Purism

Purism was a movement interested in a kind of utopian vision of art and the modern world. This aesthetic approach was advocated and practiced by the French architect Charles Jeanneret, who would later be known as Le Corbusier, and painter Amedee Ozenfant. They described the principles of Purism in a small book entitled Apres le Cubism (After Cubism) in 1918, and laid out their theory on art. It proclaimed the great human pleasure in organizing things and being a part of that organization.

Reviling the growing emphasis on decoration that could be seen in the Cubist work, they wanted a return to order, harmony and rationalism. They believed that art should embrace the new, industrial world of the 20th century and to implement this theory many of their early works depicted or used objects made by machines, cool colors that emoted little real sentiment and a glossy finish that distanced the viewer even further from the image. This concept of cleanly composed lines, subtle nuances of color and an inherently intellectual mind-set would later influence many other artists of all medias, despite the fact that theses two architects parted ways some few years later.