitebsk), Soutine (Smilovichi) and finally our hero, who was born at the stopover Pochonok of the Smolensk region, but grew up in Vitebsk.
Lissitzky and Soutine are now separated by a distance of literally two kilometers (Soutine's exhibition is being held in Pushkinsky).
Probably, at the beginning of the 20th century, there was a special air in Vitebsk: Chagall (who remained in the canvases to live in Vitebsk), Lissitzky, Repin (who had an estate near Vitebsk and worked there), and immediately after the revolution, the landing force led by K. Malevich and M. Kerzin .
Organization of the exhibition
I was most struck by the entrance to the exhibition (see photo in the title of the note). A huge space, two walls (one black, with the former written "Lissitzky", the other snow-white with raised letters "El"), formed a corner. There are two white inconspicuous doors in the white wall: entrance and exit. Very ... constructivist :)
There are 4 halls for the exhibition itself. The first graphics - I really liked the work with views of Italy (I had not seen them before). There are also illustrations and the book itself "Sihat Khulin" ("Prague legend" 1917); R. Kipling "The Tale of the Curious Baby Elephant" (in Yiddish) Berlin, 1922 - got carried away, we'll talk about book graphics separately. Sketches for the painting of the ceiling of the Mogilev synagogue.
Moishe Broderson. Prague legend. Moscow, 1917
State Tretyakov Gallery
The second hall - graphics design. Characters from the opera Victory over the Sun. A curious advertisement for the stationery company Pelikan, which he made to pay for his treatment.
The rest are reserved: for his famous "prouns", the magazine "USSR at a Construction Site", which he headed; photo experiments and design projects for international exhibitions.
I really liked that next to each book there is an iPad with a book downloaded into it, and you can look through it, see it in its entirety. Just great. Great option for book exhibitions, however, expensive.
You can take pictures. But the quality, taking into account the glass in all works, is average. Be sure to go and see it live.
I would especially like to note the excellent joint edition of the Jewish Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery "El Lissitzky", prepared for the exhibition. Made in the style of constructivism, with colored trimmings. It contains a lot of information (336 pages) and excellent printing (all exhibited works, many rare photographic materials). It costs 2500 rubles. - inexpensive for such a publication.
A lion. Zodiac sign. A copy of the painting on the ceiling of the Mogilev synagogue 1916
Paper, black chalk, watercolor 22 x 24.5 cm. Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Collection of Boris and Lisa Aronson Posthumous gift of Dvora Kohen, Afeka, Israel
I have no purpose to tell the biography of the artist (especially the chronology of life I will give in the second part). I have mixed feelings about his work. It is too different. As he himself wrote: "The Path of Creativity - Invention". He is an engineer, his constancy is in diversity, in the synthesis of various techniques. In the field of book graphics, I consider the most ingenious edition: Mayakovsky, V. For voice / designer of the book El Lissitzky. Berlin: Gosizdat, 1923.
The avant-gardists were captivated by the idea of the expansion of art in everyday life. All these isms (Suprematism, Constructivism, Neoplasticism) were transferred to design, theater, and book graphics. And this is exactly about Lissitzky. But there is another side.
He himself wrote: “Each state had its own David, who, depending on the need, could write the “Oath of the Horatii” today, and tomorrow the “Coronation of Napoleon”. David is missing today. He spoke of Jacques-Louis David, a revolutionary republican who later became an imperial court painter. Apparently, he, the editor of the magazine "USSR at a Construction Site", saw himself like that.
Ravenna. 1913
Paper, graphite pencil, gouache, chalk 31.8 x 23.7 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Memories of Ravenna. 1914
Paper, engraving 33.9 x 36.6 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Pisa. 1913
Sepia on paper 24.9 x 32.5 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Wood preparation. Drawing for a calendar for November - December. Late 1910s
Paper, ink, whitewash, pen, brush, drawing tools 10.2 x 24.7 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery Gift of A. A. Sidorov in 1969
Proun. 1920–1921
Paper, graphite and black pencils, watercolor 24.35 x 22.1 cm. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art
"Remember, communication proletarians, 1905"
Sketch version of the poster for the festive decoration of Vitebsk for the 15th anniversary of the 1905 revolution. 1919-1920. Paper, gouache, ink, graphite pencil 18.2 x 22.9 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery
Beat whites with a red wedge. Poster. 1920
Paper, lithography 53 x 70 cm. Russian State Library
They fly to the ground from afar. Building No. 2. 1922
Paper, lithography 25.5 x 21 cm. Collection of Vladimir Tsarenkov
"New person". Not dated
Parchment, graphite pencil, gouache 35 x 35.5 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Design (layout) for the play "I want a child". The inscription inside: a healthy child is the future builder of communism
"To help party education." Magazine cover layout 1927
Cardboard, graphite pencil, ink, gouache 26.55 x 18.1 cm. Russian State Archive of Literature and Art
Sketch for the cover of the magazine "Thing" 1922
Paper, collage, ink 31.3x23.5 cm. Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
The Constitution of the USSR. Poster 1937
Insert in the magazine "USSR at a construction site", 1937. No. 9-12 On the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution Museum of the History of Jews in Russia
“Peace, peace at all costs! Reforge swords! 1940
Paper, ink, pen 32 x 29.6 cm. The State Tretyakov Gallery
On December 30, 1941, one of the founders of Soviet design, architect and artist Lazar Lissitzky, passed away. brightest representative world avant-garde, who dreamed of creating a new Suprematist Universe.
Jewish avant-garde
The young artist Lazar or (as he himself signed) El Lissitzky was inspired by the idea of the formation of a new Jewish art. In 1916, already with a Darmstadt architectural education behind him, he hurries to take part in collective exhibitions of the Jewish society, and the next year he enthusiastically illustrates books in Yiddish, later, reaching for his roots, he goes on an expedition to Belarus and Lithuania in search of monuments of Jewish antiquity , publishes reproductions of the unique paintings of the Mogilev synagogue. Of course, he is cosmically (or Suprematist) far from traditional art, but uses folk Jewish symbols in his works. In 1919, he was already at the head of the Jewish avant-garde - the artistic and literary association "Kultur-League". Lissitzky set the main direction in Jewish book graphics, and collectors shed tears of joy when they got Jewish fairy tales in its design at Christie's auction.
Proun Art
Suddenly Lissitzky realizes that the flat surface of the canvas limits him as an artist. El creates the so-called prouns (“projects for the approval of the new”), in which painting borders on architecture. "We saw that the new painting we are creating is no longer a picture. It does not represent anything at all, but constructs space, planes, lines in order to create a system of new relationships real world. And it was to this new structure that we gave the name - proun, "he writes in a German architectural publication. Thus, Lissitzky creates voluminous three-dimensional Suprematist worlds, designed to revolutionize the art of the 20s.
Exhibition space design
Lissitzky creates a proun room for the Great Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1923. The visitor of the exhibition unexpectedly found himself in the proun itself, the space of which turned from a plane into a volume. So the “Room of the Prouns” turned from a hall into a work of art. The principles used in the Proun Room were useful for designing an exhibition of works by Piet Mondrian, Vladimir Tatlin and other artists in 1925-1927. The exposition entered into interaction with the amazed viewer, the halls were separated by bizarre screens, when moving with the help of an optical illusion, the color of the room changed, the walls moved.
horizontal skyscraper
In architectural projects, Lissitzky again took his favorite prouns as a basis. One of the most striking works that influenced modern architects is the project of a horizontal skyscraper at the Nikitsky Gate. Who would have thought that this fantastic idea would become real and even familiar in the near future! The project was not implemented, and the only example of the embodiment of Lissitzky's architectural ideas is the unfortunate Ogonyok printing house in 1st Samotechny Lane, whose roof almost burned down not so long ago. Lissitzky's idea inspired the architect of the building of the Ministry of Highways in Tbilisi. On the banks of the Kura River stands this amazing building, similar to a Rubik's cube. In Europe, the architectural ideas of Lissitzky are embodied, processed and embodied again. One has only to look at the modern master plan for Vienna! In the 21st century, a horizontal skyscraper suddenly becomes somehow closer, more understandable than a vertical one.
folding chair
Folding and transformable furniture has firmly entered our modern everyday life. In the 30s, Lissitzky and his students developed it precisely. And the project of an economical apartment made a splash at the exhibition in 1930. In the apartment, everything turned, combined and reincarnated. The tenant himself decided where to sleep and where to eat. Developing the space of the apartment, El Lissitzky skillfully used its small area. At the same time, his famous collapsible chair was created, which was included in all the catalogs of "classic" avant-garde furniture.
1929, Zurich, "Russian Exhibition" is a two-headed creature merging in love for socialism. Heads sit on abstract architectural figures, smile and dreamily look ahead. Lissitzky creates this poster using the photomontage technique, he was seriously interested in it and used it in 1937 to create four issues of the USSR in Construction magazine dedicated to the adoption of the Stalin Constitution. Lissitzky made several propaganda posters in the spirit of Suprematism, which are still popular, for example, “Beat the whites with a red wedge!”. Based on this famous poster, logos, Internet memes, collages are still being created.
book art
In the 20s, something completely new appeared in the world of the book, something strange happened with its cover. Lissitzky declared the book to be an integral artistic organism, and approached its design as an architect. " A new book needs new writers. Inkwell and quill quills are dead,” he writes in his notes “Topography of Typography”. No more picturesque full-page pictures for you - design and content are the same! The shape of the font is inextricably linked with the meaning, so the letters do not go in a single line, but “dance”, the interval between them either decreases or increases, helping to achieve maximum expressiveness with minimal means (“The Tale of Two Squares”). The result of Lissitzky's collaboration with Mayakovsky was the book-masterpiece Mayakovsky for the Voice, published in Berlin in early 1923. It is noteworthy that a register was cut in it, as in a telephone book - the volume was intended for readers. The book is amazing: what harmony poetic word and charts!
Born November 22, 1890 in the village of Pochinok, Smolensk region. The boy grew up in the family of an artisan entrepreneur. His childhood passed in the city of Vitebsk. General education Lissitzky received in the Smolensk real school. After that future artist entered the Higher Polytechnic School in Germany. This educational institution He successfully graduated with a degree in Architectural Engineering. During this period, Lissitzky travels a lot, visiting Italy and France.
Returning to his homeland, Lissitzky continues his studies at the Riga Polytechnic Institute. With the outbreak of World War I, this institute was moved to Moscow. Later, Lissitzky worked in his specialty at the Moscow architectural bureau.
The artist will begin to closely engage in painting only in 1916. At this time, he works in the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts, takes part in art exhibitions in Kyiv and Moscow. Then Lissitzky illustrated the works of Jewish authors published in Yiddish. In the works for these books, the artist whimsically combines the traditions of "World of Art" graphics with the techniques of hand-written scrolls.
In 1923, Lissitzky published reproductions of the murals of the Mogilev synagogue. These reproductions were the result of an expedition to the cities of Lithuania and the Dnieper region, in which the artist took part. At the same time he publishes theoretical work about Jewish decorative art "Memories of the Mogilev Synagogue".
At the invitation of M.Z. Chagala Lissitzky moves to Vitebsk. At this time, the artist is fond of non-objective creativity, teaches at the People's Art School. During this period, Lissitzky receives the pseudonym "El Lissitzky". The artist decorates the city during the holidays, participates in the preparation of the celebrations of the Committee to Combat Unemployment. He continues to work on the design of books, posters.
Lissitzky develops compositions that he calls "prouns". They were Suprematist three-dimensional figures. Prouns (New Art Projects) were created in both graphic and pictorial form. Subsequently, prouns became the basis for furniture design, theater layout projects, and decorative-spatial installations.
Since the end of 1920, the artist has been living in Moscow, where he is actively engaged in teaching activities. Since 1921, Lissitzky has been working abroad, doing painting and architectural projects.
Paintings by El Lissitzky
