That these three movements developed in a period of technical expansion during the political, social and economic crisis that followed the First World War and the Russian and German Revolutions is no coincidence. Meyer Schapiro says 'the older categories of art were translated into the language of modern technology' (Texts A, p.41) as artists across Europe believed in their ability to play an active role in improving society. To this end they employed diverse means to engage socially and sometimes politically with contemporary life. All three groups included theorists, architects, and poets so that paintings and constructions were only part of the range of productions. While some artists in this inter-war period had resumed, or continued, figurative painting these movements 'often looked upon their work as the aesthetic counterpart of the abstract calculations of the engineer and the scientist.' (Texts A, p.41)
I shall start by considering Purism and Charles Edouard Jeanneret and Amedee Ozenfant's quote 'The sensation of order is of a mathematical quality.' (Art in Theory,p.240). …
