Definition of "neoclassicism" [neoclassicism]

• A revival of classical aesthetics and forms, especially: (noun)
• A revival in literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason, form, and restraint. (noun)
• A revival in the 18th and 19th centuries in architecture and art, especially in the decorative arts, characterized by order, symmetry, and simplicity of style. (noun)
• A movement in music lasting roughly from 1915 to 1940 that sought to avoid subjective emotionalism and to return to the style of the pre-Romantic composers. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The highest expression of nineteenth century neoclassicism is seen in the wonderful mural, based on Dante's Divine Comedy, by Jacobo Gálvez and Gerardo Suárez on the dome of the Degollado Theater."
• "What this all led to, in a sense, was a movement that later was called neoclassicism, a kind of a going back to older forms, smaller forces, just cutting back, in general."
• "The works cover nearly three centuries, from the last years of the Renaissance around 1525 to the neoclassicism output in the 19th Century."