The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet.
artworks
Important Art and Artists of Purism
Still Life (1920)
This relatively early Purist work shows a number of objet types, including a string instrument, two bottles, a stack of white plates, and a funnel, arranged in an orderly composition to emphasize the solidity of the elementary forms. These objects, taken from the kitchen, the living room, and the building fixtures, are depicted without any extraneous detail to create a modern aesthetic that reflects both functionality and a rational environment. The architectonic influence is apparent in the columnar neck of the instrument and the arrangement of the plates, as the top plate, its white oval turned toward the viewer, resembles an industrial duct, an effect enhanced by the tubing in the lower center. As a result, the painting is unified by its architectural structure, as the background rectangles of walls and window are echoed by the plane of the foreground and the serene volume of a building block in the lower center of the canvas. The painting embodies what art historian Kenneth Frampton has called Purism's "iconic ethos." The objects become dignified, even stately, conveying the artist's view that the mass productions of the modern world were aesthetically beautiful.
The palette, as art critic Christopher Knight wrote is "also derived from Cubism...Line is elevated instead, in forms whose crispness is enhanced by sharp edges, clear curves, and clear planes of light. The life of the senses is superseded by the life of the mind." Le Corbusier's paintings have been primarily studied, Knight noted, as "theoretical excursions into territory that would find its most compelling expression in the built world of architecture."
Bottle and Fruit Bowl (1920)
This still life shows a number of objects, including a bottle, a glass, and a fruit bowl situated on a pedestal, arranged on the intersecting geometric planes of a table. Hues reflect the color palette of Synthetic Cubism with warm tones of red, yellow, and brown contrasting with cooler greens and blues. Employed in broad areas that are delineated as if they were cut outs, the color fields create a bold graphic effect that also suggests collage. Relationships between geometric angles and shapes take center stage, further emphasized by color. The vibrant interaction between the objects reflects the café as a locus of social interaction.
While not completely identified with the Purist movement, Gris' development of his Cubist works around 1920 and beyond led to his exhibiting with the movement. Simplifying Cubism's multiple fractured planes in favor of an emphasis on geometric planes, he began composing objects to a unified effect on a flattened pictorial plane. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier viewed his work as reflecting the Purist impulse in Cubism and as an important precursor that lent validity to their own movement. Accordingly, Gris' work was included in the Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau in 1925.
Nature morte (Still Life) (1920-21)
This painting, emphasizing a few objects, a guitar's body, a musical instrument's neck, and three bottles against a background of grey, white, and nearly-black planes, reflects Purism's emphasis on the solidity and simplicity of formal elements. Unlike traditional still life, which often included plants, flowers, and organic forms, this work focuses on an entirely manufactured environment. The dark bottle and light glass in the foreground are shown in profile while their openings are shown from above, a Cubistic treatment transformed into Purism's emphasis on geometry in the repeating circles.
Ozenfant employs his distinctive architectural allusions, as art historian Kenneth Silver wrote, "although the extreme abstraction of Purist paintings - the compression of space, simplification of forms, implied transparencies - accounts for their 'modern look', a rather old-fashioned notion of hierarchies (specifically, Charles Blanc and André Michel's academic concept of architecture as the primary discipline from which the other arts descend) endows the paintings with their monumental sense of wholeness. Ozenfant's forms, particularly the fluted bottles and glasses he painted so often, begin to resemble Roman arcades and Doric columns." As a result, as Christopher Knight wrote, "Purism shifted the avant-garde orientation of Cubist painting toward the past - specifically toward the neoclassical tradition so prominent in French painting for 300 years." At the same time, aesthetic value is conferred upon these manufactured objects, as if they were a modernist equivalent of the classical ideal.
More Important Art
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