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Definition: classicism from Philip's Encyclopedia

Art history term used to describe both an aesthetic attitude and an artistic tradition. The artistic tradition refers to the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, its art, literature and criticism, and the subsequent periods that looked back to Greece and Rome for their prototypes, such as the Carolingian Renaissance, Renaissance, and neo-classicism. Its aesthetic use suggests the classical characteristics of clarity, order, balance, unity, symmetry, and dignity.

classicism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic quality of high distinction. More precisely, the term refers to the admiration and imitation of Greek and Roman literature, art, and architecture. Because the principles of classicism were derived from the rules and practices of the ancients, the term came to mean the adherence to specific academic canons. The first major revival of classicism occurred during the Renaissance (c.1400–1600). As a result of the intensified interest in Greek and Roman culture, especially the works of Plato and Cicero, classical standards were reinstated as the ideal norm in literature. In Florence, the early center of Renaissance learning, Cosimo de' Medici gathered a circle of humanists (see humanism ) who collected, studied, expounded, and imitated the classics. Outside Italy writers affected by the revival of classical…
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Full text Article CLASSICISM

From The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment
An infatuation with Greco-Roman antiquity pervaded the American Enlightenment, animating educated Americans in almost every conceivable branch of learning, from science to art to literature to architecture to politics. Enlightenment Americans—like their European counterparts—believed that the…
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Full text Article CLASSICISM

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The term classicism carries a cluster of different but interrelated meanings and so presents some challenges of definition. These stem from the varied meanings of the word classic , which can mean first class (the word's original, etymological meaning), standard, exemplary, or (in the lang. of…
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Full text Article classicism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
a term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms. It is sometimes synonymous with excellence or artistic quality of high distinction. More precisely, the term refers to the admiration and imitation of Greek and Roman…
| 621 words
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Full text Article Classicism

From The New Penguin Dictionary of Music
The style that was at its peak in the last three decades of the 18th century — a widespread phenomenon in Western music, though centred on Vienna and with Haydn and Mozart emerging in almost immediate retrospect as its outstanding proponents. Classicism was the musical expression of the…
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Full text Article Classicism

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In the arts, the principles, historical tradition, aesthetic attitudes, or style of the art of ancient Greece and Rome. The term may refer either to work produced in antiquity or to later works inspired by those of antiquity; the term Neoclassicism usually refers to art produced later but inspired…
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Full text Article ROMANTICISM VERSUS CLASSICISM

From The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism
The distinction between Romanticism and Classicism occupies a central position in Anglo-American literary modernism, specifically the modernisms of T. E. Hulme, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. In the broadest sense possible, Romanticism is associated with the expression of beauty through imagination and…
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Full text Article classicism

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Term used in art, music, and literature, to characterize work that emphasizes the qualities traditionally associated with ancient Greek and Roman art, that is, reason, balance, objectivity, and restraint, as opposed to the individuality of expression typical of Romanticism. Classicism and…
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Full text Article Classicism and Neoclassicism

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Art-historical tradition or aesthetic attitudes based on the art of ancient Greece and Rome. “Classicism” refers to the art produced in antiquity or to later art inspired by that of antiquity; “Neoclassicism” refers to art inspired by that of antiquity and thus is contained within the broader…
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Full text Article classicism

From Aesthetics A-Z
A wide-ranging term which generally indicates admiration of, and ideational adherence to, the intellectual, literary and artistic canons of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In artistic practice, as well as in art history, classicism involves harking back to such ancient models in order to imitate them…
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FRENCH classique, classicisme ; néoclassique, néoclassicisme GERMAN klassik, Klassizismus ITALIAN classicismo ; neoclassico, neoclassicismo LATIN classicus ➤ AESTHETICS , BAROQUE , GOÛT , MANIERA , MIMÊSIS , …
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