Nisbet P. El Lissitzky in the Proun Years: A Study of His Work and Thought, 1919-1927

A Dissertation Presented in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University, 1995. — 654 p.This study investigates aspects of the work and thought of the Russian artist El (Lazar Markovich) Lissitzky (1890- 1941) in the years 1919 to 1927, during which he made radically non-objective art, designated by him "Proun" (from the Russian words for "Project for the Affirmation of the New"). Why did he begin to produce such works? What was their meaning and function? Why did he stop producing and exhibiting them? The study inquires both into the works themselves, and into the immediate cultural milieus within which the artist, in activities running parallel to and interacting with the production of Prouns, pursued issues directly related to the question of their status and modes of signification. Topics addressed include: the decisive effect of Kazimir Malevich's painting and theory; architectural imagery and discourse as the initial impetus and arena for Lissitzky's abstract works and their utopian ambition; the Moscow avantgarde's debates about the role of art in a postrevolutionary society as the context for the invention and elaboration of the Proun concept; the pervasive recourse to biological and organic metaphors and themes in Lissitzky's writings (reflecting his engagement with Oswald Spengler and the biologist Raoul Heinrich France), and in some compositions; the Prouns' signifying position within the field of contemporary abstract art (especially the work of Malevich, Vassili Kandinsky, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy); issues of abstraction and reference in Lissitzky's illustrations and graphic design for literary work by Ilya Ehrenburg and Vladimir Mayakovsky; the increasing importance of photography to Lissitzky, as a possible successor to the Prouns; his innovative fusion of typographic design, experimental photography and work on an architectural scale as a key aspect of the decision to stop making and showing Prouns. The dissertation incorporates newly identified or hitherto neglected images and texts by the artist, and includes addenda and corrigenda to the annotated transcript of Lissitzky's Proun Inventory, and to the summary catalogue of his typographic design work, both previously published by the author. The bibliography includes a listing of Lissitzky's published and unpublished writings.List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements.
Abbreviations for Frequently Cited SourcesProun and the New Image of Architecture
Proun and the Discourse of the Organic
Reassessing the Role of the Real
Reassessing the Role of the Real, II
Mixing the ModesAppendicesAddenda and Corrigenda to "An Annotated Transcript of El Lissitzky's Proun Inventory"
Addenda and Corrigenda to "A Summary Catalogue of Typographical Work by El Lissitzky"Select Bibliography