Painting in the style of minimalism Automatic translate

Minimalism in painting is a radical artistic movement that reached its peak in the 1960s in the United States. This movement is characterized by the extreme simplification of form, the rejection of figurativeness, and a focus on the fundamental elements of art — color, line, plane, and space. Minimalist artists sought to create works that exist independently, without reference to external reality or the artist’s personal experiences.

Origins and formation of the movement

Minimalism emerged as a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, which dominated American art in the 1940s and 1950s. Young artists of the early 1960s considered Expressionism overly emotional, subjective, and academic. They embraced a radically different approach, rejecting drama and biographical references in favor of a cool, impersonal, and objective approach.

Minimalism’s theoretical foundation was formed by the works of two representatives of the Color Field movement , a branch of Abstract Expressionism. Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt created calm, restrained works that served as a source of inspiration for a new generation. Reinhardt, who created his monochrome black canvases from 1953 until his death in 1967, considered them the culmination of abstract painting — the end point of the easel painting tradition.

Minimalism was significantly influenced by European movements of the early 20th century. Constructivism, the Dutch movement De Stijl , and Marcel Duchamp’s concept of readymades provided the conceptual foundation. Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematism became a precursor to minimalism: his "Black Square" of 1915 demonstrated the possibility of an art freed from mimesis and representation.

Principles of Minimalist Painting

Reduction to essence

The central principle of minimalism is the reduction of a work to the absolute minimum of expressive means. Artists systematically eliminated everything they considered unimportant: details, ornamentation, complex compositions, symbolism. Frank Stella formulated this idea with utmost clarity: "What you see is what you see." The work does not conceal deeper meanings or refer to anything external.

This reduction extended to all aspects of the work. The color palette was limited to a few shades or monochrome. Forms were simplified to basic geometric shapes — squares, rectangles, circles, lines. Composition became elementary, often symmetrical or based on the repetition of identical elements.

Rejection of illusion and expressiveness

Minimalists consciously distanced themselves from Abstract Expressionism, eliminating biographical references and metaphors of any kind from their art. Donald Judd and his colleagues rejected the concept of a work as an expression of the artist’s inner world. Instead, they created objects that existed in real space, not the illusory world of a painting.

Minimalist painting emphasizes the two-dimensionality of the canvas. Artists used hard edges, simple forms, and eschewed brushstrokes that might betray the presence of a master’s hand. Paint was applied evenly, often using industrial techniques, creating a sense of machine-like impersonality.

Geometric abstraction

Geometry became the primary language of minimalist painting. Squares, rectangles, circles, and lines were organized into strict compositions. These forms lacked symbolic meaning — they were self-sufficient. Geometric elements created rhythm, balanced the space of the canvas, and generated visual tension through proportion and scale.

The repetition of identical or similar forms is a characteristic feature of minimalist works. Artists created series in which the basic form was reproduced with minimal variations. This method allowed them to focus on nuances of perception — how small changes in scale, position, or color transform the visual experience.

Grid as a structure

The grid occupies a special place in minimalist painting. It provides order, creates a foundation for composition, and allows for the exploration of repetition and variation. Sol LeWitt used the grid as a starting point for his murals, introducing variation within an ordered structure. Agnes Martin created subtle, almost invisible grids that registered touch and time.

Martin’s grid isn’t just a formal system. It’s the result of an accumulation of touches, an embrace of the painting’s surface. The term "grid" is approximate here, as it denotes something malleable and changeable. The artist thinned acrylic paint to the consistency of watercolor, creating a rhythm of thin, dark stripes accented with graphite.

Monochrome and color

Monochrome painting is a key theme of minimalism. The use of a single color or a narrow color range allows for the exploration of nuances within that range. Yves Klein became famous for his intense blue canvases. Robert Ryman devoted his career to exploring white, creating works in which whiteness interacts with texture, substrate, and paint application.

Reiman’s work "Unfinished Painting" pushes the possibilities of paint to their limits. The title places the canvas at the pinnacle of the artist’s process-oriented practice, where Reiman distilled the fundamental components of painting. The integrity of the seemingly unfinished work asserts the primacy of experience — it is a fulfilling and renewable gift to the viewer.

Other minimalists used color differently. Ellsworth Kelly worked with bright, pure hues, creating large fields of color. For Kelly, color was not a means of expressing emotion or depth, but a subject in its own right. His works often consist of single planes of color or geometric shapes, organized into expressive compositions. These color fields represent nothing beyond themselves — they invite the viewer to experience color in its purest form, free from symbolic or narrative associations.

Negative space

The void around and between the elements of a composition takes on an active role in minimalist painting. Negative space is not simply a background, but an equal participant in the work. Artists intentionally left parts of the canvas unfilled, emphasizing the significance of what is absent.

Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Ryman masterfully used negative space to create dynamic and captivating works. By leaving areas of the canvas untouched, they emphasized the importance of absence — the void became form, creating a dialogue with the filled areas, and shaping compositional tension.

Predecessors of minimalism

Kazimir Malevich and Suprematism

Malevich’s "Black Square ," first shown at the "0.10" exhibition in Petrograd in 1915, became a revolutionary manifesto for a new art. Malevich hung the work in the right corner of the room — the traditional location for icons in Orthodox homes. His "icon" became a symbol of a new era.

Malevich explained that "an adequate means of representation is one that gives the fullest expression to feeling as such and ignores the habitual visibility of objects." Speaking of his first Suprematist work, he associated the black square with feeling, and the white background with the expression of "the emptiness beyond this feeling."

The simple geometric form of the square, unrelated to any artistic movement, ideology, image, object, or preexisting meaning, expresses the total freedom of the artist-creator. The "Black Square" is an act of pure creation, becoming the core of a new system that gave birth to other Suprematist forms.

Suprematism went through three stages of development. "There were three stages in the historical development of Suprematism: the first was black, the second was multicolor, and the third was white," wrote Malevich. The black stage began with three forms: the square, the cross, and the circle. These geometric figures served as the foundation and fundamental language of painting.

"Suprematist Composition. White on White" developed the idea to its limits: a white square on a white background demanded the distinction of adjacent colors, a complex visual experience stimulating meaning-making processes. The concept of "white on white" is interpreted as free creativity, a passage through the "zero of forms" in pursuit of something new.

Hell Reinhardt and the Black Paintings

Reinhardt created black canvases from 1953, when he abandoned color, until his death in 1967. These works constitute an exceptional body of interconnected works, unique in art history in their impact, intention, and execution. Reinhardt himself viewed them as the culmination of abstract painting — the terminal point of the easel painting tradition, beyond which no further progress is possible.

Reinhardt’s Black Paintings are square canvases, approximately 152 cm in size, arranged so that a ghostly Greek cross is barely discernible in a haze of close-knit blacks and grays. The artist believed they represented the ultimate in abstract painting — works devoted solely to art and bearing no reference to anything outside themselves.

None of the black paintings were completely black — rather, they consisted of a careful arrangement of tonalities, applied in multiple layers. For Reinhardt, black itself was the absolute point of abstraction. The purity of blackness absorbs any other form or color.

Encountering Reinhardt’s Black Painting is inevitably complex and contradictory. The viewer is stunned by the complete absence of narrative or color play, yet the canvas is awash with color. A closer look reveals that the seemingly monochrome surface is composed of varying shades of black, from light to dark.

The primary inspiration for the Black Paintings was the work of Kazimir Malevich, particularly the 1914 "Black Square." Reinhardt developed this idea further, creating works in which black represented not only the absence of color — a symbolic void with mystical implications in both Western and Eastern traditions — but also the inevitable allusions to Romanticism that the artist might deny.

Masters of minimalist painting

Frank Stella

Stella was one of the first artists to publicly formulate the principles of structural painting. His early works from the late 1950s demonstrate a departure from the painterly style of Abstract Expressionism. Stella created canvases with clear geometric patterns — concentric squares, parallel lines, and symmetrical compositions.

A characteristic feature of Stella’s work is the emphasis on the form of the canvas. The painting followed the contours of the support, creating a unity between the object and the image. This approach disrupted the traditional distinction between the painting as a window into an illusory space and the painting as a physical object.

Stella used industrial paints and application techniques, eliminating traces of individual gesture. The surfaces of his works are smooth, impersonal, devoid of texture that might reveal the artist’s presence. This anonymity was programmatic — it countered the cult of personality in Abstract Expressionism.

Agnes Martin

Martin never wavered from the assertion that her painting championed beauty and serenity in a hostile world. She didn’t simply reproduce visual formulas — even a cursory glance belies this. Martin didn’t indulge in an obsession with grids or repetition for their own sake. For her, the grid wasn’t a theoretical system without scale, but the cumulative result of sustained touches, an embrace.

Martin’s small, untitled 2001 painting contains no verticals — only a horizontal blue-gray rhythm. On a canvas small enough to hold in her hands, the artist diluted acrylic paint to the consistency of watercolor and painted five thin, dark stripes, underlined with graphite. Between them are more expansive fields, almost white, but denser than the tiny spaces left unpainted between the pencil lines and dark stripes.

Although Martin’s iconic spectral grids are considered true minimalist painting, the artist herself considered her style close to abstract expressionism. This contradiction reflects the difficulty of categorization — minimalism as a term often doesn’t quite fit the artists it describes.

Robert Ryman

Rayman became famous for his conceptual and minimalist works — monochromatic white mixed-media pieces on square canvases. He played with various textures and variations of white, creating depth and light. Rayman emphasized the process of material accumulation, not only by contrasting thick brushstrokes of oil paint with the relatively small piece of linen canvas — he created a visual shimmer by applying equally thick brushstrokes of orange, turquoise, and various greens over the first layer.

When white partially buries color, Ryman theatrically, almost demonstratively, performs a negation without negation, leaving its effect fully visible, sabotaging finality and continuing to reveal elements. The smaller, more idiosyncratic work, "Untitled" (1963), follows the accumulation of material, but the white only partially conceals the color beneath.

For Reiman, the edge, the fastening, the brushstroke, and the base become the subject, shifting "painting" into a set of material solutions. The sheet is treated as an object. This transformation of painting into an exploration of its own components characterizes the minimalist approach — a rejection of illusion in favor of materiality.

Ellsworth Kelly

Kelly focused on color and form as central elements of his artistic practice. Unlike many abstract artists who used color as a means of conveying emotion, depth, or atmosphere, Kelly treated color as a subject in itself. His works often consist of single flat planes of color or geometric shapes, organized into expressive compositions.

Kelly’s color fields represent nothing beyond themselves. They invite the viewer to experience color in its purest form, free from symbolic or narrative associations. This approach challenges the viewer, inviting them to engage with the work on a purely visual level, emphasizing the sensory experience of viewing.

Kelly’s approach to color is rooted in the belief that color, in its most essential form, can evoke a wide range of emotions and sensations. He often chose colors not for their representational value, but for their ability to communicate directly with the viewer. For Kelly, color was not simply a visual element, but a medium for exploring the dynamics of perception and experience.

Works like "Blue Green Red" (1963) use three distinct colors to create a composition that is both simple and powerful. The boldness of the colors and their placement on the canvas create a sense of movement and interaction, prompting the viewer to consider the relationships between color, space, and perception.

Kelly’s contribution to the minimalist movement is particularly significant because he demonstrated that minimalism could be more than simply a reduction of elements — it could explore the relationships between those elements. His works often juxtapose bold, vibrant colors with simple geometric forms, creating a dynamic interplay that invites viewers to contemplate the connections and contrasts within the composition.

Donald Judd

Judd abandoned painting, recognizing that "real space is inherently more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface." This position led him to create three-dimensional objects, which he called "specific objects." However, his early work was associated with painting, where he developed ideas that would later be embodied in sculpture.

Judd’s early works demonstrate how he transformed paintings into massive slabs, carved in deep relief, almost sculptural. The sculptures that followed were similarly massive, with matte surfaces and layers of paint that revealed the texture of the simple wooden structure. This is a minimalism of honest selfhood.

Judd’s mature minimalism — a style from 1965 onward — possesses a chimerical quality. All these effects are decidedly sculptural, but Judd is one of those minimalists who learned much from painting. It’s not simply a joyful display of color and the flat planes of his geometric forms — it encompasses a host of other qualities of framing and manipulation of space.

The untitled work from 1966 is typical: from the side, it appears as a sequence of rectangular green frames, but from the front, the eye merges the frames into a receding tunnel of softly modulated tones. Paradoxically, if Judd is a painter, he is one who resists the period’s modernist emphasis on flatness, evoking deep space.

Mary Obering

Obering is often overlooked when considering lists of minimalist artists. Creating grid-like images composed of monochromatic and geometric forms, Obering combines certain minimalist concepts with traditional materials — egg tempera and gold leaf.

The work "Firefall" (1975) demonstrates how Obering adapts minimalist aesthetics while maintaining a connection to more ancient artistic traditions. The use of gold alludes to iconography and medieval art, but the geometric organization of the composition and restrained palette firmly place the work within the context of minimalism.

Techniques and materials

Minimalists often used industrial materials and fabrication techniques. This was a programmatic rejection of the romanticized image of the artist working in a studio, creating works with their own hands. By commissioning factory-made elements using standardized materials, minimalists emphasized the object-like nature of art.

In painting, this was expressed through the use of acrylic paints, which create a uniform, smooth surface without the texture of oil. Artists used paint rollers instead of brushes, stencils to create crisp edges, and sometimes even airbrushes. All these techniques minimized traces of individual gesture, creating an impersonal surface.

The canvas often remains the work’s essence, its existence as a physical object rather than a window into an illusory world.

Some artists experimented with canvas form. Frank Stella created shaped canvases, where the shape of the support determined the composition. Ellsworth Kelly worked with multi-part compositions, where individual panels of color were organized into a unified whole. These experiments expanded the boundaries of painting, questioning the very definition of the medium. /06:_The_Art_of_Engagement_(1940-1970)/6.08 : Minimalism ) 1960__early_1970))

Theoretical basis

Minimalists sought to subvert traditional notions of sculpture and erase the distinctions between painting and sculpture. They rejected the formalist dogma preached by critic Clement Greenberg, who placed restrictions on the art of painting and privileged artists who painted under his guidance.

The minimalists’ more democratic perspective was expressed in the writings and exhibitions of their leaders — Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, and Robert Morris. These artist-theorists formulated the principles of a new art that exists in real space and demands physical presence and movement from the viewer.

Minimalists believed that a work of art should refer to nothing but itself. For this reason, they sought to purge their works of any extra-visual associations. The use of hard edges, simple forms, and a linear rather than painterly approach were intended to emphasize two-dimensionality and allow the viewer to have an immediate, purely visual response.

Robert Morris was one of the central figures of minimalism. In the 1960s, along with Donald Judd, he became one of the most prominent exponents and theorists of minimalism. Through his own sculptures of the 1960s and theoretical writings, Morris presented a vision of art purified by simple geometric forms, devoid of metaphorical associations, and focused on the work’s interaction with the viewer.

This emphasis on perception and spatial relationships was a key focus of minimalism. The work exists not in the autonomous world of the painting, but in the same space as the viewer. It requires physical presence, movement around the object, and changes in perspective. Perception becomes a process unfolding over time.

Influence and development

Minimalism had a profound influence on subsequent artistic developments. Conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s developed the idea of dematerializing objects pioneered by the minimalists. Land art transferred minimalist forms to the natural environment. Postminimalism of the 1970s softened the severity of geometry, introducing organic materials and processuality.

Minimalism’s influence extended beyond the visual arts. Architecture embraced the ideas of simplicity, purity of form, and honesty of materials. Interior design, graphic design, and industrial design all adopted minimalist principles.

In painting, minimalism opened up new possibilities for exploring color, form, and space. Artists of subsequent generations turned to minimalist strategies, adapting them for their own purposes. Monochrome painting, geometric abstraction, and color field painting all bear the imprint of the minimalist revolution.

Malevich’s Suprematism directly influenced the development of neo-avant-garde artistic practices in the second half of the 20th century. After the works Malevich left behind during his 1927 trip to Berlin were redistributed among American and European museums, his ideas became accessible to a wider audience. The concept of "white on white" was embraced as a significant creative modality by representatives of minimalism and conceptual art.

Criticism and Controversy

Minimalism sparked heated debate in the art world. Critics accused minimalists of coldness, impersonality, and a lack of human dimension. The term "minimal art" emerged as a pejorative — an attempt to diminish the significance of works by reducing them to something lesser, lesser.

Artists themselves often rejected the label "minimalist." Agnes Martin insisted that her art belonged to Abstract Expressionism. Frank Stella and Donald Judd preferred to speak of "structural painting" or "specific objects." The term "minimalism" proved imprecise and somewhat confusing, but it has become entrenched in art historical terminology.

The debate surrounding minimalism touched on fundamental questions: what is art, what is the role of the artist, and what does aesthetic experience mean? Minimalists questioned the idea of art as an expression of personality, as a bearer of meaning, as a window onto another world. They proposed an art that simply is — existing in space, possessing form, color, and texture, but not speaking of anything external.

Perception of minimalist painting

Minimalism offers a slower form of interaction. It asks us to appreciate the beauty of simplicity. In a rapidly changing world, this can be a deeply satisfying experience. Reducing a composition to its essential form requires careful consideration and intentionality.

Encountering a minimalist work is a process of gradual revelation. What initially appears as a monochromatic plane, upon closer inspection, reveals tonal variations, textural nuances, and spatial relationships. The work requires time — not instant comprehension, but prolonged contemplation.

Ad Reinhardt’s Black Paintings are a striking example. At first glance, the canvas appears solid black. But as the eye adjusts, a cross-shaped structure slowly emerges, and the differences in tonal values become visible. The work rewards the viewer’s patience, willing to stop and stare.

This temporality of perception is an important aspect of minimalist aesthetics. The work is not presented immediately; it unfolds over time. The viewer becomes an active participant — not a passive consumer of the image, but a researcher, discovering the work’s gradually emerging qualities.

Examples of iconic works

Kazimir Malevich’s "Black Square" (1915) is a precursor to minimalism, a radical gesture that heralded the beginning of a new art. The simplicity of its form conceals the complexity of its concept: it is not simply a black square on a white background, but an assertion of art’s freedom from representation, a manifesto of Suprematism as a movement toward pure emotion.

Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings (1953–1967) push the concept of monochrome abstraction to its limits. Square canvases with subtle tonal variations demand a contemplative approach. This is the ultimate point of abstract painting — beyond which, according to the artist, it is impossible to move forward.

Robert Ryman’s white paintings explore infinite diversity within apparent homogeneity. Different shades of white, textures, application methods, and substrates all create subtle variations that transform perception. Ryman’s white is not a void, but a rich presence.

Ellsworth Kelly’s color compositions, such as "Blue Green Red" (1963), demonstrate the power of pure color. Three rectangular panels of different colors create a dynamic tension. The colors are neither blended nor graduated — they exist as distinct, intense presences, interacting through juxtaposition.

Agnes Martin’s grids, such as this untitled 2001 work, embody the meditative quality of minimalism. Fine horizontal lines, delicate tonal transitions, and a nearly invisible structure all create a sense of serenity and order. Martin claimed that her paintings champion beauty in a chaotic world.

Frank Stella’s works of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with their concentric squares and parallel lines, established the parameters of minimalist painting. Clear geometry, impersonal surfaces, and the unity of canvas form and composition — these characteristics became defining characteristics of the movement.

Donald Judd’s untitled works, though often classified as sculpture, possess a painterly dimension. Their use of color, flat surfaces, and geometric shapes connects them to the painting tradition. Judd blurred the boundaries between mediums, creating hybrid objects that are simultaneously painting and sculpture.

Mary Obering’s "Firefall" (1975) demonstrates how minimalist principles can be combined with traditional materials. The geometric composition is executed in egg tempera and gold leaf — techniques dating back to the Middle Ages. It is a synthesis of old and new, tradition and the avant-garde.

Minimalism in painting opened new horizons for 20th-century art. Rejecting representation, narrative, and expression, minimalists created a language of pure forms, colors, and spatial relationships. This art demands active, thoughtful perception — not rapid consumption, but slow contemplation. Minimalist works continue to influence contemporary art, design, and architecture, affirming the value of simplicity, clarity, and material honesty.