statuomania
nounEtymology From statue + -o- + -mania.
1
Historical An obsession with putting up statues, especially with reference to France.
- To carry this out would not be difficult with a people so deeply imbued with veneration for the dead, amongst whom Positivism seeks to replace the forms of religious worship by honours rendered to the great, and with whom for some time past the rage for statues, now being erected all over France, seems to be degenerating into a "statuomania."1882, “Contemporary Life and Thought in France”, in The Contemporary Review, July-December 1882 edition, volume 42, London: Ibister and Company Limited, translation of original by Gabriel Monod, published 1882, page 656:
- The major characteristic of French ‘statuomania’ was its democracy, anticipating that of the war memorials after 1914-18.1983, Eric Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition:
2 more examples
- On the left too voices were raised against this ‘statuomania’: would it not be far better to spend all that money on bread for the poor?1998, Pim D Boer, translated by Arnold J Pomerans, History as a Profession, page 111:
- The statues of Joseph II, together with the Czech program of statue production in the same era, represent variants of the well-known French "statuomania" that was so pervasive in the late nineteenth century [...].2007, Nancy M Wingfield, Flag Wars and Stone Saints: