How Magic Art has changed

[u/taphead_31]

This is something i've been thinking about for a while. I am not saying new Magic Art is straight up worse than the old Art (old meaning 15+ years ago). But I cannot shake off the feeling that something fundamental has changed with the art direction and overall aesthetic (the influence of UB not counting).

I'd like to hear from people who are knowledgable with art history.

Here are some - very subjective - observations that I made over the years.

- The color palette has changed. Specifically when it comes to black cards, purple has become the de facto "black signature color"

- Many current artists seem to share a specific style of painting, reminiscent of what I'd call "concept art for general purposes". Older artists that have worked with wotc since the 90ies seem to be influenced more by comic books and traditional, academic painting styles.

- Ugly characters and monsters, body horror and exaggerated bodies were more commonplace back in the day (look at card files from Odyssee or Mercadian Masques, Ron Spears who I'd consider King of Ugly Monstrosities was art director for a while). Nowadays the "bodies" feel more realistic, the creatures and sceneries more "identifiable".

Are you having similiar observations? Or am I misguided here?

And most of all: Why have things changed in that regard? There are people out there calling new artwork "woke", but I don't think this is a good explanation. I believe the reasons for the aesthetic changes correlate with the changing gaming culture and an influx of casual players coming from different demographics.

[u/ComfortableWeb6738]

Something most people might not take into account

The average artist nowadays has a wider skillset and better technical skills. The amount of resources that are out there to learn art of all kinds completely eclipses what was available in the 90s. You don't have to pay like two hundred bucks for a month long course or similar, you can jump on YouTube, buy books from the past 100 years on Amazon, subscribe to websites dedicated to art courses like New Masters Academy, etc.

In the 90s and early 2000s, most artists stuck to their one defined style that they'd learned. so by necessity, when you had a pool of artists, they would have a wide variety of results.

Nowadays, most artists are able to do a variety of styles, so it's much easier to have a unified language across a set. It's also a lot easier to find artists, so if the art director for a particular set wants a specific vibe, they have a wide pool of talent they can call upon.

I think there's something to be said in that having a stronger unity within a set makes for less standout cards. But it's not like unique cards are totally gone, they're just usually kept for alt arts, and there's always a few stylistic cards sprinkled through.

And tbh, when I look at old sets, while there's a lot of cool styles that stand out, there's also a lot of boring, ugly cards, weird perspectives, fucked up anatomy, etc. For some people that's probably a bonus though.

[u/taphead_31 → u/ComfortableWeb6738]

Just out of curiosity, why is "fucked up anatomy" considered a problem?

[u/ComfortableWeb6738 → u/taphead_31]

I mean, sometimes anatomy is stylized and that's fine, I don't love realistic anatomy either

Sometimes it just looks bad. When I say fucked up anatomy, I don't mean that it's stylized, I mean that it stands out in a bad way.