Fantastic realism - Definition and Overview

The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism was a group of artists formed in Austria in 1946. It included Ernst Fuchs, Rudolph Hausner, Wolfgang Hutter and Fritz Janschka, all students of Professor Albert Paris von Gutersloh at the Vienna Academy. It was von Gutersloh's emphasis on the techniques of the Old Masters that gave the Fantastic Realism painters a grounding in realism (expressed with a clarity and detail some have compared to early Flemish painting) combined with religious and esoteric symbolism. The Vienna School initially identified itself with surrealism, although many surrealists were critical of it.

Fantastic Realism is occasionally used as a general term to describe any painting technique in which great, perhaps obsessive attention is paid to naturalistic detail in the depiction of the unreal; Litsa Spathi is one of a newer generation who works in this tradition.