painterly

[peyn-ter-lee]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of a painter.

2. Fine Arts.,  characterized by qualities of color, stroke, or texture perceived as distinctive to the art of painting, especially the rendering of forms and images in terms of color or tonal relations rather than of contour or line.

painterly

/ ˈpeɪntəlɪ /

adjective

1. having qualities peculiar to painting, esp the depiction of shapes by means of solid masses of colour, rather than by lines Compare linear

2. of or characteristic of a painter; artistic

Word History and Origins

Origin of painterly¹

First recorded in 1580–90; painter ¹ + -ly

Example Sentences

The execution is nevertheless lush, sometimes startlingly beautiful, and painterly and evocative of Johnson’s elegiac theme about a bygone America.

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The icing had been applied in thick, painterly swirls.

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Abstraction meets landscape; painterly application meets rough-and-tumble applications.

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His last film was the willfully obtuse 2022 French Polynesian political thriller “Pacifiction,” which more often oozed colonial malaise through its painterly landscapes than any narrative.

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The line brings to life the garden’s delicate wildflowers and rippling fountains in playful, painterly prints, featuring blossoming orange poppies and deep purple lily pads.

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