Oldschool Fantasy Art

To be fair, so far in this thread every picture with a mostly-naked woman has also had at least one mostly-naked man. Can't call foul if there's gender equality.

Then you can't claim that they are sexist. Those are just paintings of women.

I preferred the First Armageddon, though the Second one was pretty good too.

fuck, i'll shame those idiots
what are they doing? why is one of them wearing foil and a colander? Why did the girl have a shirt on backwards?

Cry Hard 2: Cry Harder

Yes and human imagination should be sacred because without it the world is a duller place. If that one guy isn't allowed to imagine things, then why would anybody else be allowed to imagine things?

And how do we know that our imaginations are not in fact reflections of some other world where the people in these paintings are in fact real and do in fact have their reasons for dressing the way they do.

In my experience, the people who object to these lines of thought are neither championing progress, or protecting any sort of noble tradition, but simply trying to make the world a worse place for everybody because of their own misfortune. If they devoted a fraction of the energy they spent on self pity in other directions, they would see the world as a much better place with much more attractive people in it.

CHAOS DESCENDS

I would say the bigger sticking point is that women are more rarely shown as figures of strength or individual capability in oldschool art; being typically accessories to a male character or simply objects of titillation for the viewer.

Sexuality is great, exposed flesh is fine, but we should question the implicit narrative of the art.

This looks like an opera. Like the dude in red is dramatically responding to the unexpected reveal of the skeleton while the zombie audience all stands up to gasp dramatically.

I think it's based on an Elric story where he winds up fighting some ancient king that was trapped beneath a mountain by a bunch of fantasy hillbilly degenerates. So that's not too far off.

>Sexuality is great, exposed flesh is fine, but we should question the implicit narrative of the art.
And we should question our own inferences or interpretations of art far more than any "implicit narratives". Because that shit almost always leads to smug, deconstructive wankery and massive projection of the audiences own biases onto the art-piece.

Shut

See

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

Also depends on the artist.
Most of the "old school" art you speak of was done by a handful of the same artists, not a variety.
It's like claiming that Geiger did little besides surreal psychosexual pieces and using that are an insult: it's what he did.

Yes, but the question here is whether the label "sexist" is appropriate.

Sexist? Naw.
I always wagered there needs to be some manner of hostility involved to drop a negative label on something. The art very much mirrored the tone and presentation of a lot of pulp fantasy, and is technically proficient on it's own merits. You may not like it, but calling it something negative is a stretch at best.

It's only negative because of your own hangups on the term sexist (though I consider sexism to be a negative thing as well) but at its core sexism is just a label. We could say that that surrealism or sexuality of Giger's work are both insulting epithets, if we were hung up on surrealism or sexuality being inherently bad (plenty of art critics in the past considered surrealism to be something bad).

The fact that these pieces seem to most often reflect a narrative of women as individually incapable accessories to a male character, while appropriate to some pulp fantasy, is a pretty sexist (by the dictionary definition) notion. Sexism doesn't have to include hate or scorn.

>hurr I can't read
Not even what I said. Deconstruction is a useful tool to understand the individual parts of an art-piece/story/etc and what makes them work together. But if you use it to pick it apart and smugly demonstrate how much "smarter" you are than the artist, you're just a cunt. I'm sure you can see how bad that gets when people also project their own biases onto an art-piece without any understanding of its context.

>If you saw a piece of work that depicted a Jewish person as a hook nosed thief, you would be well within your right to suspect an anti-semitic narrative.
But user, all jews are hook nosed thieves.

>I'm sure you can see how bad that gets when people also project their own biases onto an art-piece without any understanding of its context.
>it's not the artist that's sexist, it's the social progressive deconstructing it that's a crypto sexist!

Kay.

>The hero moves to protect a beautiful thing from something terrible
>The hero is saving a beautiful woman from a terrible fate
>The hero is protecting his love from a terrible fate
>The hero is strong and will take action to protect the defenseless

Fuck you user

And like I said, I see trying to apply the term as misguided at best, especially since iirc Frazetta discussed what imagery he was portraying in his pulp fantasy art.

It's hilarious of how this post is a great example of what I'm talking about.

>The woman is incapable of defending herself and needs a hero to protect her.
>The sexually appealing woman serves as an accessory to accentuate the hero's masculinity.

But it's not misguided. Trying to emulate a genre with commonly held sexist notions doesn't exempt the artwork itself from being labeled as sexist.

But you're aren't talking about anything. You're just telling people to not question artwork and blaming the narratives they find within the works on their own biases. As though someone looking at religious artwork and seeing it glorify God would be unjustified in saying that the work glorifies Christianity.

>/pol/tard pretends to be strawman libtard
>gets a dozen replies about whether Frazetta art is sexist
Sad!

>saying we should question our interpretation of art and why we interpret art a certain way is saying we shouldn't question art
Okay user.

Saying that we should question our interpretation as though that invalidates any potential interpretation is basically a call to avoid questioning artwork. Questioning your interpretation is part of interpreting artwork, it doesn't need to be mentioned unless you're trying to tell someone their interpretation is wrong.

>I need to look for a specific interpretation to support my blanket labeling
This is why I don't agree with you.
It hedges entirely on your opinion and your own perception, not what the art is presenting or the artist's intent.
The same logic could be used to cast of Geiger as being cheap rape fantasy.

>women are more rarely shown as figures of strength or individual capability in oldschool art; being typically accessories to a male character or simply objects of titillation for the viewer.
And men are absolutely *never*, and I mean *never*, shown as figures of beauty and sensuality who deserve to be protected even if they themselves can't fight. Even the oldest of old-school fantasy usually had an occasional female hero, but they absolutely never gave men an opportunity to be anything but a hulking warrior.

You know what I'd like to see? Art of a fantasy world like with the sexes reversed. A strong female warrior protecting and guiding a naked boy. I've had fantasies about that kind of thing my entire life, and in years of searching, I've never quite found anything like it. Usually I just have to make do with looking at art like OP's and reversing the sexes in my own imagination.

You realize that you're doing exactly the same thing, right? You're looking at your specific interpretation to avoid having to apply the label.

>not what the art is presenting

Sexually appealing women in positions of vulnerability being protected by physically powerful men, effectively functioning as accessories rather than autonomous characters.

>artists intent

Humans rarely have much of a clear idea of why they do anything, we're driven by impulses well outside of our conscious experience (indeed conscious experience is arguably just an overly simplified representation of these processes). We do things that we don't consciously intend every single day.

>The same logic could be used to cast of Geiger as being cheap rape fantasy.

Implications of uncomfortable elements of sexuality (rape, for instance) are absolutely a big component of Giger's work. You wouldn't freak out if someone said there was a strong undercurrent of sexuality in his work; you just reject the label sexist for old school fantasy work because the term is considered negative, not out of any well-reasoned objection to the term.

Men being portrayed as essentially disposable fight machines is absolute sexist as hell too.

They're recreating the painting you fucking retard.

>Men being portrayed as essentially disposable fight machines is absolute sexist as hell too.
Portrayed as lacking inherent beauty or value as well.

And *no one* fucking talks about it. The most it ever gets is someone saying "Yeah, I *guess* that's a thing, but it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the stuff that bothers women."

>And like I said, I see trying to apply the term as misguided at best, especially since iirc Frazetta discussed what imagery he was portraying in his pulp fantasy art.

Frazetta drew the women he drew because he was using his wife as the model and his wife had a bangin' hot ass.

>Men being portrayed as essentially disposable fight machines is absolute sexist as hell too.
Is that where you're going to stop? Or are you willing to go even farther and encourage men being portrayed as valuable objects of desire, even if they can't fight? You seem to have ignored half of the issue here.

Fuck, I love old fantasy art no matter how stupid it is. Don't get me wrong, I love me some realistic armor, but sometimes I just want to have pulpy bullshit with women wearing chainmail thongs and nipple-coasters.

So is Leia an accessory to the Star Wars plot?

Is Valeria actually an accessory to Conan?

Is Peach an accessory to Mario?

Is Zelda an accessory to Link?

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Lucky bastard

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It really doesn't get enough conversation. Part of it is the fact that it typically only gets brought up as a deflection, like right now, where someone pointed out the sexism towards women, and you brought it up as though that takes away from it.

I don't disagree with that sentiment in the slightest, my only objection is the fact it's being used as deflection.

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>Yes
>Can't say.
>Mostly, barring games where she was the focal character or a contributing character.
>Yes.

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Fucking christ.

He earned it though, by documenting it for the rest of us thousands of times on lovingly-rendered paintings.

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>Sexually appealing women in positions of vulnerability being protected by physically powerful men, effectively functioning as accessories rather than autonomous characters.
Or sexually appealing women using their sexual power to get men into doing what they want, in this case protecting them from danger, making the men accessories to the woman rather than autonomous characters.

>We do things that we don't consciously intend every single day.
Using that to arrive at the conclusion that artists don't put intent in their work is fucking retarded user.

>Portrayed as lacking inherent beauty or value as well.
Do you specifically mean modern fantasy art? Because classical art worships the absolute shit out of the beauty of the male form and old school fantasy art in many ways imitates that.

Pic related is the best example I could find in my art folder.

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I don't consider it a deflection, because there are already plenty of people talking about how some things are problems for women. That issue doesn't need any more attention.

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>classical art worships the absolute shit out of the beauty of the male form
Only the hugely muscular male form. The "beauty" there is more about implying strength and shit instead of sensuality.

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>we should question the implicit narrative of the art.
This is why were not allowed to have nice things.

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>Or sexually appealing women using their sexual power to get men into doing what they want, in this case protecting them from danger, making the men accessories to the woman rather than autonomous characters.

That's a complete asspull. There is no such thing as sexual power, because it's ultimately a "power" that someone has to give the woman (the man has to submit to it of his own accord, he is not coerced or forced). The man is the only one in these pictures with conscious control over his fate.

>Using that to arrive at the conclusion that artists don't put intent in their work is fucking retarded user.

No, that their intent isn't as important as you're making it out to be and that their can be meanings to artwork that have nothing to do with intent.

Hahga!
My 200+ pic folder of Grazetta art has indeed yielded an entire pic of a sensibly dressed woman.
Checkmate, atheists!

Seriously, loosen up.

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t. brainlet

Plato and Aristotle both were telling us that art is trying to tell us shit and that we should absolutely think about the message and question it.

>There is no such thing as sexual power,
Agreed it's physically impossible for a woman to use sex appeal to get something she wants.

And to imply otherwise is misogynistic.

>a "power" that exists only if a man is willing to grant it to the woman, that has no actual capability to coerce or outright force him to do anything
>power

Kay.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to finish this

Being overly critical of art is worse than taking it at face value.

That shit leads to modern "art".

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You can never be too critical of art. If art doesn't hold up to criticism, you should use that as an excuse to make better art.

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>All power comes from force and coercion
Cis white male detected.

And yet, every time you read classic literature, a woman's sexual power is portrayed as a dangerous and daunting obstacle on the same level as a powerful warrior. So clearly even our ancestors accepted sexual power as a thing.

Not if your doing it right

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Not really. Helen of Troy was backed by Aphrodite, and still didn't compare to the kind of power Achilles could bring to bear.

The ancients understood that men could act like idiots when faced with sex appeal but they didn't consider it actual power.

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>Art from 20-40 years ago when RPGS and Fantasy were something like 99.9% male dominated has lots of naked ladies.

Yeah, big fucking surprise.

>Face that launched a thousand ships
>Less powerful than a single guy with a pointy stick

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>Bear doesn't have golden nipple tassels

Lame.

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Actually it would be Aphrodite's divine meddling that did that and Achilles routed an army by himself.

Whoa, I've never seen this picture before but I love it

THE MIGHT OF CHAOS DESCENDS AS WE JOIN THE FIGHT

laughing_ishtar.vase

Nothing is perfect, unfortunately.

Actually, while I'm thinking about it, it wasn't Aphrodite that did that. It was the combined efforts of her, Hera, Athena, manipulating Agamemnon and Menelaus, who were ultimately the ones launching the damn ships.

>Aphrodite
Ah, yes Aphrodite, widely known to be the weakest and least powerful god.

>Gilgamesh flat out rejecting Ishtar's so-called "sexual power".jpg

Wouldn't surprise me if most of Clyde's stuff actually has been in a fantasy RPG manual at some point.