Thanks for the callout! Always a pleasure to read, and there's lots to chew on here. Really loved the stuff on Amy Weber's work (obviously) and that was a great close reading on Dark Sphere's flavor text. It's a doozy and some of my favorite in the game.
This was a very interesting article. I love the inspection of the more esoteric art in Magic and how some, especially early pieces, took a non-literal angle on the prompt. Early artifacts in particular do seem to best exemplify this. "Bösium Strip" by Steve Luke, Pratt's "Phyrexian Furnace", and Quinton Hoover's "Elkin Bottle" are more examples of the conceptual approach you're talking about. Hoover's painting is interesting because it has a Klein Bottle, but the twisting ribbons and frame nake it almost dissappear into the image.
I also feel there's a throughline between this article and Questioning Phelldagrif's most recent one. Some of the cards you highlighted here would function excellently in the same or similar function as Tarot cards. Even more representational cards like Dan Frazier's "Benalish Infantry" are fit for purpose, with the inclusion of swords, banners, and imagery of keys.
Man I WISH I had thought of Bosium Strip or Phyrexian Furnace or Elkin Bottle, those are amazing!! To your point about the disappearing Klein bottle, it strikes me that all three of those are also very concerned with the physical form of technology—line, scale, curvature. Each one is incredibly esoteric, but shape alone gives a sense of what it *does*, metaphysically or technologically.
Great point about the Tarot! I like the notion in general that Magic art is, in some fashion, a highly elaborated form of that sort of basic, open-ended symbology.
I do too! I often find myself thinking about cards as a little window into another world, an idea I think I picked up from Spice8Rack. Sometimes the window gives us a look at a scene like "Tocasia's Welcome," other times the image is filtered through the Blind Eternities and we get "Curse of Marit Lage."
Thanks for the callout! Always a pleasure to read, and there's lots to chew on here. Really loved the stuff on Amy Weber's work (obviously) and that was a great close reading on Dark Sphere's flavor text. It's a doozy and some of my favorite in the game.
So agreed, and thanks so much!!
This was a very interesting article. I love the inspection of the more esoteric art in Magic and how some, especially early pieces, took a non-literal angle on the prompt. Early artifacts in particular do seem to best exemplify this. "Bösium Strip" by Steve Luke, Pratt's "Phyrexian Furnace", and Quinton Hoover's "Elkin Bottle" are more examples of the conceptual approach you're talking about. Hoover's painting is interesting because it has a Klein Bottle, but the twisting ribbons and frame nake it almost dissappear into the image.
I also feel there's a throughline between this article and Questioning Phelldagrif's most recent one. Some of the cards you highlighted here would function excellently in the same or similar function as Tarot cards. Even more representational cards like Dan Frazier's "Benalish Infantry" are fit for purpose, with the inclusion of swords, banners, and imagery of keys.
Also Adam Rex has a substack!
Man I WISH I had thought of Bosium Strip or Phyrexian Furnace or Elkin Bottle, those are amazing!! To your point about the disappearing Klein bottle, it strikes me that all three of those are also very concerned with the physical form of technology—line, scale, curvature. Each one is incredibly esoteric, but shape alone gives a sense of what it *does*, metaphysically or technologically.
Great point about the Tarot! I like the notion in general that Magic art is, in some fashion, a highly elaborated form of that sort of basic, open-ended symbology.
I do too! I often find myself thinking about cards as a little window into another world, an idea I think I picked up from Spice8Rack. Sometimes the window gives us a look at a scene like "Tocasia's Welcome," other times the image is filtered through the Blind Eternities and we get "Curse of Marit Lage."