Sfumato

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A painting technique, prominent during the Italian Renaissance, involving the application of subtle layers of translucent paint, blurring the transition between colors, tones and often objects and creating the illusion of depth. uncountable, usually

    "Another quality which was adopted from Leonardo, and of which the Florentines were especially enamoured, was the ‘sfumato’ system—the imperceptible softening of the transitions in half-tints and shadows."

Example

More examples

"Another quality which was adopted from Leonardo, and of which the Florentines were especially enamoured, was the ‘sfumato’ system—the imperceptible softening of the transitions in half-tints and shadows."

Etymology

From Italian sfumato (“shaded, toned down”).

Related phrases

atmospheric perspective

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.