Thursday, July 30, 2009

Frank Frazetta tribute

I've been a big fan of Frank Frazetta for many, many years. I mean, heck; what fantasy fan my age wouldn't be? He's a classic himself; and he's illustrated most of the classics of the genre, back when they were going through their late 60s early 70s revival, and he's an extremely talented artist to boot. I mean, he doesn't necessarily reproduce things accurately (which of the two would you guess is supposed to be the "red Martian" in the painting below? Would you believe... both of them? Well, the guy is half red Martian half Earthling, anyway. Also; good grief, how many moons is Mars supposed to have, anyway?) In fact, in terms of detail, he pretty much just skipped it. But the vibrancy of his paintings is impossible to deny. The sense of action, of tension, of passion and power; he really makes fantasy come alive in a way that no artist before or since has done. He's been often imitated, but those imitations have always been inferior to the original. Much like Tolkien, I think his work is a kind of stand-alone work that subsequent artists would do well to distance themselves from rather than copy; any copy will be compared to the original, and not favorably.

2 comments:

Jack Badelaire said...

For about a year, that painting was the desktop background for my computer at home. Frazetta is, and always will be, the visual canon for what I think of when "High Adventure Gaming" comes to mind.

Desdichado said...

It's always been my absolute favorite Frazetta painting. But, that's a hard choice to make. He's got so many that I like.