What does "blank canvas" mean?

An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation.

What is a synonym for "blank canvas"?

Common synonyms include: clean slate, creative prompt, empty, empty surface, flexible, fresh start.

noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation. also, figuratively
"After his ex-wife moved out, his life was a blank canvas."
2
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blank, canvas.
"There are no such personal revelations in The Madonna of the Future, nor anything, indeed, at all characteristic of Mr James. There is beauty in the tale of the American painter who dreams over a model for twenty years, while he and she grow old, and leaves at his death nothing more to show for his dreams than a cracked blank canvas; […]"

"After his ex-wife moved out, his life was a blank canvas."

By analogy with artists who begin with a blank canvas, thereby possessing the freedom to shape it according to their creative inclinations.