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 Baroque: An oval as the main axis, funneling the eye before releasing it
- Type
- Set in Baroque's manner (Run lettering along curved surfaces and bands, never as level lines), and let Renaissance's lettering (Set Roman capitals in the proportions of inscriptions) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Baroque's material (Gold against deep color, hidden side windows carving the relief); bring in exactly one thing from Renaissance (Move from tempera to oil and build up transparent layers).
- Colour
- Build on #e6dcc8, #97804b, #302015 and admit one accent from #ebdfba, #8daee1, #2f2420.
Where they fight
- Baroque and Renaissance both belong to Historical Styles, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Baroque and Renaissance stand roughly 250 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Baroque Multiplying ornament without designing where the light travels, producing an even excess that is rich and has no climax.
- Renaissance Pasting on columns and symmetry gives you stage scenery. Decide one basis for the proportions and carry it through the whole.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Baroque (style, 1600–1750) and their accent from Renaissance (style, 14th–16th century). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Baroque exists for: theatres and festival spaces designed around the shock of entering, or making a room read taller than it is by pulling the eye upward. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Baroque - Ovals and curved surfaces - Dramatic light - Illusionistic ceilings - Architecture fused with sculpture Composition: An oval as the main axis, funneling the eye before releasing it. Type and lettering: Run lettering along curved surfaces and bands, never as level lines. ## Accent comes from Renaissance, used sparingly - One point linear perspective - The classical orders and symmetry - Composition based on the proportions of the body - A clear triangular composition Let one material quality come from it: Move from tempera to oil and build up transparent layers. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e6dcc8, carry the structure in #97804b and #302015, and let a single accent come from #8daee1. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: exhilaration, luxury, trust, calm. ## Where they fight - Baroque and Renaissance both belong to Historical Styles, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. - Baroque and Renaissance stand roughly 250 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Baroque: Multiplying ornament without designing where the light travels, producing an even excess that is rich and has no climax. - Renaissance: Pasting on columns and symmetry gives you stage scenery. Decide one basis for the proportions and carry it through the whole. ## 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
- Baroque 1600–1750 / Style / Historical Styles
A total art that draws the viewer in with ovals, curved surfaces, dramatic light and an excess of ornament. Architecture, sculpture, painting and city planning were handled as one staging, turning power and faith into spectacle.
- Renaissance 14th–16th century / Style / Historical Styles
A movement that rediscovered ancient proportion and the human body and fixed three dimensions on a flat surface through linear perspective. Mathematics became the common language of painting and architecture, and the norms of the next five hundred years, symmetry, the classical orders and the golden ratio, were established here.
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