maximalist

adj

1. Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less.

   “This, his [Frank Stella's] second Museum of Modern Art retrospective, shows him in his second incarnation, turning his back on Minimalist rationality and opting for a “maximalist,” seemingly free-wheeling Baroque complexity that helped set the stage for New-Expressionism.”

   “Three elephantine examples of that trend have been in the news of late, and they call into question their underlying maximalist presumption that more is more.”

   “Mr. Shadbolt's maximalist, when-in-doubt-be-vivid style capaciously suits “Monday's Warriors,” his novel of the wars between the Maoris and the British in New Zealand in the mid-19th century; […]”

   “The biennial also includes a sprawling cityscape by Chris Burden incorporating thousands of model buildings, cranes and automobiles, a maximalist vision where Mr. Ashkin's is minimalist.”

   “Bach's choral music was once often heard in maximalist renditions, undertaken by large ensembles who by sheer vocal and instrumental weight emphasize the majestic side of his compositions.”

2. Aggressive, expansive.

   “Mr. Schmidt agreed that “both the Russians and the Americans want results,” but he warned that they have a long way to go from “maximalist” starting positions.”

   “Jo Leinen, 35 years old, a spokesman for the protest coalition, said today that the Soviet-American arms limitation talks in Geneva are a failure, and blamed the Reagan Administration for having taken “a maximalist position” that doomed the negotiations.”

   “Administration diplomats have by now grown used to such maximalist posturing and they doubt that North Korea will go so far as to undermine the nuclear deal.”

   “So Britain seems to have two foreign policies, a maximalist one based on illusions of the imperial past, and a minimalist one based on fears of the domestic future. It is time some-one put them together.”

   “[…] Truman would not make available the resources and the manpower to fix the problem. He had a maximalist moment—and a maximalist document—before him. He was not ready to back a maximalist policy.”

3. Relating to religious or Biblical maximalism.

   “Again, the progressive view was that the Mother of Jesus should receive all veneration for holiness, but not the title of mediator between God and man. Much of the Curia supported a “maximalist” cult of the Virgin.”

   “The case of the Bar Kokhba Revolt is an excellent example of how far the Minimalist and Maximalist interpretations of biblical and even ancient history can be verified.”

4. (historical)Relating to far-left communism.

   “His inclusion in the official delegation to Moscow caused surprise today and was seen as indicative of the Italian Communists' aversion to Maximalist currents in international communism.”

5. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of maximalist.

noun

1. A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess, especially in the arts.

   “Concerning his own purpose in making music, Mr. Babbitt says he would call himself a maximalist: “I try to make music as much as it has ever been or as much as it could be. I may try to put too much into a piece. […]””

   “The music, of course, for all of its determined frivolity, is wonderfully eloquent, and composers as diverse as Webern, the great Minimalist, and Mahler, a great “Maximalist,” have come to worship at the shrine.”

   “Critics have aptly borrowed those terms to characterize the difference between Mr. Beckett, for example, and his erstwhile master James Joyce, himself a maximalist except in his early works.”

   “In the 1960's, he [Peter Gourfain] was a Minimalist, using wood beams to build allusive and ephemeral constructions. This show is primarily concerned with the artist since he became a maximalist.”

   “A maximalist, Mr. [Craig] Baldwin is at once a collector and curator of 20th-century visual culture.”

2. A supporter of an aggressive or expansive foreign policy.

   “But on the larger issues, the range of opinion on the best solution runs the gamut from the so‐called hawks, or “maximalists,” as they have come to be known, and the doves, or “minimalists.” The first group would have Israel keep most of the Arab territory she now occupies, and would postpone any significant action on the Palestinian claims until after an over‐all peace agreement was reached with the Arab states.”

   “The policy, however, will collapse unless it produces results. If the region reverts to another stalemate of “no‐peace, no‐war,” the very cause of the October conflagration, then the initiative will pass to the Arab “maximalists,” the Iraqis, the extremist Palestinians, Colonel Qaddafi.”

   “But now it is clear that there is no common language with the maximalists directed by Syria, and Mr. Arafat has decided to decide.”

3. A proponent of Biblical maximalism, one who affirms the historicity of central Biblical narratives.

   “The first is reported to represent the secretariat's attempted compromise between the “maximalists” and those who see the further aggrandizement of the cult of Mary as a further obstacle to a dialogue with the Protestants.”

   “The Non-Fundamentalist Maximalists extrapolated from every single archaeological discovery an argument in favor of the authenticity of larger and larger parts of the Bible and used some of the critical Bible study information.”

4. (capitalized, historical, obsolete)A Bolshevik.

   “After a firm opening and an hour of fairly well sustained strength the stock market once more suffered a wide break yesterday following the receipt of the news of the overthrow of Kerensky and the announced intention of the Maximalists to propose an immediate peace with Germany.”

   “Mr. Bernstein, who spent three months in Petrograd after the Revolution and had seen the Maximalists at work, said their aim was to bring about utter destruction not only of the freedom of the Jews, but also the freedom of all Russia.”

5. (historical)A member of a radical wing split from the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1906.
6. (historical)A member of a radical Marxist party in Italy.

   ““Maximalists,” as radical Marxists are called here, and anarchists have always had great influence in Italy's trade‐union movement.”

7. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of maximalist.