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Glite Dictionary
🎨 The art of portraits 📝 A written description
portraiture

portraiture

1 7.5
A written or spoken description of a person's appearance and character
  • noun
  • /ˈpɔrtrɪtʃər/
translation icon : descripción
  • The author's skillful portraiture brought the characters to life with vivid descriptions of their appearances and personalities.
  • literary portraiture

Examples

  • His criteria grew from a different notion of portraiture than that embodied in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century European portraiture aiming for verisimilitude.

    Academic text (2013)

  • Literary portraiture is a rare sub-genre of biography or fiction, depending upon one's definition of these elusive terms.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Also, remember what the fine portraiture artists thought when the first camera was commercially available.

    Blog text (29)

  • And yet, the sting of Powell's portraiture rarely seems mean-spirited or petty.

    Academic text (2000)

  • The portraiture of Italians in Chita, and Sicilians in particular, also exhibits the ethnographic mode and is better understood alongside Hearn's quasi-ethnographic essay, "Sicilians in New Orleans."

    Academic text (2018)

  • In her new book, the artist provides a rich portraiture of her childhood experiences and the people who shaped her.

  • The museum's exhibit showcases the portraiture of famous historical figures through detailed descriptions of their lives and characteristics.

Synonyms

portrait
vsportraiture
96 4.0

A written or spoken description of a person's appearance and character

is the more formal term for that verbal or written description
portrayal
vsportraiture
63 4.4

A way of showing a person or thing in art and performance

is narrower, meaning only verbal or written descriptions of people

How Detailed

characterology
  • Literature
9.9
biography
188 2.6
portraiture
1 7.5
profile
  • Literature
243 3.4
sketch
56 3.5

Surface Forms

portraiture singular
portraitures plural

Morphology

portraiture = portrait (semi-transparent) = portrait + ure

The form clearly contains 'portrait' and '-ure', but the sense has broadened metaphorically to a verbal or written depiction rather than a literal visual portrait.

Etymology

Portraiture also comes from portrait, which is like a 'picture' of someone, and a helpful way to remember the second sense is to think of it as a written 'picture' that shows a person's appearance and character.