The themes of science fiction are relatively new additions to the world of art. Like fantasy art, science fiction is a product of the human imagination, but unlike contemporary fantasy art, it is generally rooted in plausible things. We know, for example, that we will never encounter a troll, a dragon, or an evil sorceress shooting rays of fire from her hands. Science fiction in art offers us the chance to imagine a world where extraordinary things like this are a real future possibility. Perhaps we will meet aliens, and perhaps we will build enormous ships that will carry us between the stars to brand-new worlds with fantastical flora and fauna.
Science fiction in art offers us a glimpse of what could be real. It is the visual twin of science fiction literature. The latter challenges us to imagine, while the former presents us with someone else’s imagination and inspires us to dream.
A Brief History of Science Fiction in Art
Science fiction in art started with the stories of Jules Verne. The French novelist used over 4,000 woodcuts to illustrate his novels written between 1863 and 1905. For his audience reading such stories as Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and From the Earth to the Moon, it was their first experience of science fiction illustration. Today, his literature and the art accompanying it would be considered a sub-genre of science fiction known as “steampunk,” which is science fiction set in a Victorian aesthetic where most of the technology is driven by steam.
After Jules Verne came H.G. Wells and the illustrations accompanying the first edition of War of the Worlds in 1898. The most well-known illustrations, however, came from the 1906 edition illustrated by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa. This was at the beginning of the era of pulp fiction. Science fiction was certainly one of the genres printed in pulp magazines and consumed by a large audience. Until 1926, however, it was classified as fantasy. It was not until April 1, 1926, when the publisher Hugo Gernsback classified it as a separate genre under the title of “Scientifiction.”
With the pulp stories came illustrations and cover art. With publications such as Wonder Stories, Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, and Captain Future, science fiction became a theme that needed artists on a regular basis. As a result, science fiction in art became a fully-fledged genre within the art world.
When the pulp era went into decline, science fiction art made a smooth transition to the comic-book industry. As well as appearing in magazines such as Heavy Metal which regularly showcased fantasy and sci-fi artists, science fiction in art already had a good grounding in TV and cinema. The old favorites of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Star Trek, among others, stood sci-fi artists in good stead, and the industry underwent phenomenal growth from 1977 onwards with the introduction of Star Wars.
At the same time, fantasy art was given a huge boost by the tabletop role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons. While the game was designed for fantasy settings, it spawned other RPGs, and in 1976, only two years after the release of the original Dungeons & Dragons, the parent company, TSR, released the first science fiction RPG, Metamorphosis Alpha. Through the decades, other settings were designed and became hugely popular, such as Shadowrun, which is set in a cyberpunk world where technology and magic exist together. Since then, all the major sci-fi franchises (such as Star Trek and Star Wars) have been made into RPGs, and critical to their existence is the art that depicts their settings.
In the UK, fictional tabletop wargaming/miniature wargaming took off at the same time, with the opening of the Games Workshop company in 1975. In 1987 the company released Warhammer 40,000, today the most popular miniature wargame in the world. The brutal and violent setting has spawned an enormous amount of art depicting its various themes, as well as video games and books.
Franchises like these have solidified science fiction in art and ensured that the themes exist and grow far into the future. Not only are commissioned artists creating art, but fans in their thousands are creating their own art to accompany their experience of the games.
Science fiction and fantasy art has embraced the technological revolution of computers, and although traditional methods of art such as pen, pencil, and paint have not diminished, digital art has become immensely popular and has widened the accessibility of art to a massive number of artists who use programs such as Photoshop to skillfully “paint” imagery. This medium is hugely popular among consumers of art as well.
Themes in Science Fiction Art
Like its close relative, fantasy art, there are many themes displayed in science fiction art that are products of imaginative realism. And like fantasy art, from which science fiction art evolved, it was, and still is, a product of the commercial need for visual accompaniment to books, movies, and video games. Similarly, science fiction in art has also evolved beyond its commercial background and is a series of themes that are now also widely created for the sake of art itself, unattached to commercial commission.
Generally, the themes revolve around things and events in the future, although this is subject to many exceptions. Some science fiction is set in the past (Star Wars), while some science fiction is set in the present, such as many movies involving alien invasions and visitations. Science fiction art has evolved to cater to the need to depict these things and events.
One theme of science fiction in art is to try to present the familiar in an unfamiliar way. It draws upon what we already know and extrapolates through imagination the possibilities of what our knowledge could mean. It exaggerates, inverts what we know as real, and presents an alternative reality. It awes us with scale and amazes us with new figures and forms based on what we know to be technically possible but have never seen (or even imagined).
Science fiction can be beautiful, serene, and peaceful, but it can also be dark and gritty. Science fiction in art presents us with wondrous utopias, clean cities, and perfect societies, but it also presents us with dystopian nightmares where the world has succumbed to apocalyptic events, and humans are forced to raid and scavenge for survival among the rubble of broken civilization.
From the very beginning of science fiction, horror has also been a theme widely portrayed. Combining science fiction and horror has created a genre known as “cosmic horror,” and the author regarded as the father of the genre is the American author H.P. Lovecraft. He wrote his terrifying tales between 1917 and 1937 and became a major influence for virtually all horror writers since, including the inimitable Stephen King. Cosmic horror is extremely popular today and has resulted in many books, games, movies, and the art that goes along with them. Warhammer 40,000 is a good example in that it incorporates cosmic horror into its brutal and gory setting of grim darkness.
As with fantasy art, science fiction has also generated a lot of erotic imagery. Similar themes of beautiful women in revealing clothes also appear, generating the same feminist/male gaze debates regarding the depiction of women in fantasy art. There is also the issue of the representation of women as science fiction and fantasy artists or the perceived lack thereof.
From the icy wastes of Hoth (Star Wars) to the Jungles of Pandora (Avatar) to the scorching deserts of the planet Arrakis, known as Dune; all of these places needed artists to render them. Inspired by the literary creator and drawn from deep in their imaginations, they shared their visions with the world. Their job was (and still is) to draw the audience into a world of visions and, accompanied by their respective media, turn the audience members into fans.
When a Dune fan, for example, sees art relating to the franchise, they are not just appreciating the art for its visual quality. They have read the books and seen the movies. The art brings nostalgic memories of dry heat, the rumble of sandworms, and the smell of spice. The artist reaches into the audience and reminds them of what they already know. Such is the power of art when it is linked to other media that is expansive in lore.
How Commercial Enterprise Supports Science Fiction in Art
The commercial use of science fiction in art is diverse and represents a sizable chunk of the entertainment market. From its roots in and on books, science fiction art expanded to comics, then movies, and finally to the gaming industry, which includes tabletop games, board games, card games, and video games. For all of these commercial uses, there is also a huge demand for concept artists who flesh out ideas in vast quantities before final designs are settled upon.
The art of science fiction has become powerful in its own right, however, and much of it is no longer trapped by commercial demands for it to match accompanying stories or brands. As such, the art of science fiction can be said to be more than an accompaniment to the market but a force intertwined with it. That is to say, it is difficult to determine whether writers inform the art or if art now also informs the writers. This is certainly true when one steps away from the heavily branded tropes of Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, or Halo — popular examples of cinema, tabletop games, and video games, respectively.
An example of art inspiring media is the work of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, who juxtaposes rural environments with high-tech robots and buildings. His series entitled Tales From the Loop inspired writers to create stories for television. Similarly entitled Tales From the Loop, the eight-part first series was released in 2020 on Amazon Prime.
Who Are the Artists?
While some science fiction artists focus solely on science fiction, there is a huge overlap with fantasy art. Many fantasy artists are also science fiction artists and vice versa. Even the most well-known fantasy artists are also famous for their science fiction themes. Such artists include Larry Elmore, Boris Vallejo, Luis Royo, Don Maitz, Michael Whelan, Darrel K. Sweet, and Ciruelo Cabral.
Some artists have focused exclusively, or almost exclusively, on science fiction in art and have defined the genre with their unique styles. During the era of pulp art, the genre was defined by artists such as Frank R. Paul, Virgil Finlay, Earl K. Bergey, Hector Garrido, Howard V. Brown, and many others.
Later generations of artists have been characterized by their work in the film and gaming industries while also having the freedom to create work that is not the result of commission. The list of famous contemporary artists is indeed long. Some established names, however, stand out.
Jim Burns is a Welsh artist who has worked for a huge number of publications. His style is highly detailed, photo-realistic, and colorful, often dealing with themes involving beautiful women, spaceships, and alien worlds.
Known for his movie posters, Noriyoshi Ohrai created a vast corpus of work for the Japanese market, focusing on Japanese-style science fiction and the popular themes of monsters like Godzilla. In 1980, his art caught the eye of George Lucas, who asked Ohrai to create the international poster for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. This brought Ohrai to fame outside of Japan.
Another of the world’s premiere science fiction artists is Chris Moore, whose works have graced the covers of many hundreds of books. His high-tech, high-sheen artwork has accompanied fiction by acclaimed science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, and Frederick Pohl. Moore’s work has also found its way into the mainstream and has been used as covers for famous authors such as Jeffery Archer, Jackie Collins, Frederick Forsyth, Wilbur Smith, and Colin Forbes.
Chris Foss is a British artist known primarily for his colorful depictions of spaceships. He created the covers for Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, among others, and worked on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s canceled adaptation of Dune. Going slightly off-theme, he proved his versatility by drawing the illustrations for the 1972 book The Joy of Sex.
Of course, there are many more artists who focus on science fiction in art and deserve pride of place among the great artists of their genre. The speculative fiction themes of Daniel dos Santos, the memorable covers of Stephen Youll, the unique style of Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, better known as Moebius, and the sweeping vistas of Paul Lehr, all deserve mention, among many, many others.
Science fiction in art, as a series of themes, has added much to the human experience. Science fiction, in all its forms, inspires us to look outward, away from the confines of what the pale, blue dot of Earth has presented us. No longer confined by the physical properties of life on Earth or the stories of humanity’s past, it opens our imagination to an entire universe of possibility. The art of science fiction brings that imagination to life.
