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 Celestial Atlas: Concentric spheres at the center, four corners filled with cartouches
- Type
- Set in Celestial Atlas's manner (Title inside an ornamented frame, star names tiny and italic), and let Portolan Chart's lettering (Names packed perpendicular to the coast, key ports raised in red) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Celestial Atlas's material (Gold and hand color on deep blue, stars struck as engraved points); bring in exactly one thing from Portolan Chart (Black and red on a vellum ground, flags and monsters in open water).
- Colour
- Build on #e7ddcc, #b18651, #39485c and admit one accent from #c1bda8, #a64a3c, #1b2c5c.
Where they fight
- Celestial Atlas and Portolan Chart both belong to Diagrammatic Expression, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
- Celestial Atlas and Portolan Chart stand roughly 400 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Celestial Atlas Drawing the myth figures so large that the star positions vanish leaves a plate working neither as diagram nor as ornament.
- Portolan Chart Drawing rhumb lines as pattern while ignoring how they answer the roses gives ornament that no longer looks like an instrument of navigation.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Celestial Atlas (style, 17th–19th century) and their accent from Portolan Chart (style, 13th–17th century). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Celestial Atlas exists for: double-page plates for books and exhibitions on astronomy or navigation, or showing a whole body of knowledge on one sheet with its ornament intact. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Celestial Atlas - Myth figures over stars - Concentric celestial structure - Gold and blue coloring - Ornamented cartouches Composition: Concentric spheres at the center, four corners filled with cartouches. Type and lettering: Title inside an ornamented frame, star names tiny and italic. ## Accent comes from Portolan Chart, used sparingly - Radiating rhumb lines - Names perpendicular to coasts - The vellum ground - Flags and monsters as ornament Let one material quality come from it: Black and red on a vellum ground, flags and monsters in open water. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e7ddcc, carry the structure in #b18651 and #39485c, and let a single accent come from #a64a3c. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: exhilaration, luxury, calm, trust, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - Celestial Atlas and Portolan Chart both belong to Diagrammatic Expression, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. - Celestial Atlas and Portolan Chart stand roughly 400 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - Celestial Atlas: Drawing the myth figures so large that the star positions vanish leaves a plate working neither as diagram nor as ornament. - Portolan Chart: Drawing rhumb lines as pattern while ignoring how they answer the roses gives ornament that no longer looks like an instrument of navigation. ## 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
- Celestial Atlas 17th–19th century / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
The Baroque celestial atlas layering constellation mythology over observation. Cellarius's Harmonia Macrocosmica marks the summit of an age when scientific diagram could also be decorative art.
- Portolan Chart 13th–17th century / Style / Diagrammatic Expression
A medieval working sea chart, crossed by radiating rhumb lines. Coastlines and place names run precisely along the vellum while flags and monsters fill the empty water, from a time when a map's usefulness and its ornament had not yet parted.
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