Topic > A Look at Perspective: The Transition from Art to Construction

El Lissitzky, a Russian-born avant-garde designer, painter, and artist, led the avant-garde movement from art to construction through his Prouns. Lissitzky began making his Prouns in 1919 which infused Suprematist flat geometric forms with a sense of virtual architectural space. Lissitzky uses axonometric projection instead of two-dimensional color planes, as Malevich did in his Suprematist composition. Using the rules of traditional Renaissance perspective, Lissitzky would draw a geometric figure and then rotate it 90 degrees adding a new volume that corresponds to the new orientation. This confuses the viewer's relationship with the composition, contributing to art historian Yve-Alain Bois's description of the Prouns as "radical reversibility." El Lissitzky describes perspective as something that limits space and makes it finite and closed, however Suprematism extended this finite visual cone of perspective to infinity through axonometry. Unlike perspective, axonometry moves the apex of a visual cone to an infinite point. Perspective is the means of expressing the limited world in which the human center is fixed. It limits the space within the field of vision in which the man has a fixed perspective. Perspective is the technique of representing volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface in a realistic way. It is the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface and positioning them relative to each other when viewed from a particular point. A perspective drawing is constructed using the observer's eye level and vanishing point. It is the vision from a particular fixed point of view; however, axonometric projection removes the vanishing point while adding volume and depth to the image. Perspective can be used and interpreted in different ways through various movements in art and architecture which also contribute to the transition from art to construction. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay New Man by El Lissitzky, lithograph on paper, is a two-dimensional drawing of the electromechanical show "Victory of the Sun". It incorporates geometric abstraction, the limited color palette of Suprematism, and the multidimensionality of Proun's imagery. The red square represents the torso in the New Man figure and his head is composed of a red star and a black star. New Man represents an axonometric projection in which the arms, legs and head are stretched. The image refers to the geometry floating in the space of the Prouni. In the avant-garde movement from art to construction, Lissitzky's Prouns defined Suprematist ideas of two-dimensional shapes and forms that were transformed into three-dimensional architecture. I recreated his artwork, New Man, where I transformed his work from a two-dimensional piece into a three-dimensional architectural work representing the movement from art to construction. The reimagined figure was recreated using three-dimensional objects that take up space and was placed in an empty room hanging on the wall. By hanging these objects on the walls of a room, it becomes a sculpture rather than a print. This sculpture is now able to interact with the room and is an articulation of space, energy and forces, rather than aesthetics. This artwork can now be viewed by interacting with the objects themselves. Lissitzky's original New Man figure piece uses axonometric projection where the vanishing point is infinitely removed and thus eliminates it from the image. The image looks three-dimensional as it shows depthfrom its projection, however, reinventing it in his Proun Room it becomes a form of architecture that involves the movement of the viewer to apprehend the space. Pieces of abstract art are displayed and physically hung on the wall allowing viewers to physically interact with the space. Axonometry within Lissitzky's Prouns forces the viewer to make constant decisions about how to interpret what he sees: is the figure hollow or in relief? Furthermore, Proun 19D is another work by Lissitzky that meets the criteria of perspective ambiguity. The top left corner of this piece incorporates polychromatic, sparse geometric shapes that create a multitude of viewpoints confusing the viewer and disrupting the spatial relationship with the picture plane. Both Lissitzky's two-dimensional prints of Proun's images and his three-dimensional Proun Rooms works give rise to a multitude of points of view that blur the distinctions between real and abstract space. This was an area that Lissitzky called the interchange station between painting and architecture. His Prouns utilize materiality, form, color, line, transparency and opacity, and Lissitzky extends his practice from Proun drawings to three-dimensional installations that transform the viewer's experience of conventional gravity-based space and portray a perspectival uncertainty. This is evident in the recreation of the representation of the human figure as I changed the medium to a three-dimensional installation made through collage using three-dimensional objects. Ultimately, Lissitzky's original New Man and New Man recreation explore spatial elements using moving axes and multiple perspectives; both unusual ideas in Suprematism. However, the difference is that the original piece uses 2D flat geometric shapes and forms with a sense of virtual architecture that give viewers an illusion of multidimensionality while the recreated piece is a 3D installation. This makes it a form of architecture where volume and depth are not an illusion and viewers are able to interact with objects. Therefore, it is evident that Lissitzky's exploration of axonometric projection and Proun imagery transformed two-dimensional color planes into three-dimensional architecture in the modern era. The use of perspective and the transformation from art to construction is also evident in many other works during the modern period. Mies van der Rohe's urban design proposal for the Alexanderplatz competition in Berlin incorporates existing aerial views. The proposal is drawn on an urban aerial photograph and the model is placed on top of the photograph. In a way the two images are assembled together in a similar way to that of the reimagined version of New Man where three-dimensional objects were assembled together in the style of his Proun Rooms. Mies used perspective as his primary visualization tool, however he resists the exploration of axonometry. Architects like Mies introduced distortion to make their ideas more explicit. For example, his 1935 Hofhauser sketch relies on distortion. The image gives a panoramic effect because the right and left of the image represent different perspective constraints. Furthermore, Vladimir Tatlin's Counter-reliefs (1914-16) were also three-dimensional assemblages made with common industrial materials. These were organized into multi-layered abstract configurations of elementary geometric shapes. Lissitzky's Proun Room and Tatlin's Counter-Reliefs are both made of similar materials such as wood and metal that do not require frames and spatial boundaries. Tatlin was intrigued by the flexibility and durability of these materials and created these three-dimensional installations to see what shapes anddifferent angles he could have created from the materials. His Counter Reliefs consisted of sheets of metal and wood folded in a certain way and hung on a wall, while Lissitzky's Proun Room was more abstract and experimented with geometric shapes and linear vectors that wrapped around the corners of the wall and ceilings. The term counter-relief reinforces the interchange between matter and void. The reliefs are intended for visual appreciation from a frontal perspective and are works created through sculptural techniques. Although Tatlin's Counter Reliefs do not perform axonometric representations like Lissitzky, the relationship between mass and void produces an illusion of space and depth. In Tatlin's Counter-reliefs the spatial relationship is inverted where the matter occupies the void and the space becomes the support of the work. Tatlin was strongly influenced by Cubist ideas. Many of his other works include The Fish Monger (1911) and The Nude (1913), paintings that used elements of Cubism. Tatlin fragments the image and separates it into different planes. Use curvilinear lines and rounded shapes. Although it is a two-dimensional painting, the depth and perspective are distorted, and the shapes of the figures and objects are simplified and flattened. Tatlin distorts perspective and breaks down shapes onto different planes. Similar to El Lissitzky, Tatlin experiments with perspective and the illusion of depth in two-dimensional paintings and then extends to his three-dimensional Counter-Relief installations. By extending objects into space, a relationship is created between the object and the surrounding space. The Bottle (1913) is another of his works that acts as a bridge between his early figural paintings and his three-dimensional Counter-reliefs. The Bottle combines the use of various industrial materials but has not yet freed itself from the restrictive flat painting surface and has not completely detached itself from the canvas and surrounding space. Additionally, Head of a Woman by Naum Gabo (1917-20) incorporates principles of engineering and architecture into his sculptures. Rather than sculpt or shape mass, Gabo constructs his sculptures from sets of interlocking components that have allowed him to incorporate space into his work. Similar to Tatlin's figurative paintings with distorted perspective and distortion of the human figure, Gabo also uses distortion but sculpts the human figure using semi-transparent materials to create abstract sculptures that incorporate space in a positive way. Perspective and the movement from art to construction can also be represented through movements external to the modern age and as early as 1300 in the Renaissance era. In addition to being an architect, Filippo Brunelleschi was important to the Renaissance movement for the rediscovery of the principles of linear perspective to a point that revolutionized painting and paved the way for naturalistic styles. Through his experiment, Brunelleschi observed that with a single fixed point of view, parallel lines appear to converge at a single distant point. He applied a single vanishing point to a canvas and discovered a method for calculating depth. This allowed many artists of his generation to create illusions of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional canvases. Its architecture consisted of perfect geometry. All of his works used linear perspective and were symmetrical. The churches he built had a real emphasis on the geometry of space thanks to his technique of using pietra serena and stucco to outline linear shapes and lines. Although Lissitzky's original New Man piece and the New Man recreation do not fall within the Renaissance period and do not represent linear perspective, they are still quite similar in the sense of showing depth and creating an illusion of three-dimensional space. on a two-dimensional canvas. However, the method.