Precisionism refers to an artistic movement in American painting that emerged around 1915 and reached its peak in the 1920s. The artists who became known as Precisionists did not form a group themselves, but were united by their stylistic and thematic similarities and exhibited together. Their works depict deserted, urban, especially industrial pictorial motifs in an extremely smooth and precise painting style, with clear contours and minimal details. The artists reduced their compositions to simple forms, sometimes chose unexpected angles and placed particular emphasis on lighting. The European movements of Cubism, Futurism and Orphism served primarily as models for the geometric structures of Precisionist painting.