CategoriesStyles and Movements
Old Master Influenced Fantasy
Contemporary painting that borrows the glazes, costume and lighting of European Old Masters to stage dreamlike and fantastical scenes.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
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About
Some contemporary painters adopt the finish of European painting from the 15th to the 18th century, with its layered glazes, velvety shadow and period dress, to show scenes that could never have happened. Salvador Dalí used academic polish to make dreams look photographic, and in postwar Austria the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, including Ernst Fuchs, revived the old mixed technique of tempera underpainting and oil glazes for visionary subjects.
Today the sources vary widely. Mark Ryden pairs porcelain-skinned children, raw meat and religious symbols with a meticulous academic finish, and is often grouped with the Pop Surrealism that grew from American underground culture in the 1990s. Anne Siems paints figures in the manner of early American portraits whose bodies dissolve into leaves and flowers, and Andrea Kowch sets women and animals in uneasy rural scenes. Look for historical costume, theatrical lighting and precise detail put to strange ends.
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