Dirty words in the art world
- Tracy Eire
- Jun 20
- 6 min read
Do any of you remember when 'fanart' was persona non grata in the art world? Persistently doodling in the margins of canon?
It was the AI art of yesteryear. Sitting in the back of the class. Rewriting the rules.
Today, the tide of opinion on fanart, and even fandom itself, has changed quite a bit, but traditional, so-called 'highbrow galleries' have historically given this artwork some serious side-eye.
And some institutions continue to do so.
When Fanart Ruled the Earth!
Long before there was a word for fandom, back when the production of artwork made painters into legends, fanart ruled the entire art world.
Passionate fanart tributes appeared in Uppercrust houses, museums, and French Salons. The sources were societal obsessions that today's modern writers can easily split into separate franchises.
Yes. I'm about to go all MCU on art history.
Popular fandom Franchises from back in the day:
Fandom: King Authur
Artists: The Pre-Raphaelites
Any Ladies? Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
Date: Mid-19th century (c. 1850s–1890s)
Features: Knights in shining oil paint; queens with celestial cheekbones; any romantically rendered medieval theme with gallant knights with gorgeous hair, weeping damsels, and melancholic and magical forests. Basically, stan anything gloriously chivalrous and over the top. The aim wasn't to be historical, but devotional, spiritually deep, and chicly aesthetic.
Fandom: The Bible
Artists: Caravaggio, Rembrandt.
Any Ladies? (Hold my beer.) Artemisia Gentileschi
Date: Renaissance to Baroque (c. 1500s-1600s)
Features: Follow me here -- Forgo canvases. Go cathedrals! These artists were all about the martyrs, the drama, and the divine blockbuster complete with all its ancestral sass. Like the ancient Egyptians before them, they painted on a massive scale, churches, frescoes, and paintings on public display. The goal was reverence, drama, and spiritual authority through spectacle. The works of Michaelangelo made his heavenly arguments in paint. Gritty Caravaggio wanted you to get the gospel in your bones.
Fandom: The Iliad & The Odyssey
Artists: Jacques-Louis David, John Flaxman
Any Ladies? Angelica Kauffman, Evelyn De Morgan
Date: Neoclassical Era (late 1700s-early 1800s)
Features: The Neoclassical stans were all about creating the ideal Greco-Roman cosplay, but with classical linework, impeccable lighting, anything Homer, tragic heroes, and enough laurel crowns and fig leaves to birth an empire. The goal was to praise a culture of heroism, honour, and order.
Fandom: Shakespeare
Artists: Henry Fuseli, John Everett Millais, Edwin Austin Abbey
Any Ladies? Angelica Kauffman
Date: The 18th–19th centuries.
Features: Drama queens and canvas kings. With these artists it was all about giving a body to the stories that were popular across all classes of society. This included embodying the Bard’s ghosts, lovers, and royals. The world was a stage, and the paintings theatrical.
Okay. Let's do one more. Let's do a big one!
Fandom: Greek & Roman mythology.
Artists: Titian, Peter Paul Rubens.
Any Ladies? Elisabetta Sirani, Angelica Kauffman
Date: The 16th - 19th centuries (and still common today)
Features: God-tier fanart. Your goal, if you choose to accept it, is to paint fewer clothes, extra muscles, and larger-than-life myths. In basic, these artists mythologized the mythology. Hard. They blended classical beauty with drama, and unapologetic sensuality. The goal was to glorify mythology, power, and the human form.
The art world once ran on stories that served the masses.
Okay. All kidding aside... what happened?
From Cathedral to Con
In the 20th century, fanart went wide.
It jumped from the ceilings of Churches to Artist's Alley, and its themes changed dramatically, earning it the side-eye of the world.
Up in the nosebleeds of purveyors of artistic taste during this time, the goal was originality and breaking from tradition. (Or else. Okay? Srsly. It's either do this or take your ball and go home, boys!)
As you could imagine the rising tide of fanart, which broke like a tsunami with the dawn of the Internet and DeviantArt, was sneered at as both derivative and lazy. The force of literal ages of inclination amongst Art Collectors didn't fit the script.
The explosion of mass media, full of comic books, pulp fiction novels, cartoons, television shows, anime, manga, movies -- none of it impressed art's gatekeepers. The establishment rejected that what they made had anything to do with art, and split the world in two, one half was for them:
High Art. Like when you put the corpse of a shark in a vat of formalin or entirely cover a canvas in white enamel and sell it for 1.5 million. You know. Real value.
And one for us.
Low Art. Anything 'the masses' love. Aka. The juvenile. The unserious. The commercial. The popular. The feminine-coded. Basically, everything elitists pretend they don’t binge at home.
Other elements played into this, btw. At the time Copyright laws tightened and crackdowns on unauthorized use began to occur. So, the homage of fanart began to be litigated.
Plus, there was a very harmful myth made popular by art institutions and romanticized to this day. The idea of 'The lone, tortured genius, who creates purely from inspiration and scoffs at shared stories'. The genius artist who does not need any of us.
Fanart, by contrast, is a collaboration often set in communal spaces like on social media or at fan conventions. It was, to gatekeepers, slop.
From Silver Screen to Artist Alley
And for a while.
Nothing changed.
This anti-fanart period was the backdrop to the birth of digital art. This forked the degradation of fanart into degrading digital artists. For years, Digital artwork was 'not real art', 'derivative', 'tied to pop culture' -- and it should sound familiar by now.
But, amid the hue and cry, digital art picked up rebel status and began to demand attention. And there, tucked under the covers was the very fanart that was the engine of the revolution.
A notion came to light: fandom was a participatory culture and not piracy or passive consumption. Fans (paying and otherwise) weren’t some sort of freeloaders on their obsessions, they were deeply respectful of, but also busily reshaping canon, building communities smack-dab in its midst, and expressing their devotion like any artist would -- through their own creations. Fanart, fanfiction, fan edit videos, all of this became part of a larger cultural conversation.
The ripples carried ideas outward into schools, studios, and even the courts, where fanart was understood to be positively transformative.
Nowadays, fandom is a place where people feel it deeply that they count. Fanart has become a badge of belonging.
And for Art Collectors? The ties that bind, that sense of plugging-in and connecting to your fellowship? That is not only essential for fighting loneliness, but also downright intoxicating.
At Studio Eclipse, we feel that energy too! And that's why you'll see more fan-inspired creations coming your way in the future! (So, let us know what your fandoms are!) Spread the word! We believe in fandom, from BTS Army (welcome back boys!), to Disney, to D&D.
We believe, and you're going to see that faith transform into heart-melting art.
Just wait for it!
P.S. Rin, wherever you've been on your journey, with the kind of joy that goes beyond words, and bright, full hearts, Studio Eclipse embraces your return. You were missed, Our Lady of the Pencil. The circle feels whole again with you in it. Welcome back, Queen! We wish you the best!
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