Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Burle Marx Landscape: Curves divide the plane, straight lines kept to paving edges
- Type
- Set in Burle Marx Landscape's manner (One species per large block, planes told apart by leaf and color), and let Naturalistic Planting's lettering (Perennials and grasses, few species repeated in large masses) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Burle Marx Landscape's material (The figure drawn in stone paving, water used as empty space); bring in exactly one thing from Naturalistic Planting (A single cut in spring, seed heads and stems left standing).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Garden Styles, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Burle Marx Landscape Drawing the curves as decoration while ignoring growth rates lets the blocks break down within years and the color edges go muddy.
- Naturalistic Planting Copying the look by adding species lets the strongest grasses smother the rest by the second year, and the drift turns into weeds.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Burle Marx Landscape (Style, 1930s–1994) and its accent from Naturalistic Planting (Style, 1990s–). Structural cues: Planting as color fields; Organic curves in plan; The tropical palette; Paving as graphic. Accent cues, used sparingly: Perennial and grass communities; The beauty of dieback; Drifts of planting; Ecology as the model. Composition: Curves divide the plane, straight lines kept to paving edges. Type and lettering: One species per large block, planes told apart by leaf and color. Let one material quality come from the second style: A single cut in spring, seed heads and stems left standing. Mood: Exhilaration, Play, Futurism, Calm, Intimacy. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Burle Marx Landscape 1930s–1994 / Style / Garden Styles
The inventor of modernist landscape, massing Brazilian tropical plants in color fields like abstract painting. As the Copacabana wave pavement shows, he designed the ground as one graphic.
- Naturalistic Planting 1990s– / Style / Garden Styles
Planting design modeled on perennial meadow ecologies, led by Piet Oudolf: beauty extended to the dead seed heads of winter, a year-round idea rewriting urban public space from the High Line outward.
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