Fantastic art

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Fantasy

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Gustave Doré's fantastic illustration of Orlando Furioso: defeating a sea monster
Gustave Doré's fantastic illustration of Orlando Furioso: defeating a sea monster

Fantastic art is an art genre. The parameters of fantastic art has been fairly rigourously defined in the scholarship on the subject. It has traditionally been largely confined to painting and illustration, but since the 1970s has increasingly been found also in photography. Fantastic art explores fantasy, imagination, the dream state, the grotesque, visions and the uncanny.[citation needed] With symbolism, it often shares its choice of themes such as mythology, occultism and mysticism, and generally seeks to depict the inner life.

Fantasy has been an integral part of art since its beginnings,[citation needed] but has been particularly important in mannerism, magic realist painting, romantic art, symbolism, surrealism and lowbrow. In French, the genre is called le fantastique, in English it is sometimes referred to as visionary art, grotesque art or mannerist art. It has had a deep and circular interaction with fantasy literature.

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[edit] Historic artists

The first "fantastic" artist is generally said to be Hieronymus Bosch.[citation needed] Other painters who have been labeled fantastic include Brueghel, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Matthias Grünewald, Hans Baldung Grien, Francisco de Goya, Gustave Moreau, Max Magnus Norman, Henry Fuseli, Odilon Redon, Max Klinger, Arnold Böcklin, William Blake, Gustave Doré, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Salvador Dalí, Arik Brauer, Johfra, Odd Nerdrum, and Mati Klarwein.[citation needed]

[edit] Contemporary Artists

[edit] Further reading

  • Coleman, A.D. (1977). The Grotesque in Photography. New York: Summit, Ridge Press.
  • Watney, Simon (1977). Fantastic Painters. London: Thames & Hudson.
  • Colombo, Attilio (1979). Fantastic Photographs. London: Gordon Fraser.
  • Johnson, Diana L. (1979). Fantastic illustration and design in Britain, 1850-1930. Rhode Island School of Design.
  • Krichbaum, Jorg & Zondergeld. R.A. (Eds.) (1985). Dictionary of Fantastic Art. Barron's Educational Series.
  • Menton, Seymour (1983). Magic Realism Rediscovered 1918-1981. Philadelphia, The Art Alliance Press.
  • Day, Holliday T. & Sturges, Hollister (1989). Art of the Fantastic: Latin America, 1920-1987. Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art.
  • Clair, Jean (1995). Lost Paradise: Symbolist Europe. Montreal: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
  • Palumbo, Donald (Ed.) (1986). Eros in the Mind's Eye: Sexuality and the Fantastic in Art and Film (Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy). Greenwood Press.
  • Stathatos, John (2001). A Vindication of Tlon: Photography and the Fantastic. Greece: Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
  • Schurian, Prof. Dr. Walter (2005). Fantastic Art. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-2954-7 (English edition)
  • beinArt collective (2007). Metamorphosis. beinArt. ISBN 978-0-9803231-0-8

[edit] See also