Period
Graphic-design styles from the 1500s
Styles that began in the 1500s, by the year the atlas gives for when each took shape. Stylogeny describes 5 of them. The earliest began in 1500, the latest in 1531. Of these, 4 are still in use.
The 5 styles
Oldest first. Each has its own page: its design choices, where it comes from, and real works.
- Javanese Wayang Kulit (Tatah Sungging)The visual language of Javanese shadow puppets: flat figures cut from buffalo parchment, with head and legs in profile, shoulders turned to the front and long jointed arms worked by horn rods.
- Kōwhaiwhai & Toi Māori DesignToi Māori, the visual arts of the tangata whenua of Aotearoa, of which kōwhaiwhai, the painted scroll patterns of paddles and meeting-house rafters, is the most graphic strand.
- Zoomorphic & Figural Calligraphy (Islamic Calligrams)Pictorial writing in which the strokes of a devotional text form one figure: a lion of ʿAli built from the Nad-e ʿAli prayer, a galleon whose hull spells the names of the Seven Sleepers, a peacock, a Sufi cap.
The design choices they share
The choices these styles make more often than the 359 styles in the atlas as a whole, most telling first.
- Spiritual & sacredin 5 of 5
- Textile & craftin 4 of 5
- Floral & vegetalin 4 of 5
- Biomorphic curvesin 4 of 5
- Carved linein 3 of 5
- Abundant decorationin 3 of 5
- Brush & pen calligraphyin 3 of 5
- Light groundin 5 of 5