pictorialism
Americannoun
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Fine Arts. the creation or use of pictures or visual images, especially of recognizable or realistic representations.
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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 Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pictorialism
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The first sequence of Edward Berger’s new German-language adaptation of Remarque’s novel announces about as loudly as possible that it’s on the side of pictorialism and spectacle.
From New York Times • Oct. 27, 2022
Her way is short on pomp in her exquisite calligraphic musical pictorialism.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 23, 2021
The tensions were clear: pictorialism versus “straight” photography.
From Washington Post • Jan. 22, 2015
The concentrated, constrained style, though, seems an odd medium for Ross's psychedelic medievalism and, even without a projection of the painting,, for the detailed pictorialism through which the music traced its annoyingly unforgettable way.
From The Guardian • Aug. 20, 2012
High reliefs largely preclude this kind of pictorialism.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.