Unorthodox Art: Minimalism
Is a white canvas just a white canvas? Is a red dot just a red dot?
Actually, it is. A red dot is just a red dot, and a white canvas is just a white canvas.
The Minimalism movement started in New York in the late 1960s. While numerous Minimalist painters exist, most of the key Minimalists produced sculptures. Most of these sculptures weren’t man-made; they were often produced in factories.
The Minimalism movement was a rebellion to the abstract-expressionism movement.
The Abstract Expressionism Movement
Abstract expressionism was a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s.
After the devastations of the Holocaust and atomic bombs, artists no longer wanted to depict a version of reality on their canvases. Instead, they wanted to paint what they were feeling.
Important figures in the movement
A major figure in the movement was Jackson Pollock, who introduced the world to his large “action” or drip paintings, formed by pouring paints all over the canvas. Jackson Pollock inspired artists like Pablo Picasso.
Another key figure in the movement was Joan Mitchell, who was famous for her lyrical and emotional abstractions.
Klaus Kertess wrote, “She [Joan Mitchell] transformed the gestural painterliness of Abstract Expressionism into a vocabulary so completely her own that it could become ours as well. And her total absorption of the lessons of Matisse and Van Gogh led to a mastery of color inseparable from the movement of light and paint. Her ability to reflect the flow of her consciousness in that of nature, and in paint, is all but unparalleled.” This type of art had its day, but soon the world was introduced to a new type of art: Minimalistic art.
Like all movements, the Minimalism movement needed lots of people to have an impact on the world.
A major figure in the movement was Donald Judd. Donald Judd was most known for his piece of artwork called “Specific Objects”, which attempted to establish the aesthetics of Minimalism.
Art critics called this art “ABC art”, “object art”, and “primary” structures, but the term “minimalistic” stuck. These artists hated the term “Minimalist” — or the implication that the work was so reductive that it was minimally art. The term came from Richard Wollheim (a British art theorist), who published an essay called “Minimal Art” in 1965. In his essay, he argued that the art had “minimal art content” — opposite to what usually defines Western art.
Influences on Music
Minimalistic art heavily influenced Minimalist music. According to Richard E. Rodda, “‘Minimalist’ music is based upon the repetition of slowly changing common chords in steady rhythms, often overlaid with a lyrical melody in long, arching phrases…[It] utilizes repetitive melodic patterns, consonant harmonies, motoric rhythms, and a deliberate striving for aural beauty.”
La Monte Young, for example, composed several electronic “continuous frequency environments.” Morton Feldman also made sure to eliminate variation. All of them used simple harmonic and melodic patterns in their highly repetitive music.
With such a complex world around us, I have grown to like this type of art more. This is a world more simplified than the actual world is, and that I can appreciate.