Meanings
nounpaintingness (uncountable)
- uncountableThe quality of being painterly.
One cannot enough praise the expression and paintingness of the style, that realization to the mind of the thing described, that lyric plasticity of manner and sympathetic metamorphosis of diction, […]
1843, J. W. Robberds, A memoir of the life and writings of the late William Taylor, page 374 - uncountableThe property of being a painting.
Vermeer is also a great lover of the picture within a picture, a motif that insists that the viewer confront the paintingness of painting.
1999, Carol Mavor, Lady Clementina Hawarden, Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden, page 88
Origin
Cite this entry
APA
paintingness. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/paintingness
MLA
“paintingness.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/paintingness. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “paintingness,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/paintingness.
Source: paintingness on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.