paraphrase of the poem's content. Printers also are inclined. without justi
fication. to reject th1s sort of thing out of hand. But it should not be for
gotten that we are dealing here with a book of poems. whose nature makes
this kind of treatment completely su1table. It must be understood that only
its general imaginative direction. not its detailed physical form. should be
considered a prototype.•
In an issue of the magazine Merz. El Lissitzky published some remarks on
typography which can be quoted here:
TOPOGRAPHY OF TYPOGRAPHY- On the printed page words are seen. not heard.
- Ideas are communicated through conventional words. the concept is
designed by means of letters. - Economy of expressiOn -visual not phonetic.
4. The spat1al arrangement of the book. by means of the type matter and
according to the mechanical rules of printing, must express the
strains and stresses of the contents. - The spatial arrangement of the book by means of process blocks.
which embody our new visual concepts. The supernaturalistic reality
of the perfected eye. - The continuity of page-sequence - the bioscopic book.
- The new book demands the new writer. Ink-pots and goose-quills are
dead. - The printed page transcends space and time. The printed page, the
infin1ty of the book. must be transcended. THE ELECTRO-LIBRARY.
Parallel developments occurred in some other European countries. espe
cially in Czechoslovakia. Hungary. Russia. Poland. and most recently in
France. Today, art1sts in all these countries are producing new work in our
field:
In BELGIUM: P. L. Flouquet. J. Peeters;
In DENMARK: Torben Hansen. Harald Landt Momberg, and others;
In GERMANY: Willi Baumeister. Herbert Bayer. Max Burchartz. Gert Caden.
Walter Dexel. Cesare Domela. Werner Graff. John Heartfield, Leistikow.
Hannes Meyer. Robert Michel. L. Moholy-Nagy, Johannes Molzahn. Peter
Rohl. Oskar Schlemmer. Joost Schmidt, Kurt Schwitters. Franz W. Seiwert.
Jan Tschichold, Vordemberge-GIIdewart. and others;
In FRANCE: Le Corbusier-Saugnier. M. Seuphor. and others;
In HOLLAND: S. v. Ravesteyn, Schuitema. H. N. Werkman. Piet Zwart. and
others;
In POLAND: M. Szczuka and others;