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pictorialism

American  
[pik-tawr-ee-uh-liz-uhm, -tohr-] / pɪkˈtɔr i əˌlɪz əm, -ˈtoʊr- /

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 Word Forms

  • pictorialist noun

Etymology

Origin of pictorialism

First recorded in 1865–70; pictorial + -ism

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.