Purism was an art movement that emerged in France immediately after World War I, active from approximately 1918 to 1925, and led by the artist Amédée Ozenfant and the artist-architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret). It began as a direct critique of later Cubism , which Ozenfant and Le Corbusier argued had become too decorative, personal, and irrational. In their manifesto Après le cubisme ("After Cubism"), they called for a return to an art of order, clarity, and precision.

Purism was founded on a belief in a universal artistic language based on pure, simple geometric forms inspired by the functional elegance of machines. Artists depicted everyday objects like bottles, glasses, and guitars, not to fragment them as the Cubists did, but to distill them into their essential, recognizable shapes. The style is characterized by clean outlines, balanced compositions, and a subdued palette of flat colors. While the movement was short-lived in painting, its principles became foundational to Le Corbusier's influential architectural theories and the broader development of the International Typographic Style .

The essay Après le Cubisme (After Cubism) was written by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier and published in 1918. This essay demonstrated the main concepts behind Purism. Some of them are as follows: