What is "ornamentalism"

n. Any artistic or architectural style characterised by ornamentation.

Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire is a book by David Cannadine about British perceptions of the British Empire. Cannadine argues that class, rank and status were more important to the British Empire than race. The title of the work Ornamentalism is a direct reference to Edward Said's book Orientalism, which argues the existence of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the East, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. It has also been argued to borrow tones from the title of Joseph Scumpeter's " Imperialism and Social Classes which some historians see as the origins of the 'Ornamentalist' perspective in academic history'

Ornamentalism is a post-modern architectural style that was a reaction against Modernism.