pictorialism

[ pik-tawr-ee-uh-liz-uhm, -tohr- ]

noun

1. Fine Arts. the creation or use of pictures or visual images, especially of recognizable or realistic representations.
2. emphasis on purely photographic or scenic qualities for its own sake, sometimes with a static or lifeless effect:

   The movie's self-conscious pictorialism makes it little more than a travelogue.

Other Words From

• pic·tori·al·ist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pictorialism¹

First recorded in 1865–70; pictorial + -ism