A new approach to understanding and reducing motion artifacts in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is introduced. This paper presents a novel technique for correcting generalized motion artifacts arising from translation, rotation, dilation, and compression, or any combination thereof. We also describe a new pulse sequence and a specialized postprocessing technique required to suppress these motion artifacts. The correction algorithm corrects for generalized motion. The theoretical basis of the correction scheme is founded upon the (k,t)-space formalism and the concept of pulse sequence contrast mapping functions. The proposed (k,t) formalism is based on the Fourier projection slice theorem and allows us to determine how motion artifacts arise. The correction technique currently suffers from some spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio limitations, and works better for small objects than large objects. These problems will be investigated in subsequent studies.