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 Delftware: Let each tile stand alone, with corner motifs linking them into a field
- Type
- Set in Delftware's manner (Keep marks small on the underside and leave the face to painting), and let Kakiemon's lettering (Keep text small and thin, in one colour taken from the painting or in black, so it never closes up the white) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Delftware's material (Cobalt on white tin glaze, painted in one pass with no correction); bring in exactly one thing from Kakiemon (Thin red, green and blue lines and small patches of colour on a white ground, with gold at a few points. The ground itself stays unpainted).
- Colour
- Build on #e9f1f3, #8ba2b4, #2e5774 and admit one accent from #F9F5EC, #C4402D, #3F7D52.
Where they fight
- Delftware and Kakiemon both belong to Ceramic Styles, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Delftware Aiming to pass as real porcelain turns the thick earthenware body and the speed of the brush from virtues into faults.
- Kakiemon Filling the empty ground because it looks unfinished collapses the width of the white and lets the thin enamel lines sink into it.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Delftware (style, 1600s–) and their accent from Kakiemon (style, 17th century–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Delftware exists for: pulling tableware and walls into one room through blue painting alone, or using Eastern motifs while admitting openly that they are translations. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Delftware - Painting in blue alone - White tin-glaze ground - Eastern motifs translated - From tiles to tableware Composition: Let each tile stand alone, with corner motifs linking them into a field. Type and lettering: Keep marks small on the underside and leave the face to painting. ## Accent comes from Kakiemon, used sparingly - The enamel sits on top of the glaze, so only the painted areas stand slightly proud and catch the light - Thin red, green and blue lines with gilding, drawing prunus, bamboo, birds and figures - More bare white body than painting, with the centre left open and the motif pushed to an edge - Figures of people and animals as well as vessels, painted in the same enamels and gilding Let one material quality come from it: Thin red, green and blue lines and small patches of colour on a white ground, with gold at a few points. The ground itself stays unpainted. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #e9f1f3, carry the structure in #8ba2b4 and #2e5774, and let a single accent come from #3F7D52. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: luxury, nostalgia, calm, technique. ## Where they fight - Delftware and Kakiemon both belong to Ceramic Styles, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Delftware: Aiming to pass as real porcelain turns the thick earthenware body and the speed of the brush from virtues into faults. - Kakiemon: Filling the empty ground because it looks unfinished collapses the width of the white and lets the thin enamel lines sink into it. ## 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
- Delftware 1600s– / Style / Ceramic Styles
Longing for Chinese porcelain, Delft produced tin-glazed pottery of its own. Windmills, ships and Eastern scenes painted in blue alone fixed 'blue and white' as a Western language of table and room, chinoiserie put into practice.
- Kakiemon 17th century– / Style / Ceramic Styles
Porcelain from the Arita district of Hizen, painted with bright enamels laid over the glaze on a fine white body. The name comes from a family of decorators said to have brought overglaze enamelling to Arita in the 1640s. Wide areas of the white body are left bare and the painting is pushed to one side of them.
Share this composition:https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=delftware+kakiemon