plasticism

English

Etymology

plastic +‎ -ism

Noun

plasticism (usually uncountable, plural plasticisms)

1. The state or condition of being plastic.
   • 1919, Scientific American: Supplement - Volume 88, page 167:

     The life of ants is crowded with such socialphychological corrections which regulate the mechanism of instinct by individual “plasticisms,” conduct it into useful paths, and thus bring about an adaptation to external advantages and disadvantages.

   • 1970, Cornell Engineer - Volumes 36-37, page 6:

     The new man will be plastic and his essence will be plasticism (rather than humanism) .

   • 2001, Mary Ann Caws, Manifesto: A Century of Isms, →ISBN, page 432:

     A new world plasticism has now begun. The capitalists are deceivers, but the socialists are equally deceivers.

2. (art) The plastic quality of certain artworks, and the theory or movement of art that embodies this quality.
   • 1916, Daniel Gregory Mason, The Art of Music: The dance, page 267:

     The New York plasticism will be also the plasticism of Paris and Petrograd.

   • 1969, A Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Oriental Arts:

     But it also developed wonderfully in linear delineation, as seen in Seison's “Water-Drawing Ceremony”; in serene spatial constructivism, as seen in Gyoshu's “Tea Ceremony Room”; and in sharp and sensual plasticism as in Yuki's “Moonlit Night."

   • 1973, Agostino Pertusi, Venezia E Il Levante Fino Al Secolo XV - Volume 2, page 288:

     The only essentiel difference is in the degree of plasticism : the mosaic architecture is rather flat and two-dimensional while the architecture of the miniature introduces chiaroscuro.

   • 2010, J.P. Telotte, Animating Space: From Mickey to WALL-E, →ISBN, page 66:

     But even as the Messmer-Sullivan cartoons emphasized Felix's ingenious use of that plasticism—as we see in his ability to turn his tail or a graphic flourish like an exclamation point into a useful, narrative-furthering prop, thus all the more flattening out the world, making "everything in the drawn world. . . of the same stuff," as Leslie suggests (23) -- the early Mickeys seem far more intent on making space function within the narrative so that it might thereby reveal itself.

   • 2013, Linda Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art:

     While the expressive possibilities of Neoplasticism are limited to two dimensions (the plane), Elementarism realizes the possibility of plasticism in four dimensions, in the field of time-space.

3. The ubiquitous use of plastic.
   • 1967, Industrial Design - Volume 14, page 161:

     Such an individual will almost certainly have noticed by this time a kind of creeping plasticism in the clothes he wears, the appliances he uses, the furniture he sits on, the car he drives and possibly even the house he lives in.

   • 1985, Carl Ramm, Detroit Combat, →ISBN, page 130:

     McDonald's, Arby's, Burger King, Pizza Hut blurred by, molded tributes to plasticism and bad food.

   • 2014, Christopher Hall, Materials: A Very Short Introduction, →ISBN, page 90:

     No-one railed against them more persistently than Norman Mailer, for whom 'creeping plasticism' was taking over the world.

See also

• neoplasticism