Digital Guide

A 3     Liberation from the Rules

After Purism

In 1925, Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant parted ways. As an architect, Le Corbusier now used his pseudonym. To maintain separate recognition for his work in art, he continued to sign his paintings “Jeanneret.” It was not until 1928 that he used the name “Le Corbusier” for all his activities.

Stylistically, Le Corbusier drew new inspiration from his friend, the painter Fernand Léger, and he admired the work of Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso. Under their influence, he liberated his painting from his own strict, self-imposed rules. Le Corbusier began to paint more freely and expressively. He experimented with organic forms, motifs from nature, and lively colors. The paintings retained their character as “arrangements” of things, but they became livelier and more dynamic.

During the 1920s, Le Corbusier’s understanding of the role of art in his work changed: He increasingly saw painting as a form of inspiration and a way to expand the imagination – as a method of “patient research.” Whereas architecture requires working within a set of given circumstances, painting offers greater freedom.

1 Still-Life with Numerous Objects

In this painting, objects seem to overlap each other. The shapes are translucent and playfully merge into novel form complexes. This transparency is also a theme in Le Corbusier’s architecture of the 1920s. The large window bands and the open, light-flooded spaces create connections between inside and outside, activate perception, and produce a ‘flowing’ spatial experience, where different aspects of reality overlap or are perceived simultaneously. In modern architecture, transparency is not only an aesthetic concept but also a social and cultural one that expresses openness, dynamism, and progressiveness.

2 The Hand and the Matchbox

Le Corbusier paints this composition with his own colour collection, the Polychromie Architecturale, also known as Salubra (the name of the company that produced these colours). He also used these colours in the interior design of his buildings. This dynamic composition consists of elements often found in Le Corbusier’s art, such as a matchbox, a book, or tree bark, complemented by the motif of a hand. Later, this motif also appears in architecture and becomes a kind of ‘signature’ for the artist-architect.

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