Page 29 - Studio International - October1973

non-objective vocabulary used in these works. than the veneration of images.'52 'Thou shalt because it is now apparent that he adopted this
This idea of a special, small group brings the not', the Commandment ordered, 'bow down concept from the Jewish Kabbalists instead.60
meaning of Proun into accord with the thyself to them, nor serve them.'53 It is a heresy `In the West', Ponce remarks, 'the opposites
avant garde's vision of itself as a select number, to worship the image, because such 'idolatry is traditionally are thought of as warring elements,
with the Bolsheviks' consideration of the absolutization of the relative; it is absolute antagonistic towards one another until they are
themselves as the revolutionary elite, and finally devotion to anything short of the Absolute.'54 united, at which point they no longer are thought
with the Kabbalists' view that only a very few The art object, then, leads to a knowledge of of as antithetical but as one'. For the
individuals could understand the enigmas of the God, who 'manifests Himself in events rather Kabbalists 'in the first stage the differences exist
cosmos. Little wonder that by mid-decade than in things, and these events can never be in ignorance of or indifference to the other' (e.g.
Lissitzky's art, and the art of other progressive captured or localized in things.'55 Hence the night and day, black and white). The second
figures in Russia, was replaced by the mass overriding impression one gets in looking at a stage introduces 'conflict, abhorrence, or
appeal of Socialist Realism.47a Proun composition is that it is not Being, but contradiction. Here the opposites are openly
If on the one hand I can state that in Proun Becoming, a rendering of an ongoing cosmic hostile toward one another'. 'Finally, the third
Lissitzky was able to communicate only with a process that as an event, relates to the Jewish and final stage in the relationship of the
small group of informed spectators, on the other concept of the Divine. opposites is where they exist in a state of
I must add that the thrust of his art, as we have This revelation of change and process may be harmony, distinct from one another but
seen in Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, was tied to the Kabbalists' idea of Creation. Creation mutually cooperative, in love.'61 This vision of
to speak to all people of the ideal future to was born out of the act of tsimtsum, or the process of change then lets us return to
follow the Revolution. Many Jews may well `contraction', undertaken by the En-Sof, Lissitzky's statement in 'Suprematism in
have recognized in the term Proun that its first literally the 'limitless' or 'boundless', which was World Reconstruction' and understand that
and last letters appeared on tombstones, such the Kabbalists' name for God to symbolize His unlike what would be true in the Hegelian
as we see in the concluding illustration of Chad `total unity beyond comprehension'.56 As system, the Old Testament, Communism, and
Gadyo, to mean 'buried here', just as Proun is Charles Ponce has written, 'it was by the Suprematism will one day be 'in love', in
literally burying the past out of which the new En-Sof's retreat from infinite space into an harmony with one another, but they will remain
art and culture will grow. In addition, there are infinitesimal monad of pure energy that the `distinct from one another'. Lissitzky's art was
echoes in the word Proun of the Hebrew words world comes into being. If the En-Sof had not a continued, serious effort to achieve this
parahn (light-tower) and parnais (to support, contracted Himself there would have been no harmony.
maintain, lead) which are easily linked to the space for the activity of Genesis to take place. Within this effort there was unquestionably
role of this art as a beacon showing the way The world comes into being only after this much tension building inside Lissitzky. We
forward in man's progress. The experimental contraction.'57 Set within an infinite space, the should consider the prevalence of forms that
nature of Proun is evoked by the Yiddish word forms in the Prouns seem to expand and spin, rotate, expand and contract in the Prouns
paruven (to try, attempt). Thus the Jewish contract to represent the creation of the universe. not only as an evocation of modern engineering
observer, like his Russian counterpart, could It is tempting to explain the ongoing change and mechanical apparatus, not only as occasional
make some sense out of the word Proun, but in the Prouns by citing the pervasive influence recollections of the tsimtsum of the En-Sof, but
only a small minority would know the of the Hegelian Dialectic on Russian as very real indications of the uncertainty in the
multifaceted significance of the term. intellectuals in the decades before Proun.58 psyche of their author. Such uncertainties
As an object intended for communication To be sure, Hegel's vision of an essentially become more apparent when we turn to other
with humanity at large, Proun was envisioned orderly progression through thesis-antithesis- works Lissitzky completed in the 192os as part
as ultimately being mass-produced by a large synthesis was paralleled by the Jews' belief that of his desire to expand the nature of Proun
number of artist-craftsmen. This communal the world is orderly and to an extent subject to beyond the limitations of the easel painting.61a
ideal, so close in spirit to the guiding principles rational control. Indeed it was precisely this
of the Revolution, also lay at the heart of the absence of reason and order in Kandinsky's III
Jewish tradition. From the standpoint of the paintings that led Lissitzky to equate them with Lissitzky continued to pursue his interest in
maker of Proun, the lack of importance of a a rubbish heap.59 But it would be a mistake to Jewish art in Russia and, after the Autumn of
particular artist paralleled the fact that 'in the see Lissitzky as borrowing Hegel's Dialectic, 1921, in Germany where he remained for several
books of the Kabbalists the personal element is
almost negligible and so veiled in all manner of
disguises that we must look very closely to find Title page for The Four
Goats 1922
it. Very rarely did a Kabbalist speak of his own
way to God'.48 In creating this new Jewish art
there was every reason to continue the old
practice of using non-Jewish hands.49 The
communal production of Proun also paid
homage to the feeling that 'all Scripture, all
tradition, unite in extolling humility and in
denouncing pride and presumption as the
cardinal sin'.50 For it was man's service to his
fellow man that became, both for the
Revolution and for the Jewish tradition, 'the
true service of God'.51
From the spectator's viewpoint, this
communal ideal meant that works of art would
now be encountered throughout one's daily life
as a guide to noble action. No longer would art
be venerated. Although this was a major tenet
of both Constructivism and Suprematism,
`nothing is more alien to the spirit of Judaism
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