I went to college for graphic design. I know what I'm talking about. I'm at least AS qualified as y'all are.



The medium isn't really the biggest issue. It's an issue, but not the biggest one. My MAIN COMPLAINT is that 99% of arts nowadays have so much detail and random wanton bull**** crammed into each piece, that they are eyesores to look at from across the table. Each piece loses its individuality, because it's having to compete for your eyes and attention with every other piece that also has, as I said, so much random wanton bull**** crammed into that 2 by 2 and a half inch box.

I know that this was true for SOME arts from back in the day, but nowhere near to this extent.

The sleek, surgical-clean lines and shading, and CG-esque, hyper-realist arts are another issue that I don't like, and yes, older arts are not fully clean of this, but this is MAINLY a recent phenomenon in Magic art. The amount of hyper-realism in modern Magic frankly sickens and disgusts me.




He did no such thing, I'm just having a hard time trying to collect all my thoughts in an organized fashion.



Nope.



IF you like hyper-realism, which I do not. I find it revolting, as if in some cases that they're using CG screencaps as Magic art.

This isn't indicative of a problem with magic's art direction, it's all coming from you. The game is no longer catering to your preferences, that doesn't mean the art has become objectively worse as a result no matter your claims otherwise. Quite frankly, if you just want to complain it, especially in the manner you have chosen to do so in*, then... well, honestly, I can't say that many of us are interested in engaging you. You're just griping to gripe, and we're not really interested in it.

*Now, if you'd like a mature discussion of what art movements would be appropriate and could be interestingly expressed, that's a different dicussion, but it mostly seems like you're more interested in saying "I don't like this and you can't disagree!"

I am not griping to gripe, I'm griping because I feel like I'm the only sane one in this thread. This is partly why I stopped playing Magic.

So you started the thread to gripe about being the only sane person in the thread?

How productive.

Originally, it was a gripe about Magic. But now it feels like I am the only sane person in this thread.

Magic players... they're the worst.

Because we simply don't agree with you? That seems hyperbolic at best.
From our perspective, you must surely see that your assessment isn't accurate.

I'm still wondering how the "iconic" argument works. Like, I listed off a pretty substantial range of pieces that really just scratched the surface of iconic card art, and uh... yeah, didn't really get anything like a substantive response.

In particular, I'm not sure how you can argue that the moxen are iconic when they look like every other artifact from that time period.

Hell, the giant tuning fork on an island is more iconic than the moxen. It looks stupid as hell, but that's what makes it so singular. Which is why I like it. Because I have literally the worst taste.

They don't look like any every other artifact though. The colors used, the style of background Dan Frazier used... you're wrong. You look at a Mox from 7 meters away, you can tell it's a Mox. THAT is iconic art.

The new Moxen look dumb.

I suppose I should mention that I can't stand Dan Frazier's work on any level. There's no contrast, the colors are awful, the backgrounds are horrible and distracting and unimaginative, there's no evocation of any sort of purpose or meaning beyond the object being what it is...

From seven meters away I can tell it's a mox because moxen are worth hundreds of dollars. That's all. I wouldn't know Jandor's Ring from Aladdin's Ring, though. Nothing about those cards stands out to me. And the fact that you haven't mentioned those cards, but you have mentioned the big flashy cards that are worth hundreds of dollars, says to me that you don't understand the processes behind your own perception. Now, Phyrexian Unlife? That's a card I can identify from seven meters away, even though it's not an important card at all. Treacherous Urge? Same deal. Half the time I can't remember what that card even does. It's not important. But the art is imprinted on my damn brain for eternity.

Basically, you're just picking and choosing what pieces you're selecting based on their high-profile nature, but really it's the card you're latching onto, not the card art.

How would you even know what pieces are iconic? You don't play. You haven't played for years, apparently. Is there any way in which your perception of the art could remain uncolored by your hatred of the mechanics? I seriously doubt it.

And saying that there's nothing iconic about modern cards is just verifiably incorrect. The very fact that I or anyone else can think of cards that I find iconic is all the proof necessary to say that your broad, sweeping generalization does not hold. That's, you know, the problem with broad, sweeping generalizations.

To underline the point Keeper made, here is a list of the artifacts from Alpha:
http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3A%22a ... rd&s=cname

The common theme, and what makes them all basically indistinguishable from each other is the simple fact that most are simple "an object against an abstract background" and they rarely have any large difference between them. The only way that you could say the mox were different is because they use such large and blocked out colors as their centerpiece, but that doesn't make them iconic, it just makes the contrast more notable between background and object.

Out of ALL of these, I will say there are a few iconic ones. Chaos Orb and yes, Black Lotus are both fairly pronounced. There might even be another few, but the Mox do not number amongst those, and the ones I recognize as iconic are no more iconic than any newer piece.

Keeper: A) I am not picking iconic cards solely because they are power. I didn't even originally mention the Moxen, it was someone else.

Just from Alpha ALONE, iconic pieces that are NOT POWER:


B) Also I still play, rarely. Only with older cards though. Anything past Time Spiral, not ****ing interested.

C) If you'd take the time to actually READ my posts, I have made sure to note that there are modern iconic pieces, as well as cluttered ancient ones. But the iconic ones are VERY VERY FEW AND FAR BETWEEN in comparison to ages past.

It's unfortunate you feel that way, there are many sane people in this thread. I will say that my impression of you is rather aggressive and melodramatic, though. There's also a clear problem with understanding the difference between subjectivity and objectivity here. If you take those observations as an insult, then I guess we are tit-for-tat.

Though, we seem to have come to the core of your major point, which is excessive detail in small pictures. I think that's a reasonable complaint; looking at Magic over the years, there has been an arms race to include detail that has come to the point where lots of things simply can't be made out on card art while playing the game. But I think most of the pieces are distinct enough in shape that you can still tell them apart at a glance.

This isn't entirely a new problem, not every old card was Word of Command. Some cards had plenty of detail and realism. But the general trend has been towards greater detail.

A lot of it, I think, stems in part from the addition of backgrounds and the improvement of such. Compare the Legends to the Invasion to the Tenth Edition versions of Holy Day. Again, this is a problem easily solved by allowing greater variance in art styles to project through sets.

But I also think you're conflating "iconic" with what we might consider an actual "icon," like what you might see on a PC desktop or a smartphone. In that sense, the original Moxen are iconic because they have a shape readily comprehended from a great distance. But that really just means the Moxen would make good "icons." Not everything that would make good icons is something we would call "iconic," and not everything that isn't minimalist can't be iconic. Being iconic means that the piece also needs to be able to carry the weight of a shared culture, while also still being recognizable. I would argue that the Moxen art only actually do so because of the power of the cards that they belonged to and their continued monetary value. Does anyone consider Dingus Egg to be "iconic," which is a similarly styled piece? Doubtful.

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is iconic. Avacyn, Angel of Hope is iconic. (The symbol of Avacyn is also iconic). These things are iconic not for their minimalism in design or lack of detail, but for their ability to carry the weight of the things they are representing, while being easily recognizable, even if that recognition needs to be at shorter distances than what it would take to recognize an original Mox. All of the Gods and their weapons have the potential to be iconic for Theros.

But, again, it's true that card art has more detail packed into it than art of yesteryear. Art is a lot "busier" and cluttered than it was, which can actually make it difficult to produce "icons" like, say, Icy Manipulator, even if we still have plenty of stuff that's iconic.

In any case, I'll just defer to Keeper's and Barinellos's posts for further detail on iconic art.

I kind of stop paying attention to someone when they claim contemporary MtG art is all 'digital'.

I do wish there was more abstract representation in the art now, though, and it seems like that only happens more with blue draw/card filter spells and sometimes black spells. (Still into Macabre Waltz.)

Also, I was really disappointed in Werewolf art in Innistrad because they all looked identical to me. I get that it's kind of hard, especially if the werewolves are nude, but it was just not doing it.

There was a little bit of variety, but admittedly not a lot. I suppose we should be grateful for what we did end up with.
We occasionally see some more abstract stuff in white and green as well. Really, red is the only one that doesn't get very much in the way of abstraction.

i think a lot of modern land art is really good, and land art is usually my favourite, but otherwise I kinda agree with butt

HOLY **** TWILIGHT ZONE

yeah, embarrassing but true

I think the real debate to have is whether the current art is better or worse at portraying the card's internal narrative. You can talk about the art in a vacuum all you want, but hardly anyone is going to experience it as such.

Is Ethercaste Knight the best Magic art ever? No, but the art helps the card convey a message and does so well. And to be honest, the move towards realism and detail did help the cards in general.

But to say it again, spells could stand more variance in their style. Spells are, by definition, hard to capture realistically, so more abstract, impressionistic, expressionistic, absurd... styles work well with them.

@Newer cards being cluttered with detail: Yeah, some are. But when looking at older arts, some of them also try to cram too much visual information (mostly color, rather than detail) onto the small frame on a card.

I'd really like to see some art that utilized Constructivism as its chosen visual vehicle.
There are a few cards that are very reminiscent of Impressionism and others of Expressionism, but a little more commitment would be nice.
I'd really like to see less Surrealism though. Well... maybe not, there are some fairly good Surrealist pieces even in recent memory. No, I'd still rather see the other styles more at the expense of Surrealist works.

I can only recognize three or four art styles, so I just wrote them down :-)

*Looks up Constructivism on wikipedia* Yeah, that could work. Would be pretty weird, but it could work.