sfumato

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“
Köklükaya's face, mysteriously resembling a sfumato Madonna painting from the Italian renaissance, suggests not only a particular mother, but also motherhood on a symbolical level, while the pensive gaze of the handsome Selcuk hints at his silent-waters-run-deep personality.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. noun The blurring or softening of sharp outlines in painting by subtle and gradual blending of one tone into another.

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Examples (7)

  • ANALYSIS OF “THE MARBLE FAUN” It is like a picture, or a succession of pictures, painted in what the Italians call the sfumato , or “smoky” manner. —  The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Köklükaya's face, mysteriously resembling a sfumato Madonna painting from the Italian renaissance, suggests not only a particular mother, but also motherhood on a symbolical level, while the pensive gaze of the handsome Selcuk hints at his silent-waters-run-deep personality. —  Cineuropa
  • Mantegna continued to render his paintings in this kind of pinpoint focus, even as Leonardo and Giovanni Bellini began to move to the more atmospheric effects of tonal color and sfumato. —  lines and colors :: a blog about drawing, painting, illustration, comics, concept art and other visual arts
  • From the notebooks 'celebration of an insatiably curious approach to life (curiositá) to the willingness to embrace uncertainty and paradox (sfumato) embodied in Mona Lisa's smile, these principles will seem at once intuitively familiar and surprisingly powerful. —  AvaxHome RSS:
  • Extirpating himself of those institutions and beings that facilitated the feeding of his instinctual neediness, departing from his nation and the circumscribed roles which he had there, and having relieved himself of hungers for food and sex earlier this morning, he was now able to appreciate of the sfumato of society and nature and could just be ... —  An Apostate: Nawin of Thais
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Italian, from past participle of sfumare, to evaporate, fade out : s-, from (from Latin ex-; see ex-) + fumare, to smoke (from Latin fūmāre; see fumatory).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Italian, smoked, from Latin ex, out, + fumatus, pp.of fumare, smoke: see fume, v.
 

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/sfuˈmɑtə/
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