Victory Over the Sun by Mikhail Matyushin and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Lissitzky and the entire group chose to share credit and responsibility for the works produced within the group, signing most pieces with a black square. This was partly a homage to a similar piece by their leader, Malevich, and a symbolic embrace of the Communist ideal. This would become the de facto seal of UNOVIS that took the place of individual names or initials. Black squares worn by members as chest badges and cufflinks also resembled the ritual tefillin and thus were no strange symbol in Vitebsk shtetl. The group, which disbanded in 1922, would be pivotal in the dissemination of suprematist ideology in Russia and abroad and launch Lissitzky's status as one of the leading figures in the avant garde. Incidentally, the earliest appearance of the signature Lissitzky () emerged in the handmade UNOVIS Miscellany, issued in two copies in March–April 1920, and containing his manifesto on book art: "the book enters the skull through the eye not the ear therefore the pathways the waves move at much greater speed and with more intensity. if i (sic) can only sing through my mouth with a book i (sic) can show myself in various guises." Proun During this period Lissitzky proceeded to develop a suprematist style of his own, a series of abstract, geometric paintings which he called Proun (pronounced "pro-oon"). The exact meaning of "Proun" was never fully revealed, with some suggesting that it is a contraction of (designed by UNOVIS) or (; 'Design for the confirmation of the new'). Later, Lissitzky defined them ambiguously as "the station where one changes from painting to architecture." Proun was essentially Lissitzky's exploration of the visual language of suprematism with spatial elements, utilizing shifting axes and multiple perspectives; both uncommon ideas in suprematism. Suprematism at the time was conducted almost exclusively in flat, 2D forms and shapes, and Lissitzky, with a taste for architecture and other 3D concepts, tried to expand suprematism beyond this. His Proun works spanned over a half a decade and evolved from straightforward paintings and lithographs into fully three-dimensional installations. They would also lay the foundation for his later experiments in architecture and exhibition design. While the paintings were artistic in their own right, their use as a staging ground for his early architectonic ideas was significant. In these works, the basic elements of architecture – volume, mass,