Werner Hoffman's 'L'art fantastique' Traces the Fantastic in Western Art

Werner Hoffman's book 'L'art fantastique,' published by Imprimerie nationale / Actes Sud, explores the fantastic as a pervasive element in Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, rather than as a marginal genre. Hoffman begins with 12th-century illuminated manuscripts, where he identifies the first coexistence of objective representation and fantastic metamorphosis. The survey includes major European masters: Jérôme Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Francisco Goya, William Blake, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Surrealists, and conceptual artists like Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys. Hoffman argues that revolutionary formal research and the questioning of perceived reality continue earlier principles of the 'anti-world.' However, chapters on the 20th century reveal a risk: the broader the definition of fantastic art, the more it appears everywhere, potentially reducing the term to any element without real-life equivalent. Despite weaknesses, the well-illustrated volume successfully reminds readers that the fantastic is a significant component of much Western art. The review was written by Kacper Checinski for artpress.