Friday Artfest: The Autumn People by Frank Frazetta

The Autumn People by Frank Frazetta

This haunting piece by Frank Frazetta is the sort of work that will creep into your mind and kick around the childish nightmares of your youth. The bulbous nodes making their serpentine way up the tree's trunk seem to hold the ghoulish images of lost souls captured by the restless spirits rising from the misty ground below. The whole image seems to cast the tree both as it is, and as a terrifying image of death itself holding watch over some long forgotten graveyard. 

The world seems to warp around the tree. Indeed even light seems to explode in the deadly ecstasy of death's embrace. Then there's the rising corpses. I imagine that Frazetta had seen Night of the Living Dead and decided that it just wasn't something worth thinking about. So he created a nightmarish hell that once it rose from the dead wouldn't falter, would stumble about like stiff necked children, but would come swift like a corpse' breath. 

Your thoughts?

Friday Artfest: Barbarian by Frank Frazetta

Barbarian by Frank Frazetta

I love, love, love this picture of Conan. Behind him rise the grisly images of his future and past. Death over his right shoulder and a serpent coiling back on itself through the kingdom that he'll one day rule over his left. And below that, the world is in flames as he stands atop the dessicated bodies of his enemies while a naked damsel slumps against his leg. 

The bodies of both Conan and the woman are typical of Frazetta's over muscled and sexualized bodies. And while some will criticize this piece for the naked female on the Barbarian's hip, they often overlook the fact that Conan's only clothing is his weaponry and the belt that holds them. It's as though each figure is a representation of our primal origins, like a murderous Adam and Eve burning their way back to the garden of Eden over the countless bodies of those who would hold them to our modern ways and mores.

A great piece all the way around. Your thoughts?

Friday Artfest: Aros by Frank Frazetta

Aros by Frank Frazetta

Aros was painted in 1967 and it typifies why I like these early works of Frazetta's. There's just something so raw and evocative in these works as each piece seems to move on its own and have a world of life hinted at with each masterful stroke of his brush.

Unlike previous works in Friday Frazetta Series, this one is notable for its simplicity of design. The defiant woman staring up towards the heavens with the hint of a smile on her face is typical of the Frazetta style with her muscular body and miniscule clothing. The gigantic python worming its way through the murky water leaves you with the impression that death is imminent, and yet her body posture and attitude seem to convey a wild sense of defiance that someone who has given themselves up to fate could only hope to possess.

If you'd like to purchase a print of this picture you can pick one up for $15 from Frazettas Prints 4u or you can purchase a totally legit oil painting of Aros ranging in price from $75 - $396 from Aliexpress. Honestly, neither of those options really seems all that legit kids, but they may be the only way you'll have of getting a copy of this painting.

Friday Artfest: Apparition by Frank Frazetta

Apparition by Frank Frazetta

I love everything about this painting from the indistinguishable location to the ghostly Kong in the background. This is the sort of painting that could launch a campaign as the Witch high on the hill could appear before the party and visions of Hell could walk behind her as she beseeches the party to act or suffer for all of eternity.

Great painting.

When I last looked for it you could buy it for $20 on ebay.

Friday Artfest: Against the Gods by Frank Frazetta

Against the Gods by Frank Frazetta

What a momentous painting this is! 

Unlike Adam who extended his hand to touch the fingertip of a benevolent god, here we see a warrior with his blade upheld to the heavens challenging the might and dominance of the very gods that he was supposed to fear and honor.

Created in 1966 this early work of Frank Frazetta calls on many of the themes that would make him famous in later years as the warrior is designed with a mind bent on the perfection of the human body and the attention to detail spent on the prominent foreground images is outstanding. The ghostly eagle swooping about his ankles harkens back to the themes of bravery and independence that can so often be found in Frazetta’s works.

Against the Gods originally graced the cover of Thongor Against the Gods by Lin Carter which was published in 1967 by the Paperback Library. Like many of you reading this if I had run across this book when it was first published I would have given it a second look on that cover alone.

Friday Artfest: Conan the Destroyer by Frank Frazetta

Conan the Destroyer by Frank Frazetta

This 1971 painting by Frank Frazetta is one of my all-time favorite depictions of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the barbarian; but even if it were not of that amazing character it would be one of my favorite works by Frazetta.

The painting encapsulates so much of Frazetta’s style.

The fluid movement conveyed by Conan and the horde that seems to materialize out of the mists of the desert storm seems so real that you can almost hear the bite of metal into flesh and bone and the cries of the dying. The grim determination on Conan’s face as he mercilessly swings that axe down into his foes time and time again moves him beyond the wild barbarian and closer to some pagan god of battle.

When I look at this painting it makes me wonder what started this madness. But more than that it makes me wonder who these men are that upon seeing the deaths of so many of their comrades just keep coming on like mindless sheep to the slaughter. What bounty could move them so? What fear?

I tell you that when it comes to how I envision Conan in the books he is more often colored by Frazetta’s vision for the character than any other source.

Incidentally, according to Bleeding Cool and a plethora of other websites this painting sold for $1.5 million in July of 2010 to a private collector at the San Diego Comic Con.