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 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 #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Diagrammatic Expression, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
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
An original image that takes its structure from Celestial Atlas (Style, 17th–19th century) and its accent from Portolan Chart (Style, 13th–17th century). Structural cues: Myth figures over stars; Concentric celestial structure; Gold and blue coloring; Ornamented cartouches. Accent cues, used sparingly: Radiating rhumb lines; Names perpendicular to coasts; The vellum ground; Flags and monsters as ornament. Composition: Concentric spheres at the center, four corners filled with cartouches. Type and lettering: Title inside an ornamented frame, star names tiny and italic. Let one material quality come from the second style: Black and red on a vellum ground, flags and monsters in open water. Mood: Exhilaration, Luxury, Calm, Trust, Nostalgia. 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
- 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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