Minimalist

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. In other fields of art, it has been used to describe the plays of Samuel Beckett, or the films of Robert Bresson, or the stories of Raymond Carver, for example.

Minimalism in visual art

A minimalist painting, for example, will typically use a limited number of colours, and have a simple geometric design. Minimalist sculpture on the other hand is greatly focused on the materials ( see David Smith and Donald Judd. While many believe minimalism to be a movement specific to geometric representations, it extends far outside this constraint.

There where three notable phases of the minamalist movement:

First the distillation of the forms wherin the greatest contributions are probably the Russian Contrsuctivists and Constantin Brancusi, the sculpter. The Russian Constructivists proclaiming the distillation was in order to create a universal language of art which the masses where meant to understand. It may have also had supported the rapid industrialization planned for the massive country. Brancusi's work was much more of a search for the purity of the form and thus paved the way for the abstractions that were to come, such as minimalism.

The Second Phase in the movement came with artists including Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, Donald Judd and Robert Smithson. Many other artists made important contributions to this artistic movement however these artists seem to exemplify the movement in very different areas.

Finally the post-minimalists including Martin Puryear, Tyrone Mirchell, Melvin Edwards and Joel Shapiro. The keystone of post-minimalism is the often distinct refrences to objects without direct representation. This has become the more predominent trend in modern sculpture.

Musical minimalism

In classical music of the last 35 years, the term minimalism is sometimes applied to music which displays some or all of the following features: repetition (often of short musical phrases, with minimal variations over long periods of time) or stasis (often in the form of drones and long tones); emphasis on consonant harmony; a steady pulse. It is almost inseparable, currently, from electronic music and composition. See also: Minimal music

It should be noted that the minimalist movement in music bears only an occasional relationship to the movement of the same name in visual art. This connection is probably one reason why many minimalist composers dislike the term. Philip Glass, whose group initially performed at art galleries where his minimalist visual artist friends were showing, reportedly said of minimalism, "That word should be stamped out!". Apart from Philip Glass, Steve Reich is arguably the most famous minimalist composer.

Minimalist Design

A design and architecture trend wherein the subject is reduced to its neccesary elements of function and form.