Despite everyone being kinda pissed off, I think there's actually some really good discussion in this thread.

Butt, I get what you're trying to say, but you're like the worst at articulating it lol. I wish there was less reliance on the style guide for new sets. What added a cool, unified feel to Urza block (Urza making this massive army on one side, the phyrexians all on the other,) has become sort of passe. I get that. The werewolves are a perfect example. Instead of having a unified feel, it has a generic feel sometimes.

But be honest. Circle of Protection: Black is the most iconic of the circles, and it was digital. Chaos Orb is cool and unique, but it is still a roughly circular object against an abstract, mono colored background. Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf. Thoughtseize, Lotus Cobra, Rafiq of the Many, Stoneforge Mystic and others are instantly recognizable, and great art, as much as anything from Alpha. And I'm sorry, some of the alpha cards had art that just would not be accepted today. I do agree that in some ways, the art has become more generic, as a whole. But it has also become better. I think a big part of why some cards are "iconic" is just because people have been staring at them for 20 years, so they're burned into your brain. They aren't necessarily better. They're just nostalgic.

[bursts through wall kool-aid man style]

DID SOMEONE SAY CONSTRUCTIVISM???

[killed instantly by falling debris]

[relevant post later when I'm lot late for class UUUGH]

Ah man, this wouldn't be an internet forum without someone mindless attempting to express opinion as fact.

you have 4 posts

Quality over quantity, my friend.

Anyway, while I do have a soft spot for some of Magic's older works, the differences in art style really only worked back when there wasn't a cohesive story to tell and cards were just cards. Now that the cards have to pull double duty as a vehicle for the storyline; both in art and flavor text, I much prefer them to look like they all came from the same thought-space.

I thought I was going to have something really intelligent to say when I came back but really I'm still just super enthused about the idea of getting some constructivism up in here.

It's hard to envision a setting where that would really make sense, though. Constructivism applied to Innistrad or to Theros would be hopelessly anachronistic, for example. Ravnica I can it working a bit better. They're already using Art Nouveau heavily in some of the designs, so I don't think it would be that weird to push things further and introduce some early 20th century abstract technologies into the mix. RTR was still very much a retread of a lot of the stylistic motifs of the previous Ravnica, though, perhaps somewhat unfortunately (although if you actually look at the original Ravnica block's art, it's... really not that spectacular. Magic was just coming out of the truly dire period between Odyssey and Kamigawa where everything looked the same, and I don't think they had quite figured out yet how to use the style guide effectively, so the actual content is really all over the place and doesn't do a great job of conveying the sense of place. Their technologies of worldbuilding through art and flavor text have really improved over the past few years).

The thing about abstraction is that when you compare today's more abstract or symbolic designs to Alpha's more abstract or symbolic designs... well, the newer stuff is just better in quality, partly due to poor scanning and printing techniques, partly because of size, partly because Magic can really hire the cream of the crop and give them the time needed to produce solid work. Like, compare Millstone to, say... actually, looking through Unlimited, the card that most strikes me as comparable is Cyclopean Tomb, which is a very solid piece of art, but which isn't really matched as far as evocative surrealism goes in many of the other cards in the set. A lot of it is just sort of cut-rate surrealism. Ooooh, an eye floating in midair, wooo how weird and magical! Whatever. It's pretty unimaginative.

The thing about abstraction is that it's hard to pull off without looking like you're taking the lazy way out. I think I'd rather see competent realism than uninspired and trite surrealism.

And blaming Wizards also removes the agency of the artist in a really troubling way, I think. Like, consider Scott M Fischer's work. He can be extremely abstract when he wants to be... and he has worked in a very stylized way, even as recent as 2012, with Walker of the Secret Ways in Planechase. But he doesn't always work that way, because not every card needs to or should be expressed that way, and not every setting calls for that sort of stylization. So, the artist's choice enters into it too, and I think you're discounting that choice when you imply that this is something Wizards is doing entirely by itself for... what, mass appeal?

Whoops, looks like I did have some stuff to say after all.

And this is relevant how?

@Keeper: Maybe we will some day have a block where the proletariat actually rises above the ruling classes and overthrows the bourgeoisie and we can have constructivist art.

I'd actually like that as a block story. Recent stories were: Everyone is doomed, Everyone is doomed in a different way, angel created by an aristocrat saves the day, common folk is ignored while the powerful have a turf war...

There are some themes that Magic lacks, maybe the power of the proletariat could make for a nice change of pace.

I'm getting a vibe that we could resurrect Patrician's Scorn for that.

In fairness, there's a lot of agency given to Wizards when choosing the artists. I know Jeremy approached dealing with Peter Mohrbacher and Therese Nielson in completely different ways, and very much depending on what he wants the card to ultimately be.
He doesn't approach Therese unless he wants to utilize her abstraction. An interesting bit though, is the fact that Peter is in fact, primarily a surrealist, but is virtually never contacted to do such.

Incidentally, because I wanted to get it out, my favorite surrealist piece from recent memory is Temporal Mastery. there are others, like Wild Evocation which come close, but I find the colors on Mastery really striking. Millstone is a pretty good one, but the background actually turns off a lot of the appeal for me.

As an aside, I'm really thrilled that we're getting a lot of classical styles in Theros. A lot of pieces have a serious Baroque feel to them.

I would give my left foot for a set based just on the aesthetic implications of Patrician's Scorn.

'Course, I THOUGHT I was getting a bit of that with the Gateless but--oh whatever, y'all've heard this rant before.

I have to admit, there was a lot less weird art in M14 than in some of the other recent core sets. Just something interested I noticed when I was looking through it again.

That's actually the original art from Betrayers; it was probably painted in 2004.

You're bad at expressing yourself. Your sins are greater.

Welp.

I thought that was a Planechase original for some reason...

I personally think the height of Magic Art was Weatherlight through Urza's, possibly Masques. You know, when we had Tony diTerlizzi, abundant art from Rebbecca Guay, and the like, but on the other side Drew Tucker had learned that M:tG was not the place for heavy impressionism (Magic art isn't just art, it's Illustration, it has a purpose) and we had actual art direction keeping those disparate talents together and furthering a greater whole.

Nemesis through Apocalypse was something of a transition period, where we see sharper lines, more exaggerated features, brighter colors, and greater hegemony. Then came Odyssey and especially Onslaught and 7th Edition, which fully embraced a fusion of comic book and "mage punk" aesthetics that I for one rather dislike. Kamigawa did something different, but you also see it in Mirrodin and Ravnica 1.0. Time Spiral fused old and new, and Lorwyn/shadowmoor did it's own thing sort of like Kamigawa, though Lorwyn was heavily informed by the 7th edition style.

Come Alara, we reach a new era of even greater hegemony, but oddly, I think I a better aesthetic, largely due to better art direction that looks at block-as-brand rather than M:tG-as-brand: That is, Innistrad's art is allowed to be what's right for Innistrad. Theros is right for Theros, Scars was right for Scars, and they're decently dissimilar to each other, though sharp digital or digital-esque pieces are the order of the day throughout. I honestly think Modern M:tG art is probably the best it's been since the heart of the Weatherlight Saga

When I look back through the history of magic, what really stands out to me is Mirage. It was just such a giant leap forward in art that is unmatched by anything before or since, imo. Not my favorite art, and there are individual cards from earlier that are still amazing, and there are sets that have done more since then, but as far as unified improvement, it was the biggest advancement overall, I think, and one of the most cohesive sets, while still having a ton of diversity.

The art for me.... I dunno, I like that the new art looks incredibly different from the old art. Not that the old art was bad, but I like that things move forwards and change so that there is a clear difference between the card style and art of Alpha and Theros.

~SE++

I like the artwork for macabre waltz i am not sure if it is digital or not. I do not pay too much attention to card art besides thinking about how nice it looks. I really liked the look of innistrad when it was being spoiled. Usually if a card's art sticks out to me I'll enjoy it.

Actually, you may be on to something here. Coincidentally, that is two years after the start of their book line. Like, I could literally hear folks in the art department saying something like this. "We have to get serious with the art here! How are we going to appeal to book enthusiasts and a larger market with art about Dominaria when the Foglios are drawing cartoons?!"

After that, the sets became very planned with art and flavor text. I see a connection between Magic hitting into new markets (books) and really starting to go big at that point, and the much more serious-minded art design. In that case, I can see why the starter of this thread says what he said. Back in the early days, art was much more free-spirited, tongue-in-cheek, and whimsical. My favorite Foglio art was for the original Sulfurous Springs, with the demon soaking in the hot spring with a grin on it's face...gloriously whimsical. Maybe they could only get these guys, but there were standouts even then. Richard Kane-Ferguson, Therese Nielsen, Rebecca Guay were three of my very favorites for their consistency and style, whereas Anson Maddocks, Quinton Hoover, and Mark Tedin all had their own style, too, and a consistent delivery. Who would draw a picture of three bombs dropping composed of brains in today's Magic, ala Mind bomb? I don't think you'll ever see that type of creativity in this game again among the artists.

My only criticism of the books that drove this change of art is that the writing didn't have similar standards. Having read synopses of many of them, it seems like card designers wrote the storylines to fit as many cards into it as they could instead of an actual writer coming up with the plotlines...wait, I think that's what happened....sonufa.... Anyway, there was a marked difference between then and now. Back then, it was free and simpler. You could tell what a card was by the simplistic designs and coloration all the way across the table, which was very effective for the twelve person free-for-alls we played back then. Now, I can barely make out what cards are on the table two people down. The information in the picture is so dense with detail, it kind of mushes together.

Now, I will say that if you were to blow these pictures up to, say, 4x6 feet, then the detail in these things would be gorgeous, and I've read that many artists use canvases of incredible size only to have their work reduced to what it is on the card. So I understand where the guy is coming from when he says that the art lost it's soul from the early days, but I think he's being a bit harsh about today's art. It's quite good, actually, from a non-art-critic perspective, and just a fan of fantasy art. At least with Magic, it's not all boobs and butts like you get outside of the card game. So I'll take what Magic has, frankly.

I quite like Raymond's work :<
Banefire and Nyxathid looks rad.

Maybe it's just the aesthetic of the setting that gets to me, but Mirage (and Visions) is my favorite block for art that I didn't actually play though. I especially like the large degree to which it features work from D. Alexander Gregory, one of my favorite Magic artists. Final Fortune, Cursed Totem etc. Though I was pretty disappointed to see his new work on the planeswalkers in recent days. Liliana of the Dark Realms? Blech