page_title: Fantastic art
section_title: Historic artists and fine artists
hierarchical_section_title: Fantastic art / Historic artists and fine artists
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Illustration tirée du conte "Pojken och trollen eller Äventyret" (Le garcon et les trolls ou l´Aventure) de Walter Stenström, réalisée par John Bauer pour "Bland tomtar och troll" (Parmi les gnomes et les trolls), édition 1915. English: Illustration for "Pojken och trollen eller Äventyret" (The boy and the trolls or The Adventure) by Walter Stenström in "Bland tomtar och troll" (Among gnomes and trolls), 1915. Svenska: Illustration av Walter Stenströms Pojken och trollen eller Äventyret i Bland tomtar och troll, 1915.
context_page_description: Fantastic art is a broad and loosely defined art genre. It is not restricted to a specific school of artists, geographical location or historical period. It can be characterised by subject matter – which portrays non-realistic, mystical, mythical or folkloric subjects or events – and style, which is representational and naturalistic, rather than abstract – or in the case of magazine illustrations and similar, in the style of graphic novel art such as manga.
  Fantasy has been an integral part of art since its beginnings, but has been particularly important in mannerism, magic realist painting, romantic art, symbolism, surrealism and lowbrow. In French, the genre is called le fantastique, in English it is sometimes referred to as visionary art, grotesque art or mannerist art. It has had a deep and circular interaction with fantasy literature.
  The subject matter of Fantastic Art may resemble the product of hallucinations, and Fantastic artist Richard Dadd spent much of his life in mental institutions. Salvador Dalí famously said: "the only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad".
context_section_description: Many artists have produced works which fit the definition of fantastic art.  Some, such as Nicholas Roerich, worked almost exclusively in the genre, others such as Hieronymus Bosch, who has been described as the first "fantastic" artist in the Western tradition,  produced works both with and without fantastic elements, and for artists such as Francisco de Goya, fantastic works were only a small part of their output.  Others again such as René Magritte are usually classed as Surrealists but use fantastic elements in their work. It is therefore impossible to give an exhaustive list of fantastic artists, but a selection of major and influential figures is listed below.
  Giuseppe Arcimboldo
  John Bauer
  William Blake
  Arnold Böcklin
  Hieronymus Bosch
  Brueghel
  Gaston Bussiere
  Marc Chagall
  Giorgio de Chirico
  Richard Dadd
  Salvador Dalí
  Paul Delvaux
  Jean Delville
  Evelyn De Morgan
  Monsù Desiderio
  Gustave Doré
  Max Ernst
  Caspar David Friedrich
  Henry Fuseli
  Francisco de Goya
  Hans Baldung Grien
  Matthias Grünewald
  Thomas Häfner
  Max Klinger
  Alfred Kubin
  Gustave Moreau
  Giovanni Battista Piranesi
  Arthur Rackham
  Odilon Redon
  Nicholas Roerich
  Henri Rousseau
  Franz Sedlacek
  Yves Tanguy
  Clovis Trouille
  Mikhail Vrubel
  John William Waterhouse
  George Frederic Watts
caption: Illustration for The boy and the trolls by John Bauer, 1915
exif: {}