Style combination · Contrasts

Burmese Parabaik Painting × Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture

Tibetan pecha are loose horizontal leaves printed from carved blocks in many copies; the parabaik is a single hand-painted book that unfolds into one strip.

From the research on Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books)

Mix them and make something Burmese Parabaik Painting Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Burmese Parabaik Painting, their arrangement from Burmese Parabaik Painting, the finish from Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books) Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture (Pecha & Prayer Flags)

Type from Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering
Colour from Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture: Monochrome
Full polychrome
Form from Burmese Parabaik Painting: Stylised figuration
Borders & frames
Composition from Burmese Parabaik Painting: Framed panels
Sequential narrative
Surface from Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture

Atlas

Yatra One; Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture used Uchen (dbu can, 'with a head'), the headed script of print, written out by monk calligraphers as master copies for the block cutters and Umê (dbu med), the headless cursive of everyday handwriting

Text · Burmese Parabaik Painting

Painted Burmese folding books of the Konbaung court and its monasteries. A long sheet of mulberry paper, folded like a concertina between lacquered or tooled-leather covers, carries a sequence of watercolour scenes in ruled panels, often with a short Burmese caption in a yellow band beneath: royal ploughing, elephant catching, barge processions, donations, the life of the Buddha and the Jataka. By the mid-19th century painters had added European shading, perspective and a horizon to rows of small stylised figures.

Bodoni Moda; Burmese Parabaik Painting used Burmese round script (Myanmar script) written in ink as captions in the band beneath each scene and Burmese and Pali in Burmese script for the texts of Buddhist and court parabaik

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture, with a counter-accent from Burmese Parabaik Painting. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books) Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture (Pecha & Prayer Flags)

#efe6cf ground · 36%
#1c1a17 ink · 14%
#e3b02e accent · 18%
#c23b22 accent · 14%
#2f5aa8 accent · 10%
#3d8a4c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe6cf;
  --ink: #1c1a17;
  --accent-1: #e3b02e;
  --accent-2: #c23b22;
  --accent-3: #2f5aa8;
  --accent-4: #3d8a4c;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
}

Use it with care

Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books): Many parabaik show the life of the Buddha, previous Buddhas and Jataka stories and were made as acts of merit; treat these scenes and every Buddha image as sacred to Myanmar's Buddhists, and do not crop them into decoration, merchandise or tattoos, place them low or on footwear, or alter or parody the Buddha. The captions are real Burmese texts: have a Burmese reader write or check any caption and never fill the bands with invented script, which image models produce. Many court books left Mandalay Palace after the British captured it in 1885 (the V&A's 1882 manuscript IM.128-1918 was taken from Queen Supayalat's apartments), so credit each book to its court, place and present collection, work with Burmese scholars and painters, and never present a generated image as a historical parabaik.

Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture (Pecha & Prayer Flags): Pecha, icon prints and prayer flags are sacred objects in living Tibetan Buddhist and Bön practice. The Kangyur is the Buddha's word (hence its cinnabar ink), icon prints guide the painting of deities, and flags carry mantras, the four dignities and prayers for a named sponsor. By tradition flags are not put on the ground or worn as clothing, and old ones are burned rather than thrown away. Do not use real or imitation pages, mantras or flags as texture, party bunting, fashion prints or logos, do not crop or mirror them, and have any Tibetan written or checked by a fluent reader. Image models cannot write Uchen and invent letters, so leave text areas blank in generated images and never present one as a real text or flag. Derge still prints by hand from its historic blocks, while Narthang's main halls were razed in 1966: credit and commission Tibetan calligraphers, carvers and printers, in Tibet and in exile, rather than tracing their blocks.

The two styles

Twelve bordered narrative panels depict a crowned figure in ornate Thai-style clothing with attendants, forest animals, boats, temples and Buddhist monks. Repeating yellow flowers and green vines frame the scenes, which are rendered in muted red, gold and green on a cream ground.

1752–1885 · Southeast Asia Burmese Parabaik Painting (Konbaung Folding Books) Painted Burmese folding books of the Konbaung court and its monasteries. A long sheet of mulberry paper, folded like a concertina between lacquered or tooled-leather covers, carries a sequence of watercolour scenes in ruled panels, often with a short Burmese caption in a yellow band beneath: royal ploughing, elephant catching, barge processions, donations, the life of the Buddha and the Jataka. By the mid-19th century painters had added European shading, perspective and a horizon to rows of small stylised figures. c. 1410–present · East Asia, South Asia Tibetan Woodblock Print Culture (Pecha & Prayer Flags) Tibetan Buddhist and Bön woodblock printing, from the first printed Kangyur (1410, cut in China) and the 15th-century presses of Gungthang to the great printing houses of Narthang, Derge and Lhasa. Books take the pecha form of Indian palm-leaf pothis: long, unbound oblong leaves of headed Uchen script, justified with syllable dots, cut in reverse from a calligrapher's copy and printed in black, or in cinnabar red for the Buddha's word. The same workshops cut icons, mandalas and prayer flags: a wind horse ringed by mantras, printed on cloth in five element colours and left to fade in the wind.

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