For power and strength in heroic fantasy art there is little to beat Roy Krenkel. I thought I'd start by placing this alongside two classical images, one from the French 17th century baroque, the other from the high renaissance.
I think you'll recognise the fantastic contrast between Poussin - a vigorous draftsman of light and shade but mediocre painter - and Titian's noonglow allure between the startled Ariadne and the besotted god, trailed by gaily appointed satyrs and nymphs.
What happened between Poussin's vigorous pencil studies of f the figures in his tableau, and the finished article that appears so stiltedly posed? The reason is probably that Poussin was a child of the Enlightenment, whereby order and reason we're the principle attributes of beauty.
This has the effect of throwing-out fraught, fearful, fairytale imagery that forcefully affects the psyche. Amongst the cognoscenti, in fact, the austere painter is known as 'Poussin Boots', as he boots off the wild side in order to restore order to his rigid tableaux, tidying-up his own rigorous linework!
Instead of leaping lustily into the fray, consorting with nymphs and throwing caution to the winds, Poussin nerdishly calculates the tonal interplay of his forms to achieve a frieze- like ordered array.
In effect, 'Poussin Boots' sees the origin of what has become the scientific order of the Black Sun of Calculation, that shines where the sun don't shine (see Grace Slick quote P62/1).
Whereas danger is needful, useful and supplies the fantastic drama of Titian's giddy noonglow theatrics, the caution of the dessicated scientist informs Poussin's staid 'frolics'.
The caution that is a reflection of Newtonian dynamics that sees the mind as the arbiter of events, and the body as merely an outgrowth of the dominant brain (see Blake print of Newton, prev.)
This peculiar state of affairs seems to be reaching its culmination in 'the internet of bodies', whereby calculation (algorithms) is applied to all human activities.
Would you want anyone to be able to hack into your fridge, your children's monitor, your private conversations?..if you're not private then you're no longer an individual. It's as if you're being pushed to eschew the natural world in favour of an artificial..which can be monitored, tracked, controlled, not to mention using electricity for absolutely everything.. (The Light)
Anita Roddick's quote (The Body Shop, prev) on the servitude of the body to the fashion industry seems like a premonition of these later profanities.
Profane because this caution on the part of technicians of the body (shades of Schumacher) merely serves to disguise and subdue the throbbing, reptilian urges that power active bodies (on the range.)
The physically strenuous pursuits that facilitate a strong psyche (of fairytale imagery) are suppressed by the weakness of calculation.
Instead of the danger of the serpent that lurks in knotting, rippling, coiling muscles, there is the caution that suppresses both physic and spirit. This s is the profane, altered serpent of 'clean meat', gene-editing and hybrid-DNA.
It's calculated weakness that relies on appearance fooling one as to what lies within, akin to the expressive algorithm (see Japanese example, prev.)
If the serpent is within the coiling and spinal strength of rhythmic form, it cannot be denied and must be expressed in dangerous pursuits of the outdoor world that rekindle dreams of clarity and vision.
Men took for a sign and standard the figure of the flying dragon, the winged dinosaur, a monster of past ages, which was the greatest foe of the serpent. (The Shadow Kingdom)
Howard's description of the two primeval reptile forms is intriguing, and might be taken as an implication the dragon can be tamed while the serpent cannot (Illyana Rasputin's Lockheed, say.)
A tame dragon might appear cute, but in the hands of the acolytes of caution and order its flashytechnical accomplishments merely serve to disguise the vastly more subtle serpent that is hybrid and devious, and exists within the mirror of illusions (algorithm, DNA, electromagnetism, AI.)
Next: The DNA Dragon and Elena's prints