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Ozenfant & Jeanneret |
PURISM: SPACE BACK TO THE TOPSpace is the central problem of Purism, whether architectural or pictorial:"We think of the painting not as a surface, but as a space."(Ozenfant et Jeanneret,"Le Purisme") |
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"Negro
sculptures provide a striking proof of the possibilities of an anti-idealistic
art. Inspired by religious spirit, they offer a varied and precise representation
of great principles and universal ideas. How can one deny the name of art
to a creative process which produces individualistic representations of
universal ideas, each time in a different way. It is the reverse of Greek
art, which started from the individual and attempt to suggest an ideal type."
Juan Gris - Cubist Painter in "Action" no 3, April 1920 |
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| Le Corbusier |    |
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| Katherine
F. Fischer
Nature Morte, 1927 (abstracts) |
The
Purist Painter selects the most characteristic aspects of each object -
front, profile, top, or base - and combines them with the ingenuity of Ancient
Egyptians (whom Le Corbusier revered). "Le Corbusier's pictures represent objects seen from in front, but their depth is implied in the lines." The fertile conflation of properties enables him to reassemble the dismembered Cubist subject matter into usually recognizable objects, to preserve their 3-dimensionality, and yet to unite them in a 2-dimensional plane. By linking depth to silhouette, Le Corbusier freed form from the conventional accidents of lighting that obscure it. |
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| Heidi
Weber , Le Corbusier - The Artist (quote) |
" Purist Composition comes from Cubist Composition; but one knows that in Cubism the object which has served as starting point becomes changed with regard to its organization in the picture, often very much so. Purism, on the other hand, finds it important to keep the natural appearance of objects. It does not presume the right to change objects more than up to certain point, so it selects objects which make it possible to arrange them with-out any deformation, so that their type will not be changed. This explains, for example, the fusion of objects through a common contour, the connection of elements in order to create one single object in the picture. What Cubism often resolves with a change in the specificity of object, Purism accomplishes by organic arrangement." | |||
| Man
is the highest product of natural selection, perfectly adapted to function:
his body is the most perfect demonstration of efficiency.
Ozenfant and Jeanneret re-designed Cubism as an art of clear, precise formal harmonies, and of clear, precise representation. |
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