PURISM. — The term “p.” and the attribute of purity have been transferred from the literary field, in which they undoubtedly have a very precise meaning, into the field of figurative arts.
In the figurative arts, they denote those artistic manifestations and those artists who occupy an intermediate position between the Neoclassical attitudes and the more openly Romantic ones characteristic of the years between 1830 and 1850. The latter, in turn, foreshadow the eclecticism of 19th-century architecture and the naturalistic tendencies of figurative art proper to the second half of the 19th century.
The purists, painters, sculptors, and architects, ultimately, appended to an imitation of ancient models—such as was proposed by the archaeological experiences of the Neoclassicists—the imitation of those offered by the knowledge of Renaissance art. Thus, purists are said to include painters such as Tommaso Minardi, Luigi Sabatelli, and Lattanzio Quarenza; sculptors such as Bartolini in some of his famous works and Tenerani; and among architects, Valadier, Poletti, Sarti, Amati, Nottolini, and others who, reflecting more the ideas and aspirations of Milizia than those of Winckelmann, preferred to study and imitate the works of Vignola and Palladio rather than those reflecting the precepts of Vitruvius.
The Nazarenes are therefore also to be assigned to the group of purists; their principal exponent, Overbeck, in 1843 signed, together with Minardi and Tenerani, the manifesto of purism compiled by the painter and man of letters Antonio Bianchini, at a time when the ideas that had truly nourished the movement were giving way to new expressive demands.