Photogenic vs. Picturesque

Photogenicadjective

Generated or caused by light.

‘The sunbather developed a photogenic melanoma on her back.’;

Picturesqueadjective

Resembling or worthy of a picture or painting; having the qualities of a picture or painting; pleasingly beautiful.

‘We looked down onto a beautiful, picturesque sunset over the ocean.’;

Photogenicadjective

Producing or emitting light, luminescent.

‘The photogenic bacteria were visible in the dark room.’;

Picturesqueadjective

Forming, or fitted to form, a good or pleasing picture; representing with the clearness or ideal beauty appropriate to a picture; expressing that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture, natural or artificial; graphic; vivid; as, a picturesque scene or attitude; picturesque language.

‘What is picturesque as placed in relation to the beautiful and the sublime? It is . . . the characteristic pushed into a sensible excess.’;

Photogenicadjective

Looking good when photographed.

‘The company hired the spokesperson for his photogenic face.’;

Picturesqueadjective

suggesting or suitable for a picture; pretty as a picture;

‘a picturesque village’;

Photogenicadjective

Of or pertaining to photogeny; producing or generating light.

Picturesqueadjective

strikingly expressive;

‘a picturesque description of the rainforest’;

Photogenicadjective

looking attractive in photographs

Picturesque

Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England’s leisured travellers to examine “the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty”.

Photogenicadjective

(especially of a person) looking attractive in photographs or on film

‘a photogenic child’;

Photogenicadjective

(of an organism or tissue) producing or emitting light.