History Main / Minimalism

* UsefulNotes/{{Dogme 95}} films are based around minimalism, which the inventors, Creator/LarsVonTrier and Thomas Vinterberg, call "purity." Films following the dogma avoid artificial settings, sound, visual effects, and camera tricks as well as non-diegetic sound. The film is supposed to be as accessible and realistic as possible. Notable Dogme 95 films include ''Film/TheCelebration'', ''Film/TheIdiots'', and ''Film/JulienDonkeyBoy.''

* ''Film/{{Alone}}'' follows a woman, Jess, getting hunted across the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. The vast majority of the film has only Jess or her stalker onscreen, with most other characters on the other sides of phone lines. There's very little dialogue and most characterization is given by implication. The music is largely restricted to a low-key DroneOfDread at key moments to the point that the only sounds over the credits are those of the forest.

* The mature {{paintings}} of Mark Rothko are comprised of a couple of big fields of color with very subtle gradations.
* Creator/TheWeaver has an extremely recognizable style consisting primarily of stick figures with only one or two defining traits among them, usually FunnyAnimals distinguished by the color of their lines. Despite this, he's earned an extremely devoted following of his works, such as ''Roleplay/RubyQuest'' and ''Fanfic/PackStreet''.

* ''VideoGame/MarsMatrix'' does this for ShootEmUp control schemes. Instead of a variety of buttons with different functions, you get one button that does different things depending on how you press it (tapping after a delay, tapping continously, holding down, etc.)

* Alvin Lucier's 1961 composition "Elegy For Albert Anastasia" is mostly made up of inaudible low frequencies, with the few audible sounds being extremely quiet or fleeting. [[ViewersAreGeniuses The concept: The Mafioso of the title was murdered because he "did not hear" certain important information; neither does the listener.]] [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible You may resume tilting your heads now.]]

* Music/NeilYoung is known for taking a minimalist approach to rock music at times. For example, on his song Cinnamon Girl, the guitar solo is played using one note.

* In 1970 music producer Michael Viner[[note]]Who later masterminded The Incredible Bongo Band, a popular source of drum samples in early {{Rap}}[[/note]] put together a joke album called ''The Best of [[MarcelMarceau Marcel Marceao]]'' [sic], purportedly an audio collection of the legendary [[EveryoneHatesMimes mime]] and his most famous routines. Each side contains 19 minutes of silence, followed by a minute of applause. Presumably Marceau's last name was deliberately misspelled to avoid a lawsuit. It was only distributed among Viner's friends and associates, but it's sometimes misreported to have been an actual for-profit release by a desperate record label.

* In 1970 music producer Michael Viner[[note]]Who later masterminded The Incredible Bongo Band, a popular source of drum samples in early {{Rap}}[[/note]] put together a joke album called ''The Best of Marcel Marceao'' [sic], purportedly an audio collection of the legendary [[EveryoneHatesMimes mime]] and his most famous routines. Each side contains 19 minutes of silence, followed by a minute of applause. Presumably Marceau's last name was deliberately misspelled to avoid a lawsuit. It was only distributed among Viner's friends and associates, but it's sometimes misreported to have been an actual for-profit release by a desperate record label.

* ''Creator/TheWeaver'' has an extremely recognizable style consisting primarily of stick figures with only one or two defining traits among them, usually FunnyAnimals distinguished by the color of their lines. Despite this, he's earned an extremely devoted following of his works, such as ''Roleplay/RubyQuest'' and ''Fanfic/PackStreet''.

* This seems to be the guiding philosophy of [[VideoGame/TeamIcoSeries Team Ico]]: Gameplay is mostly limited to one or two elements, implemented ''extremely'' well. (In ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}'' it's platforming puzzles and an EscortMission; in ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' it's {{Puzzle Boss}}es and horseback riding.) Cutscenes are few and brief, resulting in a high level of immersion for the player, and seemingly-simple plots that support a lot of analysis and reinterpretation.

* The three games in Fumito Ueda's VideoGame/TeamICOSeries trilogy of games takes place in a SharedUniverse and possess intuitive ActionAdventure gameplay design. They're not a series in the sense of other franchises, and is more of a universe that three stand-alone games take place in. Each of these games has a very minimalist feel to them due to being stripped down to their core gameplay elements, with no complicated background lore, few real distractions, and almost no sidequests. and the only real connections are the appearances of horns on certain characters, which mark them as sharing strange blood:
* ''VideoGame/{{ICO}}'': A boy with horns is imprisoned in an ancient castle. There he meets a magical girl who is also imprisoned there. The two attempt to escape from the castle and the girl's evil mother and shadows.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'': A young man goes on a journey with his trusty horse to revive a girl. He makes a deal with some god-entity and must slay a series of giants called Colossi to do so.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastGuardian'': A boy goes on a journey with a (colossus-like) horned gryphon and together they mature and become friends, escaping an abandoned ruin-complex and armies of living armor.

* The mature paintings of Mark Rothko are comprised of a couple of big fields of color with very subtle gradations.

* ''LightNovel/KinosJourney''. The art designs are very simplistic and the music is subtle and low-key. The show has no overarching story other than Kino travels from place to place and learns about the strange cultures of the lands. Most episodes concern themselves solely with the philosophical ramifications of the culture and pay very little attention to any kind of plot progression or character development.

* And speaking of Civ games, ''VideoGame/CivilizationIV'' sums it up perfectly with a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry[[note]]Incidentally, it's the tagline upon the discovery of engineering[[/note]]: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away."

* ''Manga/ShouanDays'': Aside from having a nominal ''one'' character, the dynamite girl, throughout the story, the entire manga's atmosphere is ''very'' minimalistic in nature. It has no central conflict, but it rather focuses on the main character's ventures into the world she has been introduced to, moments after becoming a human girl ''originating'' from a dynamite.

* ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}''. Again, very little dialogue, none for the first 11 minutes of the series, and Ichise, the main character, rarely speaks unless spoken to by someone he respects.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/studiya_stul_minimalizm_belyy.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:There isn't even anyone [[Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs sitting on it]].]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The anime adaptation of ''Manga/{{Shigurui}}'' is done this way. The color palette is almost black and white, except for the bright-red blood and gore. It has little in the way of music or background noises, and also sparse dialogue, with each line carrying tremendous weight.
* ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}''. Again, very little dialogue, none for the first 11 minutes of the series and Ichise, the main character, rarely speaks unless spoken to by someone he respects.
* ''LightNovel/KinosJourney''. The art designs are very simplistic and the music is subtle and low key. The show has no overarching story other than Kino travels from place to place and learns about the strange cultures of the lands. Most episodes concern themselves solely with the philosophical ramifications of the culture and pay very little attention to any kind of plot progression or character development.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Infamous enough to have reached meme proportions, Creator/TiteKubo tends to dispense with background scenery in his panels. He's stated in interviews that his emphasis lies with the characters themselves and, by discarding background scenery, all the attention is focused on the characters and all the action, emotion and detail comes directly from, and are focused on, the characters. It works: he's considered one of the best weekly shounen artists in the game despite the jokes about his lack of backgrounds.
* Mangaka Creator/TanakaYutaka flips between use of minimalistic dialogue and narration combined with gorgeous SceneryPorn to great emotional effect.
* The style of Creator/MakotoShinkai's early works (before ''Anime/ChildrenWhoChaseLostVoices'') is very minimalist, focusing heavily on the environment and the associated emotions instead of the plot, as if he is translating a prose into a visual form. These ones also often feature a MinimalistCast with almost zero side characters.

* Frank Stella, Barnett Newman and Donald Judd are the [[TropeCodifier codifiers]] of the style in visual art.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''Film/Alien3'': How do you try to top ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', a film which featured hundreds of Aliens, Space Marines, huge gun battles and a Space Operatic setting? The answer is you don't. Instead, you deliberately scale it back so there is only one Alien, no guns, and the whole film is just confined to a dank prison with a few lowly inmates running around armed with only a few knives and fire axes between them, in order to spend more time focusing on the human drama and the terror caused by the Alien.

* The style of ''Creator/MakotoShinkai'''s early works (before ''Anime/ChildrenWhoChaseLostVoices'') is very minimalist, focusing heavily on the environment and the associated emotions instead of the plot, as if he is translating a prose into a visual form. These ones also often feature a MinimalistCast with almost zero side characters.