Minimalism & the Haiku

1915 "Black Square" By K. Malevich

When looking back though the pages of time nothing could seem more distant from one another than ancient Japan and the American 1960s. But when taking a closer look, there is actually more in common than one might consider...

In thirteenth-century Japan a movement occurred that would change the world of verse: the haiku. It was in the thirteen-century that the haiku first appeared as the opening phrase of an oral poem called renga, traditionally consisting of 100 stanzas composed syllabically. Later, in the sixteenth-century, the haiku, being much shorter than the renga, broke away completely as a stand alone form of verse. The haiku would later become mastered by Matsuo Basho in the next century.
The Traditional Japanese haiku consists of three lines of seventeen syllables in a 5/7/5 arrangement. These small, simple verses often focused on nature, emphasizing simplicity, directness, and intense images

1686 Haiku By Matsuo Basho

often juxtaposed in colourful and unique ways. Some of the greatest haiku poets include Yosa Buson, Masaoka Shiki, and Kobayashi Issa.
The idea and philosophy of the haiku is still around today and embraced by many modern poets including Robert Haas, Paul Muldoon, and Anselm Hollo.

Minimalism came into being in the early 1900s when Kasimir Malevich created a unique painting of a simple black square on a plain white background. It was this painting that set the Minimalist movement in motion.
Many different artists argued about the proper medium, materials, and messages that Minimalism needed to communicate, and in the 1960s it found its voice in Pop Art. Minimalism was to focus solely on the art itself, separating the artist's ego and any influence that the art might have on the viewer; Minimalist art should not speak to the observer about hidden messages to be discovered through clever tricks and analysis, it was to simply be a visual experience for the observer, the object as it is an object and nothing more. Some of the most well known Minimalist artists include, Dan Flavin, Tony Smith, Al Held, and Donald Judd.

1969 "Untitled" By Donald Judd

So how do Minimalism and haiku poetry meet? In their simplicity of expression. Both Minimalist art and haiku poetry express qualities of simplified directness and elegant juxtapositions on what expression really means. At their core, both Minimalism and the haiku set out to express grand schemes in the simplest means as possible. Both the haiku and Minimalist art are about the same thing: the experience and the expression. Minimalism is about the object itself, separate from any external modifier, while the haiku explores the grand in its simplest form, cutting out all the unnecessary to get to the center of what is being expressed. In the end, the haiku itself is about the image, or more so the word than the poem, a triumph of the simple over grand. Ezra Pound put it best as, "The image itself is speech. The image it the word beyond formulated language." This philosophy holds true for both Minimalism and the haiku.

Matsuo Basho