The Art of Magic Art

Recently I asked Mark Rosewater a question on tumblr:

Admittedly it wasn’t so much a question as it was an accusation masquerading as a question so that he would reply to it. I will expound upon my point here, and hopefully make clearer the issue I was driving at.

I will be the first to admit that I am not particularly qualified to judge art. I can’t really speak intelligently on composition or lightning or framing. I am only vaguely aware of these concepts, and certainly not capable of elucidating whether or not they were done well. I will be working strictly from a framework of how a card “feels.” That is certainly not the most objective of scales, but in the world of art critiquing, how objective can you really be?

The change in art direction over the years hasn’t made the art worse – in fact, on a whole, I will definitely agree that it has gotten much better than the days of old. There was a lot of bad artwork. Like most of the Ice Age, Fallen Empires and Homelands blocks. In fact, it took quite a number of years before sets weren’t laden with Deviant-Art-grade fantasy shlock. However, in the process, I feel that we lost what I’m going to refer to as character.

The old art often had a very distinct feel to it. And while a lot of the pieces were downright offensive, plenty of them were simultaneously descriptive (a major tenant of Magic art now) and engaging. Let’s take a look at a few:

I don’t ask that you love all of that art, and in fact, you may actively think some of it is unimpressive or ugly. But you can’t deny that it’s remarkable. This is art that captures the observer’s attention. It’s also much more distinctive amongst the sea of other magic cards. If we drill down deeper, we can look at a specific example. Take a look at Red Elemental Blast alongside a more modern red spell that is in the same vein:

That Flames of the Firebrand is pretty nifty, right? There’s a lot going on, it’s vibrant, and it probably looks great in foil. But what if we take a look at it alongside several of the other more modern flaming-flames-of-fire spells?

Notice a trend? It’s all essentially the same thing. None of the particular pieces are worthy of derision, but when taken together, there is a real Stepford Wives thing going on. Worldfire is a cool looking card, no doubt. But it’s just the umpteenth iteration of a red spell. Worldfire’s individual appeal actually drops with the more M13 cards we’re exposed to, because they lose their charm and impact when they all are so similar. In contrast, Red Elemental Blast was quite unique in its execution. It obviously was not done in Photoshop, unlike every other burn spell in M13. It may not be as technically impressive, or impactful as Worldfire, but it has a charm and character that is lacking from modern art direction. This is also just M13. The uniformity of spells that set things on fire goes back to at least M10.

The issue here is that modern art direction has created a uniformity of purpose and style that makes it difficult for any individual piece to stand above its peers. Everything is good, but nothing is great. Some are better than others, sure, but almost none of it really strikes you as special or endearing. We’ve sacrificed character and distinction for a uniform mediocrity that invades nearly every single card.

I want to point out that I don’t blame the artists here. They draw what they’re told to. WOTC has set guidelines for what they want in the art, and they’re simply delivering what the boss asked for.

There is a more subtle, insidious effect we can see on the artwork of modern Magic. It is the Web 2.0ization:

Notice a trend? Let me illustrate for you:

It is as if someone turned just applied an italics filter to all of this art. It is everywhere. Start watching for it. You won’t be able to not see it. It’s all over the rest of the world too, by the way:

 

It’s the new FedEx arrow.

A lot of this shift seems to be the result of the ubiquitous use of Photoshop. I don’t feel find Photoshop’s use objectionable per se, but when it touches every piece of art in a set, you find yourself craving variety. I couldn’t find a single card in Return to Ravnica that I would feel confident wagering wasn’t done or touched up on a computer. To me, the most compelling reason for allowing techniques other than digital paintbrushes was a few sets ago:

Look at that thing. Just look at it. Apparently when they disturbed the elder gods of evil on the plane on Zendikar, they were actually just dredging up the worst of CGI from the Yahoo.com archives circa 2002. Kozilek is supposed to be a fearsome, otherworldy horror that inspires awe and terror at his mind-melting form and powers. Instead, he looks like a blob with a crummy texture map applied.

At the end of the day, all of the changes in Magic art have definitely resulted in a higher average quality. There are very few pieces that exist in modern sets that are truly terrible, whereas the majority of the first few years of Magic were chock-full of blurry figures trapped inside card frames tormented by Picasso-esque physics.  But I can’t help but feel we’ve lost the character of a burgeoning fantasy game along the way. Increasing diversity and letting artists off their short leashes a little may result in a few cards that are entirely unimpressive, but you also increase the likelihood of getting something truly iconic that players will remember decades later.

Oh, and fire Ron Spencer. That guy is just awful.