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 Ethiopian Icon: Line figures up frontally and divide the ground into flat color fields
- Type
- Set in Ethiopian Icon's manner (Keep inscriptions inside the frame and treat letters as part of the image), and let Russian Icon's lettering (Only abbreviated holy names, written thin in red over the gold) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Ethiopian Icon's material (Dense pigment laid flat on panel or parchment, outlined in heavy black); bring in exactly one thing from Russian Icon (Gesso built on panel, egg tempera and gold leaf in layers).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Both belong to Icon Painting, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Ethiopian Icon Extracting the large eyes as a style breaks the balance of heavy outline and flat color, and the result becomes cartoon caricature.
- Russian Icon Adding naturalistic perspective and shading turns the window for prayer into a scene to look at, and reverse perspective stops working.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Ethiopian Icon (Style, 14th century–) and its accent from Russian Icon (Style, 10th–17th century / continuing). Structural cues: Large almond-shaped eyes; Bold outlines; Vivid flat color; Folding triptychs. Accent cues, used sparingly: The timelessness of gold ground; Reverse perspective; Stylized bodies; The image as object of prayer. Composition: Line figures up frontally and divide the ground into flat color fields. Type and lettering: Keep inscriptions inside the frame and treat letters as part of the image. Let one material quality come from the second style: Gesso built on panel, egg tempera and gold leaf in layers. Mood: Intimacy, Exhilaration, Trust, Calm, Luxury. 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
- Ethiopian Icon 14th century– / Style / Icon Painting
Large almond eyes, heavy outlines and vivid flat color give the sacred painting of Ethiopian Orthodoxy its own manner. The Byzantine inheritance is rewritten there in an African sense of form.
- Russian Icon 10th–17th century / continuing / Style / Icon Painting
The icon tradition inherited from Byzantium uses reverse perspective, gold grounds and stylized bodies so that the panel becomes a window for prayer rather than a picture to look at. Rublev's Trinity marks its spiritual summit.
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