Five Pieces of Magic Art Inspired by Classics

Nick Wolf • January 29, 2025

Art

Header Image: Rampant Growth, by Steven Belledin

Not very long ago, fantasy realism as a genre was thought of as less valid than traditional art you'd find in a museum. That's just an unfortunate fact, but it's one that many artists today bristle against when it comes to seeking respect for their work within the genre. 

Around two-and-a-half years ago, I interviewed Tony DiTerlizzi about this very topic, and he had plenty to say on the matter. I'll pull out a few choice quotes, but you can read the full interview here. On the topic of seeing fantasy realism work alongside more "accepted" fine art in a museum, DiTerlizzi said that he was especially excited that the younger generation of curator seem open and accepting to see this genre exhibited in a traditional art museum.

Though exciting, he added that he's still hoping a major art museum will mount an exhibition which will really help change the perception of the public and gain more acceptance of this art genre. "After all, humans have been rendering images of dragons, warriors, and monsters for centuries. It is us fantasy artists -- that illustrate games, books, or conceptual work for film and television -- that are keeping the imaginative spirit alive and well in the 21st century."

Like all visual art, fantasy realism is referential, in that its creators allow influences to inhabit their work from those who came before them, and that isn't limited to prior work in the same genre; much to the contrary, in fact, as fantasy realism is often enhanced not by aggrandizing the concepts of itself, but by applying the hallmarks of the genre to those more "traditional" art styles.

It's been happening for nearly as long as fantasy realism has existed as a means of expression, and Magic itself contains several of these referential works of art. 

And that's what we're talking about today. As you'll see below, there are cards you've most likely seen dozens if not hundreds of times, but you may not have been aware of their reference to impactful works of visual art from eras gone by. For most, it's a fun Easter egg, but for some, it's a clear example of how fantasy realism can grow from the "mundane" - or, in other words, how artists can apply the fantastical to the realistic, which is what the genre's all about. 


Rampant Growth
+ The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Dubbed the "most reproduced image in the history of all art," there's no doubt you've seen The Great Wave. It's a woodblock print created in 1831 by Japanese artist Hokusai, depicting Mount Fuji in the center of the frame, surrounded in the foreground by a volatile and formidable sea. Around 1,000 prints of the original woodblock were created in 1831, of which roughly 100 are known to still exist.

These prints are largely in internationally renowned art museums like the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Sakler Gallery in Washington, D.C. A few years ago, one of the surviving prints was sold by a private owner for nearly $3 million.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa, by Hokusai (Print housed at the Art Institute of Chicago)
Rampant Growth, by Steven Belledin

Regarding the reference, Steven Belledin said The Great Wave had been a favorite of one of his college professors, so he "jumped at the chance" to include a nod to it in a Magic card. "If I remember correctly," he said, "the art order used the word wave and so it was an easy mental leap to make." 


Orcish Settlers
+ American Gothic

American Gothic is a 1930 oil painting created by Grant Wood, currently displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago. It's iconic, and has been a part of the American zeitgeist for decades for its stoic depiction of Midwest determination in the face of the era's economic hardship. Many considered it a flippant caricature of its subjects, an interpretation that Wood himself buffered against, stating at the time that it was more of an appreciation: "I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa."

Amusingly, considering its massive influence today, American Gothic at the time earned Wood a third-palce finish in an art contest, complete with a $300 prize. And a note of trivia about the subjects: the woman, a daughter in the context of the piece, was modeled after Wood's sister, while the man, the father, was actually Wood's dentist. The house in the background is modeled after The Dibble House in Eldon, Iowa.

There are no orcs in Iowa, however, a detail later added by Pete Venters for the Weatherlight uncommon, Orcish Settlers:

American Gothic, by Grant Wood
Orcish Settlers, by Pete Venters

All the hallmarks are there. You've got the brown patterned dress, collar, curio and left-turned face of the daughter, with the overalls, pitchfork and face-on sourness of the father. Where once there was a house, we now see a blazing inferno, which is something addressed in the card's flavor text: "They wouldn't know their house from a charred hole in the ground." 


Icy Manipulator
+ Hand with Reflecting Sphere

We've all seen M.C. Escher's spherical self-portrait, most likely on a poster hanging from a high school art class wall. It's one of Escher's most well-known works, first printed in 1935. Escher, a Dutch graphic artist, could himself be considered a progenitor of fantasy realism, and as such he was mostly ignored by the art world during his life. The impossibility of the objects he depicted are math-based, but there's a certain fantastical nature to his work that we see threaded down into today's fantasy realism. 

Today, the original lithograph of Hand with Reflecting Sphere is housed in the Escher Museum in The Hague. 

Hand with Reflecting Sphere, by M.C. Escher
Icy Manipulator, by Doug Shuler

When this particular piece was painted by Doug Shuler, likely around spring of 1993, there wasn't the time nor the space to render in the detail of the reflections similarly to the level of Hand with Reflecting Sphere. Shuler, in an interview conducted with Dragon Shield, said at the time, the artists were encouraged to keep the backgrounds plain and subjects simple to ensure the piece would "pop" on the very tiny art box of a Magic card. But the inspiration is clear.


Sire of Insanity
+ Saturn Devouring His Son

If you've ever taken a college art class, or have had any interest in art considered a little more on the macabre side, you've seen Saturn Devouring His Son. That in itself is an irony, because the painter, Francisco Goya, had no intention of ever letting anyone see it. Saturn Devouring His Son is one of Goya's 14 "Black Paintings," or works that he painted onto the walls of his house sometime between 1820 and 1823. These weren't for display or commercial use, but rather they were starkly disturbing, and a cover-up of more tonally uplifting art he'd painted prior. 

Saturn Devouring His Son was painted in the house's dining room, a fact that I'm sure some might find darkly amusing. Popular interpretation of the piece is all we have to go on, since Goya had no intention of these being seen and thus gave them no titles or notes. But it's thought that Saturn Devouring His Son depicts - you guessed it - the Roman god Saturn eating one of his sons, as Saturn was told via prophecy that one of these sons would one day overthrow him. It's possible, though, that this isn't Saturn and Jupiter at all, but just some dark vision Goya had to illustrate any number of themes he might have been grappling with late in life; he would die five years later, in 1828. 

Saturn Devouring His Son, by Francisco Goya
Sire of Insanity, by Peter Mohrbacher

There are a lot of details that set the two pieces apart, but the similarities are blatant enough that we're not looking at a coincidence. The demon's positioning and expression, the way it's holding its snack, its madness-filled eyes. And the corpse itself, seen from the back and mostly fleshy and indistinguishable - it all adds up to homage. And Peter Mohrbacher, the artist behind Sire of Insanity, says as much: "Many people have noted the similarities between this piece and the famous painting of Saturn Eating his Children by Goya. That's not by accident."

Being a Magic card, and not a 19th century painting on a wall of a private residence done by an artist very familiar with the darker side of life, there had to have been some alterations done to preserve the art's homage while still fitting into the "for ages 13 and up" nature of the game. 


Dub
+ Accolade

This piece, 1901's Accolade, is likely Edmund Leighton's best-known work, depicting the bestowing of knighthood onto a young subject. Like the work we've discussed so far, it's iconic for its era and movement (in Leighton's case, pre-Raphaelite). Much of Leighton's work dealt with romanticizing the medieval period, and Accolate is no different: it's assumed that the kneeling subject is a young Henry VI the Good of Poland being dubbed, which would have taken place sometime in the early 14th century. Others interpret the scene as taking place not in Poland, but in Albania, judging by the new knight's gambeson. 

And speaking of being dubbed:

Accolade, by Edmund Blair Leighton
Dub, by Bastien Lecouffe Deharme

Instead of the black eagle, we've got the stained glass motif denoting Dominaria, where this presumably takes place, but much of the piece bears striking resemblance to Accolade.


Where water is the canvas and lava the paint

There are many, many more examples of this particular subgenre of Magic art we've yet to reveal, and I'll save the others for a future entry. But in the meantime: what are your thoughts? Is there a particular piece of Magic art you're convinced was inspired by a work of classic art from yesteryear? Chances are, you're probably right. 

And circling back to the intro, what are your thoughts about the importance of fantasy realism in the grand scheme of fine art? Do you think it belongs in a museum alongside some of the classics we've talked about today? 



Nick Wolf is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer based in Michigan. He has over a decade of newsmedia experience and has been a fan of Magic: The Gathering since Tempest.