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literal
has definitions from the field of printing
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[ adjective ] being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something
Examples "her actual motive" "a literal solitude like a desert"- G.K.Chesterton "a genuine dilemma" Used in print (Clement Greenberg, "Collage" in his Art and...)Through 1911 and 1912 , as the Cubist facet-plane 's tendency to adhere to the literal surface became harder and harder to deny , the task of keeping the surface at arm's_length fell all the more to eye-undeceiving contrivances . These areas by_virtue_of their abrupt density of pattern , stated the literal surface with such new and superior force that the resulting contrast drove the simulated printing into a depth from which it could be rescued - and set to shuttling again - only by conventional perspective ; that_is , by being placed in such relation to the forms depicted within the illusion that these forms left no room for the typography except near the surface . Literal flatness now tends to assert itself as the main event of the picture , and the device boomerangs : the illusion of depth is rendered even more precarious than before . Instead of isolating the literal flatness by specifying and circumscribing it , the pasted paper or cloth releases and spreads it , and the artist seems to have nothing left but this undepicted flatness with which to finish as_well_as start his picture . Depicted , Cubist flatness is now almost completely assimilated to the literal , undepicted kind , but at_the_same_time it reacts upon and largely transforms the undepicted kind - and it does so , moreover , without depriving the latter of its literalness ; rather , it underpins and reinforces that literalness , re-creates it . Related terms |
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[ adjective ] without interpretation or embellishment
Examples "a literal translation of the scene before him" Used in print (Norman Kent, "The Watercolor Art of Roy M. Mason"...)`` I am thoroughly convinced that most watercolors suffer because the artist expects nature will do his composing for him ; as a result , such pictures are only a literal translation of what the artist finds in the scene before him . Related terms |
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[ adjective ] limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text
Examples "a literal translation" Related terms |
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[ adjective ] of the clearest kind; usually used for emphasis
Synonyms Examples "it's the literal truth" "a matter of investment, pure and simple" Related terms |
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[ adjective ] lacking stylistic embellishment
Synonyms Examples "a literal description" "wrote good but plain prose" "a plain unadorned account of the coronation" "a forthright unembellished style" Related terms |
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[ adjective ] (of a translation) corresponding word for word with the original
Synonyms Examples "literal translation of the article" "an awkward word-for-word translation" Related terms |
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[ noun ] (printing) a mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind
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