Eh, I don't really... get that? explanation? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I mean it's not like it has any kind of art historical basis it's just this person saying well things that have an in world explanation are fantasy rather than surrealism... but given that surrealism is intrinsically connected to the Unconscious of Freud, saying that it's out of place feels like an understanding?

I mean the fairy example the one person uses is just terrible. Just throwing a fairy into your kitchen isn't surreal. It's just weird. Surrealism involves to an extent making visible the conceptual. What is a fairy a concept of? I mean you could force it but I just honestly think there's an implicit difference between that and:







(Magritte, Magritte, Joan Miro, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington)

Yeah basically toss those explanations out they're terribad like I don't think there's any way I can address them beyond saying nope, that's not what's going on there, at least in my understanding of surrealism.

Honestly it was a little ad hoc but I think my explanation of things being on some level metaphorical and nonliteral is still probably the best one we're going to hit upon. And yeah, Horribly Awry could arguably fit that.

I do think it's quite possible to explore the nonliteral while also exploring the setting. Of the pieces I started with, one has a clear image of a Dominarian survivor, one has a clear image of Mirrodin's three suns, and the most abstract one that we've seen, Karmic Justice, still looks like Otaria to me even if I wouldn't be able to pick the landscape out of a lineup.

I mean I think a lot of people are into Ad Nauseam because the idea is so over the top that it feels like it becomes something metaphorical or symbolic, even though it also still is recognizable as something from Grixis.

Are there any other cards that stand out as doing both worldbuilding AND something more metaphorical?

army of the damned comes to mind

chapel geist isn't exactly surreal but I love the art. I really love all the fabric based ghost art in innistrad really.

I was browsing Magic art on reddit and I came upon a couple of arts that might be relevant for the discussion.



I also realized I should really look at Magic art more often, because I miss out on a lot of pretty things when only browsing through the cards.

That is some great art.

I miss Rebecca Guay. Magic art seems to be getting more and more photorealistic.

I miss Rebecca Guay. Magic art seems to be getting more and more photorealistic.

I never noticed the tiny people on top of grindstone damn that art is amazing.

Alot of the art for cards with split second are semi-surreal.

Keeper, the hilarious part of naming ad nauseam as recognizably Grixis is that it wasn't really even Grixian. It was Ravnican. It was made for the Dimir.

I also really miss Rebecca. I'd rather she have a few pieces than Therese.

Mirage is my favourite block for card art. Lots of craziness.

I am often amazed when I see the blown up version of cards. When playing or looking at them for future playing I get a general feel for the art enough to quickly recognize the card but never really look deeply into it. I was actually looking deeper into some recent arts for this thread and noticing things I had not noticed before. Though it was still at card size so I am sure there is things that would be really amazing blown up to a larger size. Infinite Obliteration was one I was thinking about bringing up but wasn't sure about going with a list of several cards.

I went into this topic feeling the best results are going to be from Instants and Sorceries and I feel this hypothesis has held up pretty well.

@Barinellos:

Oh, the art was repurposed? I totally forgot about that until you mentioned it... It really feels like it fits, though, it even has the like patchyness to the skin that I think of as being so characteristic of Grixis.

@Pantera:

I feel like there's some good enchantments too but yeah Creatures and Artifacts certainly don't lend themselves much to abstraction, comparatively.

The only creatures I can immediately think of that might serve in abstraction are the nightmare creatures like faceless devourer and things actually specifically made to play on the abstraction of the mind, like illusions. Even then, it usually doesn't play on the surrealism that's the other part of the equation.

And yeah, the card even had the Dimir signet on it.

Living Wall stands out as a creature that pushes pretty hard on the boundaries of the real

Do you think that's what Lukas summoned at the Battle of Tall Grass?

Some gems from Kamigawa's surplus of surreal sapients.
*Brutal Deceiver
Chisei, Heart of Oceans
Dreamcatcher
Earthshaker
Floating-Dream Zubera
*Glitterfang
Harsh Deceiver
Horizon Seed
Kami of False Hope
*Kami of the Painted Road
Kuro, Pitlord - mostly for the art style.
*Mannichi, the Fevered Dream - Name kind of gives that one away.
Moonlit Strider
*Pain Kami
Shinen of Flight's Wings
Shinen of Stars' Light
Tallowisp - Seems like one for the auction
Wandering Ones

That was much harder to narrow down than I expected.

The designs for the Kami were so great. One of the most underrated pieces of worldbuilding we've got imo.

The Nephilim are another group of creatures that are hard to tell if they are abstract or just weird. But Ink-Treader Nephilim and Yore-Tiller Nephilim could both be considered surreal.

Well, thus is an interesting aspect, because a lot of these were literal abstractions. Giving them form was kind of a delightful literalism otherwise not present in other abstractions.

My favorite surreal block was Tempest. I loved the flavor text from that one.

I'm really excited to look at Tempest again when I dig through older sets for cards... there's some real cool stuff from around the Mirage/Tempest/Urza period.