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reductivism

reductivism

9.9
An art style in painting and sculpture that makes shapes and colors very simple
  • noun
  • /rɪˈdʌktɪˌvɪzəm/
  • Specialized
translation icon : reductivismo
  • This sculpture showcases reductivism by using only simple geometric shapes and a limited color palette.

Examples

  • As in the iconic vocabulary of maritime emblems and buoys, this recourse to graphic resources fosters an extreme referential reductivism.

    Academic text (1999)
  • But at the same time, his notation tends toward an extreme reductivism.

    Academic text (1999)
  • Just as the emphasis on gender as an across-the-board intellectual principle has driven feminist critics to the crudest biological reductivism, so has it driven them to the crudest emotional reductivism.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Just as the emphasis on gender as an across-the-board intellectual principle has driven feminist critics to the crudest biological reductivism, so has it driven them to the crudest emotional reductivism.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Hope would meet the charge of reductivism by repeating the case developed in "An Epistle: Edward Sackville to Venetia Digby" and in the essay "Miracles," namely that the human spirit develops, in natural steps, from a material base.

    Academic text (1992)
  • The artist's latest work exemplifies a striking reductivism that simplifies complex ideas into pure forms.

  • In the painting, the artist embraces reductivism to create an artwork that focuses on the essence of beauty through minimalism.

Synonyms

minimalism
vsreductivism
5 6.5

A style in painting, sculpture, and design using very simple shapes and few colors

is narrower, limited to painting and sculpture rather than all arts
minimal art
vsreductivism
7.7

An art movement from the 1950s that uses very simple shapes and few colors in sculpture and painting

is the same movement but uses a different technical label

Surface Forms

reductivism singular
reductivisms plural

Morphology

reductivism = reductive (transparent) = reduct + ive + ism

The noun is formed by adding '-ism' to the adjective 'reductive', yielding a doctrine or movement characterized by reductive approaches, which is directly interpretable by learners who know 'reductive' and '-ism'.

Etymology

Reductivism comes from the word reduce, which means 'make smaller', plus the ending -ism, meaning 'style' or 'belief'. So reductivism describes an art style that makes forms and colors very simple to focus on the essential idea.