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 Les Nabis: Tall panel formats; figures embedded in wallpaper-like pattern until motif and ground trade places
- Type
- Set in Les Nabis's manner (Soft, slightly irregular serifs or hand-drawn titling woven into the pattern), and let Symbolism's lettering (Elongated ornamental serifs with vegetal terminals, tangled to just short of illegibility) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Les Nabis's material (Muted intermediate tones—dusty rose, olive, ochre—on matte, absorbent surfaces); bring in exactly one thing from Symbolism (Deep muted purples and greens with gold and silver, smoky gradients dissolving contour).
- Colour
- Build on #f4d47f, #b95f4e, #2e2d2e and admit one accent from #c7ac85, #86828c, #2c2521.
Where they fight
- Les Nabis and Symbolism both belong to Fin de Siècle Art, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Les Nabis Matching figure and pattern too closely turns the picture into plain wallpaper, and who is doing what disappears. Sink the figure in, but keep its contour readable.
- Symbolism Piling up suggestion until nothing announces itself leaves an image of mood alone, so measure the distance between ornament and meaning and leave the viewer a way to the message.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Les Nabis (style, 1888–1900) and their accent from Symbolism (style, 1886–1910). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Les Nabis exists for: designing the walls of a home or shop as a continuous field between picture and wallpaper, or series of illustrations, endpapers and prints that take the everyday interior as subject. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Les Nabis - Compositions conceived as decorative panels - Reversals of pattern and ground - Harmonies of muted intermediate tones - Subjects of interiors and daily life Composition: Tall panel formats; figures embedded in wallpaper-like pattern until motif and ground trade places. Type and lettering: Soft, slightly irregular serifs or hand-drawn titling woven into the pattern. ## Accent comes from Symbolism, used sparingly - Subjects of dream and myth - Contours that dissolve into vagueness - Ornamentalised plants and emblems - A deep, muted colour range Let one material quality come from it: Deep muted purples and greens with gold and silver, smoky gradients dissolving contour. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #f4d47f, carry the structure in #b95f4e and #2e2d2e, and let a single accent come from #86828c. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: luxury, intimacy. ## Where they fight - Les Nabis and Symbolism both belong to Fin de Siècle Art, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Les Nabis: Matching figure and pattern too closely turns the picture into plain wallpaper, and who is doing what disappears. Sink the figure in, but keep its contour readable. - Symbolism: Piling up suggestion until nothing announces itself leaves an image of mood alone, so measure the distance between ornament and meaning and leave the viewer a way to the message. ## 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
- Les Nabis 1888–1900 / Style / Fin de Siècle Art
A group of painters who called themselves prophets, setting out from the declaration that a picture is essentially a flat surface covered in a certain order. They extended interiors and daily life into decorative panels, lithographs, book illustration and stage design, dissolving the boundary between fine and applied art.
- Symbolism 1886–1910 / Style / Fin de Siècle Art
An international movement that sought to visualise the inner life through forms and colours suggesting dream, myth and idea, rather than describing the outer world. Blurred contours, closed eyes, ornamentalised plants and emblems are placed as presences whose meaning is never spelled out. It created the vocabulary of fin-de-siècle posters and book decoration.
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