Comment by tagrun

I think an accurate description would be classical (meaning not quantum mechanical) model of light (which covers both geometrical optics and wave optics) and phenomenological model (in physicist's sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenological_model) of matter and light-matter interaction. It is a phenomenological model, because it's either derived from a cartoon description of matter at microscopic scale and how light bounces off it, or fitted to some experimental data, and is without an underlying actual first-principles physical theory either way.

BTW, I hope you don't think this is just me being picky about words; if you talk to any physicists in condensed matter matter physics and say the magic words "first principles", they'd immediately start thinking that you did ab initio calculations. First-principles calculations and DFT is a sub-field, and entire careers and communities are built on it!