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 Color Field Painting: Reduce to two or three forms sized beyond the field of view
- Type
- Set in Color Field Painting's manner (Set type small at the margin so the field stays unbroken), and let Lyrical Abstraction's lettering (A light-weight seriffed face set small at one corner, never crossing the centre of the wash) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Color Field Painting's material (Thinned paint soaked into cloth so no edge ever hardens); bring in exactly one thing from Lyrical Abstraction (Thinned colour on an absorbent ground, so the pigment spreads and the edge is decided by the substrate rather than by the hand).
- Colour
- Build on #d87963, #7e596d, #2b2938 and admit one accent from #f7f5d6, #e9401d, #232c62.
Where they fight
- Color Field Painting and Lyrical Abstraction both belong to Postwar Abstract Painting, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Color Field Painting Do not settle for a gradient background. Design how area, adjacent color, edge and viewing distance change the feeling, because big color at small scale never envelops and ends as a swatch.
- Lyrical Abstraction Adding colours muddies the layers and loses the transparency, and one confident stroke in the middle turns the field into a logo, destroying the drift the style is made of.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Color Field Painting (style, late 1940s–1960s) and their accent from Lyrical Abstraction (style, 1947–1970s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Color Field Painting exists for: large walls in museums or places of worship where people stay a long time, or advertising for perfume or spirits where color itself has to carry the mood. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Color Field Painting - Vast color fields - Soaked contours - Few forms - Immersive scale Composition: Reduce to two or three forms sized beyond the field of view. Type and lettering: Set type small at the margin so the field stays unbroken. ## Accent comes from Lyrical Abstraction, used sparingly - Flowing brushwork - Layers of bleed and overlap - Light, transparent colour - Composition without a centre Let one material quality come from it: Thinned colour on an absorbent ground, so the pigment spreads and the edge is decided by the substrate rather than by the hand. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #d87963, carry the structure in #7e596d and #2b2938, and let a single accent come from #e9401d. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, luxury, exhilaration, intimacy. ## Where they fight - Color Field Painting and Lyrical Abstraction both belong to Postwar Abstract Painting, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Color Field Painting: Do not settle for a gradient background. Design how area, adjacent color, edge and viewing distance change the feeling, because big color at small scale never envelops and ends as a swatch. - Lyrical Abstraction: Adding colours muddies the layers and loses the transparency, and one confident stroke in the middle turns the field into a logo, destroying the drift the style is made of. ## 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
- Color Field Painting late 1940s–1960s / Style / Postwar Abstract Painting
Large continuous fields, soaked edges and few forms build a space of color that fills the entire surface and asks to be looked at for a long time.
- Lyrical Abstraction 1947–1970s / Style / Postwar Abstract Painting
Abstraction that leans neither on geometric discipline nor on violent gesture, assembling a lyric out of flowing strokes and bleeding colour. The name was born in Paris and was later applied in America to thinly painted, stained canvases. A reference point whenever softness and lightness have to be designed.
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