Fantastic Art

📖 The Scoop

The fantastic in the visual arts is a constant current, which manifests itself differently at different times: as the expression of social crises, of the uncertainty of an age, or of far-reaching upheavals. We find captivating examples in, for instance, Mannerism, in Romanticism, in Symbolism, and in Surrealism. Fantastic works of art may come across as droll, or as mythic, sometimes as erotic or else as exaggerated; often they express something dreamily unreal, surreal, or supernatural. They are characterized by premonitions of imminent woe, by a search for orientation, by murky imaginations or by the vision of a different, literally more "wonder-full" world. Rarely do fantastic artists find themselves in harmony with contemporary art movements, mostly they go their own way, casting their gaze inwards rather than outwards. This book presents the fantastic in art by way of striking examples from the late 19th century right up to our own day.

Genre: Art / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945) (fancy, right?)