Lexigame Community

General Category => Words => Topic started by: Jacki on April 04, 2019, 04:41:52 PM

Title: PAINTERLY
Post by: Jacki on April 04, 2019, 04:41:52 PM
In yesterday's challenge there were two words - INTERPLAY and PAINTERLY. After a long time I got painterly but it really doesn't strike me as a common word.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Tom on April 04, 2019, 07:12:30 PM
Is it even a legit word?
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Greynomad on April 04, 2019, 07:47:44 PM
I must admit that I felt it was one in a growing list of words that I define as "Chihuahuaisms", or words that may have some logic as to their existence and definition, but I would struggle to find in anything akin to normal use, either common or uncommon. And as for being reasonable words to persons who are reasonably well read, these words (Chihuahuaisms), I consider myself reasonably well read in a general knowledge type basis, and they escape me.

That said I did eventually strike lucky, by my normal method of thinking and finding some words, considering "perhaps it is a chihuahuaism!"
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Leedscot on April 04, 2019, 09:43:50 PM
I’ve often seen photographs described as having a painterly feel.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Jacki on April 04, 2019, 11:42:42 PM
Well I've never ever heard of it.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: tpc on April 05, 2019, 01:41:12 AM
The term is used frequently in art history classes and books to describe painting style of artists like Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, Sargent, etc. As an art history student I found the term much overused.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Jacki on April 05, 2019, 09:06:51 AM
Yes I looked at the meaning however like so many so-called common words they are only common to those in a niche speciality. Anyhow once again another word is added to my VOCAB!
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: yelnats on April 05, 2019, 11:58:47 AM
Never heard the word, and I wouldn't have been able to guess what it meant, except something to do with painting or painters - duh.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Katzmeow on April 05, 2019, 01:44:17 PM
I must admit that I felt it was one in a growing list of words that I define as "Chihuahuaisms", or words that may have some logic as to their existence and definition, but I would struggle to find in anything akin to normal use, either common or uncommon...

That said I did eventually strike lucky, by my normal method of thinking and finding some words, considering "perhaps it is a chihuahuaism!"

 :D  I like that; "Chihuahuaisms".  Perhaps thinking of these (to me) obscure words in this way will make me think of them as quirks of the site rather than my usual Whiskey Tango Foxtrot reaction  :laugh:
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: mkenuk on April 05, 2019, 11:36:24 PM
Is it even a legit word?
Well, Tom, it is a real word - at least it's in the COD, meaning (a) 'of or appropriate to a painter' or (b) 'demonstrating effective use of paint'.
The problem, it appears to me, is that it still doesn't really seem to mean much.

How to use it in a sentence?
How about 'Van Gogh painted in a painterly way.' Of course he did; he was a painter - one of the greatest the world has ever seen.

The M/W examples of 'painterly used in a sentence' are not much better:
'He has a painterly eye.' and 'a painterly picture of the sea

In short, I get the impression that it's a word the English Language could do without.

But wait; maybe, skulking in the darkest recesses of the OED, there are similar words, pertaining to the other arts -
How about
'Rodin sculpted in a sculptorly way.'
'Nijinsky danced in a dancerly manner.'
'Caruso sang in a singerly fashion.'
or even
'Miles Davis trumpeted in a jazz-trumpeterly style'

I somehow suspect we won't be seeing any of these in a Chi game any time soon.






Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: anona on April 06, 2019, 02:48:29 AM
I thought these made sense:

"The most important and the most difficult liberation process we went through, the one that has distinguished our art, was the freeing of colour, the transition to a painterly spontaneity."

"Rain, Steam, and Speed" by J. M. W. Turner (1844) is an example of painterly style." (When I looked at the image, it made perfect sense. What a picture to own and look at!)  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Rain_Steam_and_Speed_the_Great_Western_Railway.jpg

But TPC might be able to give some good examples.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: anonsi on April 06, 2019, 03:05:16 AM
Is it even a legit word?
Well, Tom, it is a real word - at least it's in the COD, meaning (a) 'of or appropriate to a painter' or (b) 'demonstrating effective use of paint'.
The problem, it appears to me, is that it still doesn't really seem to mean much.

How to use it in a sentence?
How about 'Van Gogh painted in a painterly way.' Of course he did; he was a painter - one of the greatest the world has ever seen.

The M/W examples of 'painterly used in a sentence' are not much better:
'He has a painterly eye.' and 'a painterly picture of the sea

In short, I get the impression that it's a word the English Language could do without.

But wait; maybe, skulking in the darkest recesses of the OED, there are similar words, pertaining to the other arts -
How about
'Rodin sculpted in a sculptorly way.'
'Nijinsky danced in a dancerly manner.'
'Caruso sang in a singerly fashion.'
or even
'Miles Davis trumpeted in a jazz-trumpeterly style'

I somehow suspect we won't be seeing any of these in a Chi game any time soon.

I agree with tpc, the term is used frequently in art history. And although I agree that it's overused...it's not overused in the way you describe here, Mike.

It doesn't refer to everything that was painted. It's usually a pretty distinct style where the brush strokes are visible, like with Van Gogh's or Monet's works.

(https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/pIVoynIFUZH_RRkiB9wyK6VWmwc=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/Vincent-van-Gogh-The-Starry-Night-631.jpg)

(https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/dIQ9kN6cKXSjhmmsbZ2gD40Pd3s=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/MonetHaystacks2copy-59a03877aad52b0011f9f7da.jpg)

In contrast, I generally wouldn't consider works from Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Mondrian, etc., as painterly artists.


(https://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Rembrandt-van-Rijn-The-Nightwatch-detail.jpg)

(https://i2.wp.com/www.walksofitaly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/8657432375_d61734c45c_z.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

(https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/f832e28211a5c9793935b60e12c9cb53d555a391.jpg)
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: rogue_mother on April 06, 2019, 06:22:53 AM
Painterly is not a word I had much trouble with. I have certainly seen this word in newspaper articles that I read -- often reviews of one sort or another. One does not need to be an art history student to know this word. I am living proof of that, never having taken any course whatsoever regarding the world of art.

A book review (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-old-drift-is-a-brilliant-literary-response-to-generations-of-bad-politics/2019/03/25/dcc678f2-472d-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html?utm_term=.b597fa38470c) in the Washington Post from 26 March 2019, on a book not specifically about art:
Quote
Serpell is a natural social novelist, capable of conjuring a Dickensian range of characters with a painterly eye for detail.

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/) at Brigham Young University has 417 examples, at least half of which come from popular magazines and newspapers rather than academic journals.

I did a comparative search on the Google ngram viewer (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=painterly%2Cpatina&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpainterly%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpatina%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Cpainterly%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpatina%3B%2Cc0), comparing painterly with patina (a word I believe most Chihuahua players know). While painterly does occur with less frequency than patina, the difference is not as striking as one might suppose.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Tom on April 06, 2019, 09:16:32 AM
Thank you mkenuk and anonsi for your descriptions. And RM, too. Clearly, my question about legitimacy was premature.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: tpc on April 06, 2019, 12:34:00 PM
Turner is a great example of the painterly style, thanks anona! Maybe the ocean haze has something to do with it? One of my favorite seascape artists is Ryder..check it out!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Pinkham_Ryder
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Alan W on April 06, 2019, 04:31:11 PM
This morning the word leapt out at me from today's paper. In a book review in the Spectrum supplement of the Melbourne Age:

Quote
...Appleby was always happy to spice up a line of inquiry with a quote from Shakespeare or Milton if not Aeschylus in the original Greek. Clayton provides a comparable mainlining of aesthetic pretension and compulsion, only this time it's painterly.

I would have to admit that the reviewer who wrote these words, Peter Craven, could be a little on the pretentious side himself. He seemed to be embarrassed to be reviewing a crime novel, calling such writing "trash" and describing the act of reading it as "slumming it".
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Valerie on April 06, 2019, 06:21:30 PM
Oh dear.  Poor old Painterly!  I don't have a problem with the word.  But it would appear a few others do.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: Calilasseia on April 09, 2019, 12:57:37 PM
I've seen this term appear in my art history books often enough to know that it's valid. I've a huge Rossetti monograph in which this word appears, for example.
Title: Re: PAINTERLY
Post by: birdy on April 09, 2019, 01:21:22 PM
I’ve often seen photographs described as having a painterly feel.

That's where I've also seen the word used.