Still Life Filled with Space

This still life is a prime example of Purism, a style developed in 1918 by the architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (later called Le Corbusier) and the painter Amédée Ozenfant and championed in their journal, L’Esprit nouveau (The New Spirit). Promoting the elimination of the picturesque in favor of mathematical order and logic, Purist artists, including Fernand Léger, sought to represent the modern, "universal" forms of the world—especially machine-made objects—in a precise and balanced way as part of their effort to promote a new, modern classicism. Despite the generally smooth, brushless style of Purist pictures, Still Life Filled with Space has an unusual amount of brushwork and texture, notably in the patterned border, which the artist made by dragging a comblike tool repeatedly through the wet white paint.