Gencon Mox Pearl Art

[Smmenen]

I also agree... That mox pearl art is hideous. It looks more like a [card]Jeweled Amulet[/card] than a mox.

it makes me wonder if people actually think that  or if they just like to bitch and moan on internet websites.


This art is one of the most beautfiul pieces of magic art - to say its hideous is preposterous and silly. 

[Meddling Mike]

I'm no art critic or whatever, but I absolutely love the artwork, I find the detail on the hands, arches and the flowers beautifully done. I realize it lacks the simplicity of the original artwork that people were fond of, but I still like it very much.

[Hi-Val]

Well let's critically analyze this then. The Pearl itself is the center of the composition; this is bad for fine art, but acceptable for representational art like this. Let's not look down on the composition because it is technically skilled; I find technical skill to add or detract nothing from a painting. Even the Dutch masters used lenses to trace their images onto canvasses. Technically skilled stuff doesn't equal art either (look at Thomas Kincade). So what's supposed to be represented here? A Mox Pearl, which is a pearl on a necklace, and visual clues that give you an idea of its power, orientation, use, value, etc.

The hands are alabaster and androgynous; they're pure. The bracelets on it are silvery, a "white" metal. I think these emphasize the idea of what White represents; untainted, simple, etc. The church architecture behind is obvious too. White likes order, symmetry, linear shapes, things like churches. I especially like the jasmine flowers cascading around the central focus. They add movement to the work and draw the eye around, diffusing some of the problems with the central composition of the Pearl itself. Jasmine has typically represented White in the past in Magic too.

I think if I could sum up the painting in a word, the first word that actually came to my mind works: elegant. When I think of white, I think of elegance.

Opinions? For the people that don't like it, I'd really like to hear why!

[Methuselahn]

Part of the attraction to Vintage for me, besides random broken junk that happens, is how the art pre-Ice Age appears more like fine art and less like the tainted-by-marketing look of everything after.  I've been instructed to not like folk art.  So, I'm sure I have an unfair bias against anything that isn't fine art.  Read: MtG + Fantasy.

I'm really disliking technical skill in magic because it is associated with modern sets more and more.  When art is made to fulfill a function, rather than purely for form, it's generally uninteresting for me (this applies to MtG paintings, but not Reflection's Amazing Rocket Car, for example).  In this case, the representational art has no function at all.  It is simply a painting, not something to be copied tens of thousands of times and sleeved up. 

I will have to wait until Gencon to see it with my own eyes, but here the use of lighting is okay.  It seems unnatural to me.  I'm not sure where it's coming from exactly.  It's not nearly as precise as the presicion of form in the hands or pearl.  It seems like the light is coming from over the shoulders of the body the hands are attached to, yet it seems to be evenly distributed in the background.

The painting appears very two-dimentional.  It's probably because I'm looking at it on a screen, but I'm not seeing much use of negative space and the flowers are not helping.  The flowers seem to all appear in the foreground.  They are all the same size and this makes them appear static to me.  Like a single part of a jasmine flower seen behind the hand or something would have done wonders, I bet. 

The composition focuses in the center.  The pearl, the arches, the lighting, the beads, and the outline of the cupped hands all rotate around the center.  Most art students are taught early that finished work such as this should not focus on the very center.  This is a cardinal sin.  This is my biggest problem,  I hope I change my mind when I see it first-hand.

Hi-Val nails pretty much all of the symbolism in there.  The painting definitely feels like it belongs in a white deck.  This part I like. 

[Jacob Orlove]

I'm not sure we're evaluating this art quite properly, and that's because I think Wizards actually gave us a poor picture of it. We're not looking at a picture of the painting straight on. It's on a table, and the person taking the picture was slightly back from it. This distorts the image, and I think makes it look worse than it actually is (I'm not convinced the pearl is in the center of the actual art).

For proof, measure the diagonals or the sides of the Magic card in the picture. The diagonals are at least a quarter centimeter different.

[Methuselahn]

Are you serious?  The sketch provided seems to indicate so.  Besides, even if it isn't centered with a ruler, it's close enough.  The picture is obviously good enough because that's the one they chose to give us.

[Jacob Orlove]

Are you serious?  The sketch provided seems to indicate so.  Besides, even if it isn't centered with a ruler, it's close enough.  The picture is obviously good enough because that's the one they chose to give us.

The picture they gave us of the Ancestral was pretty atrocious.

[sundering jerk]

you know I could just glue a picture of me holding my grandma's jewelry to my real mox pearl if I wanted this!
lame

[Machinus]

I think no matter how well the hands are drawn I wouldn't like them because they are hands.

[ashiXIII]

You know... I wonder what Magic card that is.

[zeus-online]

Whenever i look at the new mox pearl art, i seem to focus on the hands, not the jewel...with the old mox pictures it was just a gem! Older moxes where generally, IMO, more simple and elegant.

/Zeus

Ps. It seems weird to me that Smmenen somehow seems to think that his opinion on everything is always correct, even when it comes to art where people most definetly have different preferences.

[forests failed you]

I'm pretty sure that one of our guys will win this one.  After all the current patteren seems to be, Meandeck, Vintage Avant Garde, Meandeck, so obviously we are due again.

It would look really nice next to the Time Twister at Franklin's House where we playtest/

[NULLROD]

More arrogance.. heh

Timetwister is the worst art of all of them. No one cares.

[Anusien]

Dibs.

[netherspirit]

I'm no fan of the Pearl art, but I ADORE the Timetwister art, it just feels like it has more character in my opinion.

[forests failed you]

I wasn't actually a huge fan of the first three, but I really think that the Mox Pearl is a fantastic looking painting.

[SyntheticAngel]

wow that is so beautiful it makes me sad that it isn't the real art for the mox pearl because I would go get it before I got the more popular ones. Simply amazing!