Flat tear to line foamy figure (5,3)

'flat' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'tear to line foamy figure' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'tear' is 'eart' which is within the answer.
'line' could be 'l' (used when specifying particular lines from a poem) and 'l' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'att' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?