tableau vivant

American  

[ta-bloh vee-vahn] / ta bloʊ viˈvɑ̃ /

noun

French.

plural

tableaux vivants

1. tableau.

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tableau vivant British  

/ tablo vivɑ̃ /

noun

1. a representation of a scene, painting, sculpture, etc, by a person or group posed silent and motionless

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Etymology

Origin of tableau vivant

Literally, “living picture”

Example Sentences

After all, close scrutiny of a painting or a sculpture is not the aim of a tableau vivant.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 16, 2021

This tableau vivant of corseted dancers encased in seventeenth-century hoopskirts resembles a painting by Velázquez inflected with contemporary haute-couture decadence.

From The New Yorker • Apr. 15, 2019

In one project for Hixson’s course, which focused on socially engaged art, students dressed up to create a tableau vivant, or living picture, re-creating Raphael’s masterpiece “The School of Athens.”

From Washington Post • Mar. 22, 2017

Tops were whipped off and exchanged, and we were left with a tableau vivant for the ages, one of soccer’s most iconic scenes, the living embodiment of respect, friendship and sportsmanship.

From The Guardian • Dec. 17, 2015

Within the court, before the handsome building whose story after story of immense north windows showed it to be a collection of artists' studios, she found an interesting tableau vivant.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. by Various