As a proponent/creator of the Minimalist Movement, Stella sought to tear down the belief that a painting was a window into a real/representative world.  The Abstract Expressionists had already attempted to accomplish this but with emotional, painterly brushstrokes that were too expressive for Stella.  He created art for its own sake, not to represent emotional, physical, or intellectual states.  He saw art making as design, a play on color, shape, and composition. Stella began as a painter and slowly evolved into sculpture.  He began by using odd shapes for his canvases, moved onto partially 3D collages, then started experimenting with aluminum parts projecting from a canvas, and finally ended up with 3D sculpture.