
Chuck Close
A Couple of Ways of Doing Something
2003
Not on View
El Lissitzky
ca. 1919–20
This painting reveals the principles of Suprematism that El Lissitzky absorbed under the influence of Kazimir Malevich in 1919–20. Trained as an engineer and possessing a pragmatic temperament, Lissitzky soon became one of the leading exponents of Constructivism . In the 1920s, while living in Germany, he became an important influence on both the De Stijl group and the artists of the Bauhaus. Like Malevich, he believed in a new art that rejected traditional pictorial structure, centralized compositional organization, mimesis, and perspectival consistency. In this work the ladder of vividly colored forms seems to be floating through indeterminate space. Spatial relationships are complicated by the veil of white color that divides these forms from the major gray diagonal. The linkage of elements is not attributable to a mysterious magnetic pull, but is indicated in a literal way by the device of a connecting threadlike line. The winding line changes color as it passes through the various rectangles that may serve as metaphors for different cosmic planes.
On view
Artist | El Lissitzky |
Date | ca. 1919–20 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 79.6 x 49.6 cm |
Credit line | Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York) |
Accession | 76.2553 PG 43 |
Collection | Peggy Guggenheim Collection |
Type | Painting |
Copy caption
On view
Chuck Close
2003
Not on View
Piet Mondrian
1938–39
Not on View
Berenice Abbott
1942
On view
Jackson Pollock
1943–45
On view