pictorialism

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noun

A school of artistic photography that emphasized using photography to mimic certain styles of contemporary painting, that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

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Meanings

nounpictorialism (countable and uncountable, plural pictorialisms)

plural pictorialisms

  1. countableuncountableartsA school of artistic photography that emphasized using photography to mimic certain styles of contemporary painting, that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
  2. countableuncountableAny artistic use of photography to imitate painting, especially using pictorial conventions.

    The black-and-white portraits and landscapes […] fall somewhere between photojournalism and pictorialism.

    2007 December 21, Karen Rosenberg, “In Bhutan, Sacred Sights Amid the Clouds”, in New York Times
  3. countableuncountableThe theory that mental imagery is visual rather than based on language-like description.

Origin

From pictorial + -ism.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

pictorialism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pictorialism

MLA

“pictorialism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pictorialism. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pictorialism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pictorialism.

Source: pictorialism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.