Looking at all the works of art in the textbook made me think about my own favorite artists, and I figured I might as well post about at least one of them here. I'm much better at being wow'ed by art than I am at actually producing it; anything that's outside of any of my skill sets is immediately fascinating to me.
As I've mentioned, I love Klimt, so I would say my own taste in art tends towards the fanciful and exaggerated. This is made even more obvious by the work of my absolute favorite artist, Yoshitaka Amano. His style draws heavily from old Japanese "ukiyo-e" art, like the iconic "Great Wave at Kanegawa":
by Edo period artist Hokusai
Ukiyo-e is translated as "pictures of the floating world" and there's no better phrase to describe Amano's work. He got his start in animation (series like the original Speed Racer), however, so his style is noticeably influenced by such work. The Final Fantasy games probably gained him the most fame--his concept art and character designs form an enormous part of the franchise's style and content.
Here's a video of him doing a drawing live. Amazing to watch.
The reason I got into his art at all, though, is because of his partnership with novelist Hideyuki Kikuchi on the Vampire Hunter D series. The 20 or so volumes of horror/fantasy stories are by no means serious literature (they're "light" novels in every sense) but I really do enjoy them and am absolutely astonished by the artwork. I'll end this post with some of my favorites.
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