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 Buncheong: Decorate only the faces that are seen and leave the base and footring bare. Build in three bands: one line at the rim, the main motif on the body, and white left alone
- Type
- Set in Buncheong's manner (Lettering is not the subject. Put a mark or a date in as a thin incised line filled with white slip, at the same weight as the drawn lines), and let Sumi-e's lettering (A light mincho or brush letters, sparingly) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Buncheong's material (Throw a bluish grey clay body, then brush the white slip on or dip the whole pot. Carve, stamp and scrape the slip away to move the white around, then glaze clear and fire. Stop short of a full white so the grey body still shows through); bring in exactly one thing from Sumi-e (Ink, unbleached paper, absorption, bleed).
- Colour
- Build on #6F7B72, #EDE6D6, #4B3B2A and admit one accent from #eee9dc, #24231f, #8c887c.
Where they fight
- Buncheong and Sumi-e stand roughly 732 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Buncheong Even out the brush marks and the record of speed disappears, leaving a merely white pot.
- Sumi-e Not a black brush texture dropped in. Design the stroke order and the meaning of the emptiness.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Buncheong (style, 14th–16th century) and their accent from Sumi-e (technique, Tang dynasty–present). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Buncheong exists for: when tableware or bottles of one shape should each carry a different surface, or when stamped repetition and loose handwork have to share one pot in only white and grey. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Buncheong - White slip lies over a bluish grey body, and the unevenness of the coating is the pattern - On brushed pieces the bristle tracks run in one direction as a white band - On stamped pieces small chrysanthemums are pressed edge to edge and filled with white slip, leaving rows of white dots - On dipped pieces one hard line marks how deep the pot went into the slip, with grey body showing below it Composition: Decorate only the faces that are seen and leave the base and footring bare. Build in three bands: one line at the rim, the main motif on the body, and white left alone. Type and lettering: Lettering is not the subject. Put a mark or a date in as a thin incised line filled with white slip, at the same weight as the drawn lines. ## Accent comes from Sumi-e, used sparingly - Ink gradation - Dry-brush scratch - Vast emptiness - The speed of one stroke Let one material quality come from it: Ink, unbleached paper, absorption, bleed. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #EDE6D6, carry the structure in #6F7B72 and #4B3B2A, and let a single accent come from #8c887c. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, intimacy, play, luxury. ## Where they fight - Buncheong and Sumi-e stand roughly 732 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Buncheong: Even out the brush marks and the record of speed disappears, leaving a merely white pot. - Sumi-e: Not a black brush texture dropped in. Design the stroke order and the meaning of the emptiness. ## 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
- Buncheong 14th–16th century / Style / Ceramic Styles
Buncheong is Korean stoneware whose bluish grey body is covered with white slip, and its name shortens a phrase used by the art historian Go Yuseop. The group is sorted by how the slip is applied, through inlay, stamping, sgraffito, incising, iron painting, brushed slip and dipped slip. Because the coating is never even, the marks of the hand stay on the finished pot.
- Sumi-e Tang dynasty–present / Technique / East Asian Painting
With only ink gradations and emptiness, keeps a subject's presence, speed and distance rather than its shape.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=buncheong+sumi-e