Is Fantasy Art yielding to pressure of globalized commercialization?

Which factors play a role in globalizing Fantasy Art?
Is Fantasy Art yielding to pressure of globalized commercialization?

It is time for me to figure out my arguments and the structure of the work. I also need to settle on one specific question/topic and it's hard to do so. Especially when there aren't people really talking or writing about this.

To write my paper I need to define two things - Fantasy Art and Fantasy Fine Art. I'll be primarily talking about Fantasy Art as this is the area I would like to end up as a professional artist.

First of all I should define what art is. But well people can't really agree on that much. Anyway it is something we create that awakens are senses and what evokes emotion. It is a work of expression and take all kind of forms.

Fantasy Art in my case is any art produced for commercial use that has fantastic elements in it. Most Fantasy art is done for book covers for Fantasy literature, fantasy oriented magazines, rule books for Role Playing Games and Trading Card Games. The author of a Fantasy Art is someone who gets a description of the work he is supposed to do and does exactly that.

Fantasy Art thus is an illustration of a story that the viewer of the art is familiar with (or will be after finishing the book, playing the game etc)

Fantasy Fine Art is an art produced by an artist himself without any constraints by a client. Thus it can express the author's feelings and fantasies and does not relate to an existing story whatsoever.


Finding out about existing Fantasy Fine Art and artists doing this kind of division I tried to find a question that would lead me to an answer to what I'm interested. My whole research and information in it always had a fallback - commercial sphere and globalization thus. So I'd like to speak about the factors that have globalizing effect on Fantasy Art but actually...I can look at it from the other side. How about globalization having effect on FA and in this case the main reason would be - commerce. That is why I will try to settle on

Is Fantasy Art yielding to pressure of globalized commercialization?

From what I said earlier about Fantasy Art we can see already few elements that play a role in globalization of Fantasy Art. Some of the aspects are tightly related to the commercial sphere.

We as the end user have to be attracted by the art that is given to us. It has to be pleasing and it has to catch our eye in terms of milliseconds (1).

Fantasy genre works with tropes like magic, medievalism, quest etc. This is something we expect of fantasy. Not only it tells us that 'this is fantasy' but it also limits the authors of fantasy in a way(2).

Many people agree on that Modern fantasy as we see today was due to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. As I found out many artists don't even consider this option. They'll just say 'fantasy was always here, it would eventually find its way'. But still Tolkien and later TSR by creating the first role playing game set some kind of rules that turned into fantasy tropes. And even if they are different in different fantasy worlds they still exist. Magic can have various forms. Elves from one world can be completely different from other elves from a different world etc.

Working as a Fantasy Artist means that the artist gets a description of what he is supposed to do from a client. The artwork done probably needs to fit a certain setting (with this word this time I mean anything from matching style, design or colors) already and that itself can limit the author and it may dictate the style of the work.(3)

Like this we more perceive the artwork as being a part of something and we usually think about it that way. This and that artwork are both similar in design and come from the same setting but different authors - for example World of Warcraft. But when we look at artwork for Magic: The Gathering the style is different but the same two artists follow some kind of invisible guidelines for the MtG setting. (see Pete Venters for exmaple)

This also leads us to 'how was fantasy [genre] created?'(4)?
The genre was always there. We always had fantasies and dreams about something. At the beginning of 20th century pulp magazines were the place to look for fantasy fiction many times accompanied by illustrations. Later novels and books appeared but the popularity greatly rose with the publishing of Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. Many writers and artist continued in this genre of fantasy. It was much more publicly known and the public started to get used to it. The game industry strengthen this genre much more.

Now with the digital age use of computer is on the rise and this plays a big role as well. Does it have an impact on how Fantasy Art looks like? Partly yes. (5)

The computer is a really good tool for someone who needs to work fast. It helps the artists to meet deadlines and also brings in elements that do not exist while using traditional media. There are artists that experiment with what computer can do and many try to see how far the artwork can look photo realistic. See Brad Rigney.


to be continued...