# Literati Painting × Nanga / Bunjinga — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=literati-painting+nanga
# Literati Painting carries the structure and Nanga / Bunjinga appears as the accent.
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images that take their structure from Literati Painting (style, 11th century–) and their accent from Nanga / Bunjinga (style, 18th–19th centuries).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing Literati Painting exists for: making an image that puts attitude ahead of skill, or placing writing and image on one sheet at the same rank. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from Literati Painting

- Calligraphic brushwork and references to earlier painting
- Relations among image, poetry, calligraphy and seals
- Ink tones and, in some works, light colour
- Personal expression through subject and brushwork

Composition: Let the void take the lead role and push the subject into a corner. Type and lettering: Treat calligraphy as part of the picture and use the seal as the keystone of the composition.

## Accent comes from Nanga / Bunjinga, used sparingly

- Mountains and trees built from strokes, dots and washes
- Poetry and painting share a surface
- Imagined and observed landscapes interact
- Individual brush rhythms in flowers and landscapes

Let one material quality come from it: Test wet and dry strokes and dot density, retaining an ink structure when using light colour.

## Colour and feeling

Build the ground on #f6ecd9, carry the structure in #8e4a33 and #262025, and let a single accent come from #788674. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.
Feeling to carry: calm, intimacy, luxury.

## Where they fight

- Literati Painting and Nanga / Bunjinga both belong to East Asian Painting, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Literati Painting and Nanga / Bunjinga stand roughly 700 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.

## What goes wrong

- Literati Painting: Dry ink or apparent awkwardness alone does not identify literati painting. Check cultivation, earlier models and calligraphy; do not assume every artist was nonprofessional or every work unsold.
- Nanga / Bunjinga: Not every ink landscape is Nanga. Identify Japanese reception, artists and exchanges rather than duplicating Chinese literati painting under another name.

## Across the four

Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.

Design specs for each entry: https://indexstyle.org/styles/literati-painting/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/nanga/design.md