painterly

adjective

paint·​er·​ly ˈpān-tər-lē How to pronounce painterly (audio)
1
: of, relating to, or typical of a painter : artistic
painterly attention to detail
2
: suggestive or characteristic of a painting or of the art of painting
painterly photography
especially : marked by an openness of form which is not linear and in which sharp outlines are lacking
painterly brushwork
painterliness noun

Examples of painterly in a Sentence

He has a painterly eye. a painterly picture of the sea
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Simpson meets the daunting beauty of the celestial sphere with a painterly language of stellar silvers and penumbral grays. Zoë Hopkins, New York Times, 2 Jan. 2025 And those vistas are stunning -- the game is drawn with a painterly palette, with the sky, especially at sunset, lit with a stunning pastel display of color. Jason Bennett, arkansasonline.com, 15 Dec. 2024 And though it is rendered realistically, it’s also imbued with painterly touches: the flash emits spattered paint instead of light; the images of dancers that hang on the wall are composed of loose brushstrokes. Carolina A. Miranda, ARTnews.com, 15 Jan. 2025 The Wild Robot filmmakers found their look when going over early concept art that had the island’s natural environment and its animals — foxes, bears, beavers, opossums and others — drawn in a painterly way. Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Jan. 2025 See all Example Sentences for painterly 

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1586, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of painterly was circa 1586

Dictionary Entries Near painterly

Cite this Entry

“Painterly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/painterly. Accessed 16 Feb. 2025.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!