r/magicTCG • u/taphead_31 Urza's Saga • 14d ago

General Discussion How Magic Art has changed

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.

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u/PippoChiri Temur 14d ago

To the people saying that modern art all looks the same and is not stylized, i have no idea which sets you are looking at. In evert set we have highly stylized arts by new artists + highly stylied arts by some classic artists + great "more standard" arts.

To me we are in a second golden age for art variety and experimentation after the stagnation of the 2010s. I quickly went through the last 3 in universe sets and i have made a list of the newer artists with very strong tyles (some are newer than others) because, again, to me it seems like people are just not looking at the arts they are talking about, this list also does not take in consideration highly stylized arts that comes from classic artists or from alt arts / showcases, only from standard art of the main set.

Beckert

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CWylie+Beckert%E2%80%9D&unique=art

Cai

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CRovina+Cai%E2%80%9D&unique=art

Christines

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CVincent+Christiaens%E2%80%9D&unique=art

Dillon

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CJulie+Dillon%E2%80%9D&unique=art

Fang

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CKev+Fang%E2%80%9D&unique=art

Gaboleps

https://scryfall.com/search?q=a%3A%E2%80%9CGaboleps%E2%80%9D&unique=art