Universal Principles of Art

33 FANTASY AND VISIONARY ART

INVENTING NEW WORLDS

In fantasy art, the artist renders a credible and coherent image of a world that does not, and in many cases cannot, exist. There has always been some element of fantasy at play in Western painting, particularly in religious and allegorical painting. However, fantasy as a genre first gained real currency with the advent of the Romantic movement toward the end of the eighteenth century, when a new interest in the powers of the imagination and the autonomy of the artist as creator came to the fore. Goya (1746–1828) made many fantastic works in which he explored sometimes alarming and highly personal imagery. In the same period, the Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) and the English artist William ...