a. [UN-1 7.]
1. Not artificial or contrived; artless.
1669. Dryden & Davenant, Tempest, III. (1670), 32. I’m sure unartful truth lies open In her mind, as Crystal streams their sandy bottom shew.
1693. Congreve, in Dryden’s Juvenal, XI. (1697), 291. A chearful Sweetness in his Looks he has, And Innocence unartful in his Face.
1713. Guard., No. 127, Crt. Venus, 70. Unartful Tears, and hectick Looks, that show With silent Eloquence the Lover’s Woe.
1763. Falconer, Fond Lover, 14. Since all her thoughts by sense refined, Unartful truth express.
1820. W. Tooke, trans. Lucian, I. 147. Much less can it be affirmed, that it [sc. spunging] is an unartful art.
1899. Verrall, in A. C. Brown, Life E. W. Benson (1900), I. 219. Long afterwards, the same delightful and unartful arts were displayed on the largest of scenes.
b. Free from artifice or cunning.
1703. Rowe, Fair Penit., II. ii. 596. This Son, if Fame mistakes not, is more hot, More open, and unartful.
2. Displaying no technical skill; inartistic.
1675. Cocker, Morals, 49. Rashness draws crooked and unartful Lines.
1703. Savage, Lett. Antients, ix. 52. Beneath this humble Roof he stood, and this plain unartful Floor supported him.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, III. 179. So full of faults is all the unartful frame.
1759. Goldsm., Bee, No. 5. 90. To have almost every personage on the scene almost of the same character … was unartful in the poet to the last degree.
1883. Pall Mall G., 24 Nov., 4/2. Prose which borrows in a manner pleasant enough in result, and by no means unartful, the more obvious and seductive attractions of verse.
b. Of persons: Unskilful, maladroit. rare.
1683. Mrs. Behn, Yng. King, II. iii. I am a man, whose martial disposition Renders unartful in my language.
1709. Mrs. Manley, Secret Mem. (1720), IV. 88. A swift and sure Contempt succeeds upon what-ever the unartful Husband shall happen to do after.
Hence Unartfully adv.
1724. Swift, Drapier’s Lett., iii. Wks. 1841, II. 17/2. The report, which, although it be not unartfully drawn,… yet there was no great skill required to detect the many mistakes … in it. Ibid. (1726), Gulliver, IV. ii. Matts of straw, not unartfully made.
1793. Minstrel, III. 137. I discovered a door, not unartfully concealed by some rude chizeling in the rock.
1840. Thackeray, Pict. Rhapsody, 116. This plan has been not unartfully contrived.
