translucent medium

Translucent medium

A medium which transmits rays of light so diffused that objects cannot be seen distinctly; that is, the medium is only partially transparent. Familiar examples are various forms of glass which admit considerable light but impede vision. Inasmuch as the term translucent seems to imply seeing, usage of the term is ordinarily limited to the visible region of the spectrum.

translucent medium

[tran′slüs·əns ′mēd·ē·əm]
(optics)
A medium which transmits rays of light so diffused that objects cannot be seen distinctly; examples are various forms of glass which admit considerable light but impede vision.
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References in periodicals archive ?
Assefjah's interest in Renaissance painting suggests a motive for her use of tempera, but the effect of the translucent medium, which dries in uneven, streaky lines of deeper and lighter color, also evokes the ink used by classical Persian calligraphers.
Playing tricks on the mind with egg tempera
The glaze will give a translucent medium for the glitter to sit in and allow it to be the first layer that the eye picks up.
How to Use Glitter on Your Walls to Bling Up Your Rooms by Maverick Painting
He writes, in a somewhat syllogistic fragment, that "Every living thing that is beautiful has semblance list scheinhaft]" and "Every artistic thing that is beautiful has semblance [Schein]," inferring, invalidly, that artistic things must therefore be alive "in one sense or other." The editors, doubtless after protracted agonizing, have translated Schein as "semblance," which obscures the metaphor of irradiation - of light appearing through a translucent medium - that I feel was what Benjamin meant to convey.
Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 1: 1913-1926

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