classicism

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classicism 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.

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