Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Azulejo: Set the tile grid first, compose so breaks fall on the joints
- Type
- Set in Azulejo's manner (Fire the inscription in the same blue and frame it into the wall), and let Kōwhaiwhai's lettering (Let koru direction mark the phrasing and keep the spiral turns even) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Azulejo's material (Cobalt blue on white glaze, judged with the gloss reflection included); bring in exactly one thing from Kōwhaiwhai (Only red, black and white, with black holding the ground down).
- Colour
- Build on #ecede3, #485e9b, #1f274b and admit one accent from #dfe7e8, #9f1914, #1b1b1f.
Where they fight
- Azulejo and Kōwhaiwhai both belong to Ornament, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Azulejo and Kōwhaiwhai stand roughly 300 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Azulejo Laying a large picture out without regard for the joints misaligns grid and drawing, and the wall looks like a printed sheet pasted on.
- Kōwhaiwhai Using the patterns as decoration apart from the genealogy they record removes the sign of whose story it is and becomes appropriation.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Azulejo (style, 15th century–) and their accent from Kōwhaiwhai (style, 18th century–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Azulejo exists for: using a building's wall as a large plate the passerby can read, or covering rooms floor to ceiling in repeats for coolness and continuity. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Azulejo - Blue-and-white tile - Narrative panels wall-high - Repeating pattern - One body with the building Composition: Set the tile grid first, compose so breaks fall on the joints. Type and lettering: Fire the inscription in the same blue and frame it into the wall. ## Accent comes from Kōwhaiwhai, used sparingly - Repeating koru spirals - Red, black and white - Symmetry and reflection - Bands following the rafters Let one material quality come from it: Only red, black and white, with black holding the ground down. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ecede3, carry the structure in #485e9b and #1f274b, and let a single accent come from #9f1914. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, luxury, nostalgia, trust, intimacy. ## Where they fight - Azulejo and Kōwhaiwhai both belong to Ornament, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. - Azulejo and Kōwhaiwhai stand roughly 300 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Azulejo: Laying a large picture out without regard for the joints misaligns grid and drawing, and the wall looks like a printed sheet pasted on. - Kōwhaiwhai: Using the patterns as decoration apart from the genealogy they record removes the sign of whose story it is and becomes appropriation. ## 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.
Related entries
- Azulejo 15th century– / Style / Ornament
Portugal's blue-and-white tile works as the skin of architecture, opening story, map and ornament onto the street until the city itself can be read as a printed plate.
- Kōwhaiwhai 18th century– / Style / Ornament
Scroll patterns run along the rafters of Māori meeting houses. Built from the koru, the unfurling fern shoot, and worked in red, black and white alone, they unfold symmetry, rotation and reflection as a mathematics of curves that records genealogy and story overhead.
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