Dictionary — ontologydriven

blank canvas en · NOUN

By analogy with artists who begin with a blank canvas, thereby possessing the freedom to shape it according to their creative inclinations.

(also, figuratively) An unmarked or empty state, offering a limitless potential for creation, development or interpretation.
- Near-synonyms: new canvas, clean slate, new page, new sheet, new leaf
- After his ex-wife moved out, his life was a blank canvas.
- Her gaze was wide while she was wondering; then her lids drooped low, and lower, as on the blank canvas of her mental view there grew laboriously a conception. 1903, Leonard Merrick, The Quaint Companions:
- But when we're truly engaged with the blank canvas of our lives, moment to moment, a timeless quality emerges. 2014, Panache Desai, Discovering Your Soul Signature, Hachette, →ISBN:
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blank, canvas.
- From a practical point of view, it has been easier to apply this model to Spain's high-speed system - effectively a blank canvas - than it would be to Britain's deeply interwoven and congested classic network. 2023 July 26, Ben Jones, “EU open access growth offers pointers for UK hopefuls”, in RAIL, number 988, page 33:
- There are no such personal revelations in The Madonna of the Future, nor anything, indeed, at all characteristic of Mr James. There is beauty in the tale of the American painter who dreams over a model for twenty years, while he and she grow old, and leaves at his death nothing more to show for his dreams than a cracked blank canvas; […] 1916, Rebecca West, Henry James:

Spelling	Features	Labels	Source
blank canvasses	Number=Plur		lexicographic
blank canvases	Number=Plur		lexicographic