Mannerism

Definitions

1. A style of art developed at the end of the High Renaissance, characterized by the deliberate distortion and exaggeration of perspective and especially the elongation of figures.
   uncountable
2. A noticeable personal habit, a verbal or other (often, but not necessarily unconscious) habitual behavior peculiar to an individual.
   countable, uncountable
3. In literature, an ostentatious and unnatural style of the second half of the sixteenth century. In the contemporary criticism, described as a negation of the classicist equilibrium, pre-Baroque, and deforming expressiveness.
   countable, uncountable
4. Exaggerated or affected style in art, speech, or other behavior.
   countable, uncountable
5. In fine art, a style that is inspired by previous models, aiming to reproduce subjects in an expressive language.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind⟳, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read⟳ me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise⟳ may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold⟳ to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact⟳ with the Celebrity.”

“artists […] dabblingly pursuing a kind of formalist mannerism merely in the interest⟳ of careerism”

“He generally spoke without academic mannerism, though on occasion he dipped into the over-wrought thickets of eduspeak to find⟳ words like⟳ “antithetical” or “foci” or “interface.””

CEFR level