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 Talavera Poblana's lettering (If words are needed, run them once around the rim in the same blue and the same brush as the painting. Keep each workshop's hand rather than regularising it into type) 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 Talavera Poblana (Age the clay, throw or mould the form, biscuit fire it, then lay on a thick white glaze containing tin. Paint straight onto the dry powdery glaze with cobalt, and fire once more so glaze and painting set together).
- Colour
- Build on #ecede3, #485e9b, #1f274b and admit one accent from #F4EFE4, #23458C, #D9A425.
Where they fight
- Azulejo and Talavera Poblana stand roughly 100 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.
- Talavera Poblana Regularise the brushwork and you lose the drag of a brush over thick glaze, so the painting starts to look printed on.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Azulejo (style, 15th century–) and their accent from Talavera Poblana (style, 16th 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 Talavera Poblana, used sparingly - A thick milky white glaze covers the whole piece and pools into a visible step at rim and foot - Compartmented borders painted in a single blue run all the way around the rim - Among Chinese style flowers and rocks sits one local figure, such as a quetzal or a crowned double-headed eagle - Tiles repeat one design across a whole wall, and no two carry the same brush pressure Let one material quality come from it: Age the clay, throw or mould the form, biscuit fire it, then lay on a thick white glaze containing tin. Paint straight onto the dry powdery glaze with cobalt, and fire once more so glaze and painting set together. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ecede3, carry the structure in #485e9b and #1f274b, and let a single accent come from #D9A425. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, luxury, nostalgia, trust, exhilaration. ## Where they fight - Azulejo and Talavera Poblana stand roughly 100 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. - Talavera Poblana: Regularise the brushwork and you lose the drag of a brush over thick glaze, so the painting starts to look printed on. ## 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.
- Talavera Poblana 16th century– / Style / Ceramic Styles
Talavera is the tin-glazed earthenware that Spanish potters' technique became in and around Puebla, painted over a thick milky white glaze. Local potters borrowed the blue-and-white schemes of Chinese porcelain that crossed the Pacific and passed through the city, then mixed in local figures such as the quetzal and the double-headed eagle. That crossing is what separates it from the Spanish maiolica it started from.
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