Purism

A modern art movement founded in 1918 by French artist Amédée Ozenfant (1886–1966) and the architect Le Corbusier. They rejected Cubism, and sought an art of pure and impersonal forms based, however, on the observation of real things. Although no great pictures resulted, Purism influenced modern architecture and design.

Purism was a form of Cubism advocated by the French painter Amédée Ozenfant and the architect Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). The theory of Purism is expounded in the book La peinture moderne, (Paris, 1925), co-written by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier and subsequently published in English as The Foundations of Modern Art.

The Czech architect and painter Bedřich Feuerstein was also influenced by Purism, as were the Eesti Kunstnikkude Ryhm (Group of Estonian Artists) in Tallinn, whose main members were Arnold Akberg, Mart Laarman, Henrik Olvi, and Juhan Raudsepp. Their journal, "Uue Kunsti Raamat", or "Book of New Art", which appeared in 1928, was strongly influenced by L'Esprit Nouveau and by French Purism's appeal to reason and order.