classicism

American  

[klas-uh-siz-uhm] / ˈklæs əˌsɪz əm /

Also classicalism

noun

1. the principles or styles characteristic of the literature and art of ancient Greece and Rome.

2. adherence to such principles.

3. the classical style in literature and art, or adherence to its principles (contrasted with romanticism).

4. a Greek or Latin idiom or form, especially one used in some other language.

5. classical scholarship or learning.

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classicism British  

/ ˈklæsɪˌsɪzəm, ˈklæsɪkəˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. a style based on the study of Greek and Roman models, characterized by emotional restraint and regularity of form, associated esp with the 18th century in Europe; the antithesis of romanticism Compare neoclassicism

2. knowledge or study of the culture of ancient Greece and Rome

3. 1. a Greek or Latin form or expression

   2. an expression in a modern language, such as English, that is modelled on a Greek or Latin form

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classicism Cultural  

1. An approach to aesthetics that favors restraint, rationality, and the use of strict forms in literature, painting, architecture, and other arts. It flourished in ancient Greece and Rome, and throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Classicists often derived their models from the ancient Greeks and Romans.

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Classicism is sometimes considered the opposite of romanticism.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anticlassicism
  noun
• classicistic
  adjective
• anticlassicalism
  noun

Etymology

Origin of classicism

First recorded in 1820–30; classic + -ism

Example Sentences

Beethoven’s extremes — the consummate Classicism of the First, and the controlled excess of the Ninth — were absorbing but imperfect in this reading.

From New York Times • Feb. 22, 2022

Bax, well known to New York audiences in chamber music over the past decade, started with a tone of pristine Classicism that swiftly dissolved into washes of dreamier mistiness, without ever losing clarity.

From New York Times • Oct. 15, 2021

Classicism had also been a feature of medieval art, while the artist, not yet even a monk, wouldn’t travel to Rome until he was in his 40s.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 12, 2019

Rivera’s, executed at about 16, shows the armless sculpture lying on its back on the ground — European Classicism toppled.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 9, 2016

And thus has come the spirit of what the late Professor Freeman was pleased to call “modernity” over Bath, once the peculiar preserve of stone and Classicism.

From The Bath Road History, Fashion, & Frivolity on an Old Highway by Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)

Related Words

• grandeur