1918–1925 · Paris
Purism
After Cubism, a cleaner order
Purism is Cubism after the war, washed and set in order. Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier want objects as clear as bottles on a windowsill — no more shattered cafés.
They publish Après le cubisme (1918) and the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau. Painting should be as clean as a machine and as calm as architecture.
Léger, already in the Cubism room, is a cousin: the city as cylinders and chords. Purism is the moment that impulse becomes a program.
