Fantastic Art [antikvár]

What is fantasy? You might as well try to define truth, or, failing that, have a go at reality. Fantasy is the beautiful, the sublime, the fragile; it is the grotesque and the horrible, it is that which encompasses the real and overtakes it, it is supra-real. It is some strange formulation of an equally bizarre inner statement, which when externalized, comes to mean something quite uniquely important to all men. Fantasy is, well, art. Throughout the shadowy eons of man's existence there have been some men more committed to the communication of the inexplicable. They have been the philosophers, the scientists and, always, the artists. Some opted for words, some chose music, and happily for the rest of us, a battery of geniuses attempted to convey just what it is they felt—visually. And so we have not merely art, but fantasy in art, mirrors upon mirrors. This book is not meant to be any sort of definitive, absolute statement on fantasy—that is not possible anyway. Rather, it is intended as a delicious sampling of these 'visionary mavericks', from the wretched little demons of Bosch through the erotically cynical works of a contemporary graphic artist. The similarities, the absurdities, the wonder—that is all to be seen by the individual.