Pop art was not the only an alternative to Abstract Expressionism advanced in the 1960s. A group of serious, intellectual artists who were disgusted with the emotional outpourings of the Abstract Expressionists and the vulgarity of Pop Art began to make high minded and refined art known as known as Minimalism. Minimalist art is stripped down to the essentials, or as one artist said: What you see is what you see, it is painting and sculptures that are self sufficient and have no subject matter, content, or meaning beyond their presence as objects in space. Lauded by some as a return to purity and high ideals, other called Minimalism the end of art. What was occurring was a replay of a battle that we have seen before, the battle among Romanticism, Realism, and classicism, now in the arena of nonrepresentational and Pop Art.
On one side, one again was the defenders of emotions and expressiveness, on another, ordinary life, and on the third, purity and logic. Donald Judd was one of the foremost creators and theorists of minimalism. As an art critic in New York City, the Missouri born Judd became concerned that art made it difficult to perceive reality. It bothered him that, while contemplating works of art, viewers are inevitably drawn into illusion, emotions not their own, and references to the past. The only way to reconnect the viewer with reality, Judd felt, was to produce works of art with no expressive techniques, free of associations, that could be, seen to be simply what they were plain and honest matters of fact.
Beginning in 1962, Judd made sculptures that were controlled and completely logical, designed to cleanse viewers of whatever concerns or preconceptions they brought into the gallery and allowing them to focus on the situation the artist had created there. Untitled is a good example of how Judd resolved his interest in a direct. Honest work of art.