The Illuminated Word
Reveal great art, word by word
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Find the words. Watch a masterpiece appear.
The Illuminated Word is a word game with a soul. Each round gives you the letters of a single word — GARDENS, TREASURE, HARPIST — and every word you find reveals another piece of a hidden painting. Keep going and a genuine masterwork emerges: a Van Gogh wheat field, a Monet garden, a Vermeer portrait, a Thomas Moran canyon.
Every painting is real, drawn from the open-access collections of three of the world's great museums — The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. More than 700 hand-curated works ship with the app, each with its title, artist, date, and a direct connection to the museum that houses it.
YOUR PERSONAL COLLECTION BOOK
Every painting you reveal can be saved into your own leather-bound collection book — gold-edged pages, an Ex Libris plate with your name on it, and a page for every treasure you earn. Your collection is backed up automatically to your own private iCloud, so it survives new phones, lost phones, and re-installs. It is yours.
LEARN WITHOUT TRYING
Curious about a painting? One tap shows the artist, date, and medium — and a "Learn more" link opens the museum's own page. Stumped by a word you missed? Tap it for the dictionary definition. The learning in this app is never a lesson; it simply happens while you play.
BUILT FOR EVERYONE
• 750 hand-picked source words — warm, familiar vocabulary, never obscure tournament jargon
• A dictionary of over 170,000 accepted words for validation
• No repeats: every painting and every word appears once before any comes around again
• Child-safe by design: every painting personally reviewed; museum links protected by a parental gate; word definitions stay on-device
• Works completely offline — every painting and word ships inside the app
WHY THIS APP COSTS A LITTLE — AND WHY THAT'S GOOD
Hogan Consulting LLC does not believe in in-app advertisements or in the selling of any user information. Most "free" games earn their money from your attention and your data. We would rather charge a small, honest, one-time price — and in exchange, the app is simply yours. No ads. No subscriptions. No tracking. No accounts to create. Nothing sold to anyone, ever. One small purchase, a lifetime of paintings.
A NOTE ON THE NAME
Illuminated manuscripts were medieval books where words and art shared the same page. That is exactly what this game does — and exactly what it leaves you with: a book of your own, illuminated one word at a time.
Download The Illuminated Word — and start your collection.
Ratings & Reviews
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Added inshore purchase of non-consumable. Previous attempts to add this had failed.
The developer, Hogan Consulting LLC, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Hogan Consulting LLC
- Size
- 189.4 MB
- Category
- Word
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.6 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.6 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.6 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.3 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Unlock Gallery $2.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Hogan Consulting LLC