Meaning of semi-naïf | Babel Free

Definitions

Adjective. [B2]

Examples

“Marc Chagall comes from Vitebsk but has nothing Jewish about him in looks, in manner, in any peculiarities. Yet he paints almost nothing but ghetto life—and in a semi-naïf, rather childish fashion, does it with enough feeling to “put it over.””

“Drawings of a simple, semi-naïf type also stress the homely, almost accidental tenor of the re-tellings.”

“Other Australian work which impressed included the semi-naïf paint-[…]”

“Up some steps behind the hotel the All Saints church was built in 1620–30 and is now being restored; it has new paintings in a nice light style and semi-naïf icons.”

“Rebeyrolle’s semi-naïf, deliberately ugly and pathetic portraits, still lifes and rude examinations of the bestial world were hailed as a vital example of revelatory realism, admired in France as in England for their durable construction of quotidian objects and bulky bodies, suggesting the necessity of a committed return to drawing and modelling after the Old Masters.”

“Politi had actually made multiethnicity a focus of his art (before it became the norm) and showed a penchant for expressions of ethnically costumed festive celebration in a simple, even semi-naïf vein (appropriate to children’s literature).”

CEFR level