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拍品專文
EI Lissitzky was born in Vitebsk, Russia, and trained as an architect at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany. Forced to leave Germany quickly at the onset of World War I, he returned to Moscow and became involved with the Revolutionary Committee for Art. It was through this committee that he designed the first flag of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party.
In 1919 Marc Chagall invited Lissitzky back to Vitebsk to teach architecture and the applied arts. While there he was influenced by the artistic theories of the Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich and by his use of pure geometric shapes instead of natural forms. It was at this time that Lissitzky developed his concept of the ‘’Proun”’ (see cat. no. 135) — in his own phrase: ‘the interchange station between painting and architecture.” (The Proun incorporates his acceptance of the use of nonobjective imagery but moves beyond suprematist flatness into three dimensions.) Lissitzky returned briefly to Moscow, forming a Constructivist group with Rodchenko, Naum Gabo, and others; in 1921, he was sent to Germany, where he remained for three and a half years, during which time the series including Totengraber (Gravedigger) was published. Settled again in Moscow in 1925, Lissitzky began to move away from his earlier abstract imagery, accepting the dictates of Soviet Socialist Realism into his work. As Stalinist views on art restricted creative expression, his work lost momentum. The later paintings and prints have little of the energy and visual originality apparent in those of the early ‘20s.
Gravedigger, a product of Lissitzky's peak creative period, is one of ten lithographs from the Figurinenmappe (figurine or puppet portfolio), which presents his plans of 1920-1921 for a restaging of A. Kruchenykh’s Futurist opera “Victory over the Sun” as an electromechanical marionette show. The opera was performed originally in St. Petersburg in 1913 with costumes, lighting, and decor by Kasimir Malevich. ‘Victory over the Sun” celebrated man’s technological supremacy over natural forces. This radical operatic work involved the use of atonal music and an alogical text based on a‘ transrational language. ”
Lissitzky’s portfolio, the second of two published in 1923 under the auspices of the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover's influential avant-garde art association, included ten litho- graphs plus cover and title page. The series begins with a design for stage equipment, to be put in movement by ‘‘electro-mechanical forces and devices,’ followed by nine sheets of characters from the opera. The present work is plate 9, the eighth of the nine figures.
Gravedigger represents the outmoded conceptions that must be buried in order that society may advance toward the ideal: the new man. The repetition of cruciform motifs reinforces the theme of the moribund and Neuer (New One), the last print in the portfolio, embodies the new ideal. Contrasting sharply with the contained coffin-like forms of Gravedigger, the figure energetically radiates outward, its head crowned by the Soviet Star and the core of its body a red square (the latter a pivotal image in Malevich's Suprematist works).
Steven S. High, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 72
In 1919 Marc Chagall invited Lissitzky back to Vitebsk to teach architecture and the applied arts. While there he was influenced by the artistic theories of the Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich and by his use of pure geometric shapes instead of natural forms. It was at this time that Lissitzky developed his concept of the ‘’Proun”’ (see cat. no. 135) — in his own phrase: ‘the interchange station between painting and architecture.” (The Proun incorporates his acceptance of the use of nonobjective imagery but moves beyond suprematist flatness into three dimensions.) Lissitzky returned briefly to Moscow, forming a Constructivist group with Rodchenko, Naum Gabo, and others; in 1921, he was sent to Germany, where he remained for three and a half years, during which time the series including Totengraber (Gravedigger) was published. Settled again in Moscow in 1925, Lissitzky began to move away from his earlier abstract imagery, accepting the dictates of Soviet Socialist Realism into his work. As Stalinist views on art restricted creative expression, his work lost momentum. The later paintings and prints have little of the energy and visual originality apparent in those of the early ‘20s.
Gravedigger, a product of Lissitzky's peak creative period, is one of ten lithographs from the Figurinenmappe (figurine or puppet portfolio), which presents his plans of 1920-1921 for a restaging of A. Kruchenykh’s Futurist opera “Victory over the Sun” as an electromechanical marionette show. The opera was performed originally in St. Petersburg in 1913 with costumes, lighting, and decor by Kasimir Malevich. ‘Victory over the Sun” celebrated man’s technological supremacy over natural forces. This radical operatic work involved the use of atonal music and an alogical text based on a‘ transrational language. ”
Lissitzky’s portfolio, the second of two published in 1923 under the auspices of the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover's influential avant-garde art association, included ten litho- graphs plus cover and title page. The series begins with a design for stage equipment, to be put in movement by ‘‘electro-mechanical forces and devices,’ followed by nine sheets of characters from the opera. The present work is plate 9, the eighth of the nine figures.
Gravedigger represents the outmoded conceptions that must be buried in order that society may advance toward the ideal: the new man. The repetition of cruciform motifs reinforces the theme of the moribund and Neuer (New One), the last print in the portfolio, embodies the new ideal. Contrasting sharply with the contained coffin-like forms of Gravedigger, the figure energetically radiates outward, its head crowned by the Soviet Star and the core of its body a red square (the latter a pivotal image in Malevich's Suprematist works).
Steven S. High, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 72