The STRANGE Story of Minecrafts Paintings...

minecraft's paintings while almost globally recognizable majority of the player base likely don't use them and when they do they're simply used as a sneaky method of hiding an entrance to a base present in the game since minecraft in dev 2010223 released on february the 23rd 2010 almost all of minecraft's paintings have an interesting story behind their creation and also a very fascinating meaning from being based on old but famous video game maps to combining renowned traditional art with elements of video games almost every painting in minecraft is extremely unique that being said though 19 of the 26 total paintings added to the game were initially added in that first minecraft in their version which introduced them and since then we've only had the addition of seven other paintings to the game with the last being this with a painting in minecraft 1.4.2 released in october of 2012. that means for nine years now not a single new painting has been added to the game why is that well today we talk about the strange story and history of minecraft's paintings what they are based on why they look the way they do and the meaning behind them i also found this painting here which is quite interesting actually i reckon it should probably be in the louvre and i do agree with its message so make sure to follow it anyways let's begin paintings are craftable by placing eight sticks around one wall and when place could come in a variety of sizes ranging from one by one to four by four depending on the space where placed the painting chosen is completely random there is no way to craft a specific painting type although you can just break and replace the painting until you get one you like so who is responsible for creating all these paintings well that would be christopher zettastrand zettastran's career didn't begin with minecraft in fact after studying at the royal university college of fine arts in stockholm and the uh facultad de bella arte in madrid both esteemed art schools his first exhibition debuted in 2002 a debut of art based on the very popular game of the time counter-strike no not global offensive but the original counter-strike 1.6 what made zetastran's arc quite unique at the time was his perspective zettastrand was interested in what he called visual spaces created in online computer games and 3d programs especially when the illusion of the game is broken due to bugs in a game allowing for what he called visual failures to shine through he would often intentionally break the game or crash games in order to produce such visual failures and imagery he also had a great interest in producing paintings based on imagery and landscapes you can only see while dead in an online game when you die in counter-strike you enter a spectator mode called free look which functions very similar to spectator mode in minecraft allowing you to move through walls and more overall his art combined much of traditional art with computer game elements and themes you will see this process and how it influenced the art evident in minecraft later anyways zetta strand was the brother of notch's ex-wife meaning that for a time they were brother-in-law's and notch decided to add some of his art to the game we'll start with some of the one by ones two paintings named aztec 1 and aztec 2 were based off of the famous counter-strike map aztec now here is the original painting and as you can see it's far clearer than it is in game the painting in game is only about 16 by 16 pixels it's been down scaled as you'll see with most of the paintings we talk about today probably to fit minecraft's blocky theme but also maybe due to the limitations with the game at the time you can see that this painting is based off of a spectator or free look perspective as we are in a ceiling or wall evident by the black textures surrounding the painting which would have been out of bounds areas now i couldn't recreate this painting in-game exactly i spent half an hour looking for the location it could have been taken at but due to my lack of knowledge about aztek as it's virtually non-existent in cs go now it got me nowhere but i was mostly able to recreate aztec too aztec 2 is also from the map aztec and once again seems to be from the perspective of being in a wall bomb is another 1x1 painting from counter-strike of the even more famous dust2 map this image is based on the b-bomb site likely where its name came from one thing i am curious about is what these dollar signs on the right hand side represent so if anybody knows be sure to leave a comment as for the other one by one paintings well there's al barn which features a man in a fez my new favorite painting kebab which is exactly what you would expect plant which is a still life painting originally named par distraught sorry if i butchered that which is swedish for money tree and wasteland a window ledge painting featuring a bunny with an ominous apocalyptic backdrop let's talk about some of the two by one paintings now sea and cree bet are two paintings based off only one that exists in the real world the original paintings of a nice mountainside and sea view through a window while c is adapted to the game in a similar style cree bit features a creeper face in the place of the flowers this is one of the only two paintings in the game seemingly modified to have a direct minecraft related feature in it the other is one of the bigger 4x4 paintings named pigscene which was originally called rgb a painting of a girl pointing to a canvas of three colors red green and blue the three colors typically used by computer displays once again demonstrating video games direct influence on zetastran's work as we all know rgb makes a computer run faster and likely would have made minecraft run better as well unfortunately though the version in minecraft features a pink face instead which looks very out of place like a poor photoshop job but is actually quite consistent with many of the other paintings as you'll see later on why these two paintings have been modified well we don't know maybe there isn't much to it and zelda strand thought it would be funny then there's also sunset a painting of a view of mountains on the sunset pool which is a painting of some men and women skinny dipping in a pool and kobe which is two hikers with beards greeting each other based on the painting called the meeting by gustav kobe so many of the two by one and one by one paintings are interesting because they've been down scaled so immensely they become abstract art and open to interpretation for example i always thought plant was a green flame or low quality creeper and kobe was two warriors with large coats trudging through a snowy wasteland as we'll talk about later this is what makes minecraft's painting so unique and interesting but let's continue for now the two one by two paintings in the game begin a theme we'll start to see more in the bigger paintings rather than being based off an entire painting themselves they are heavily cropped versions of already much larger paintings this painting here is called graham a painting of king graham from the game king's quest an old graphic adventure game series beginning all the way back in the 1980s which according to my youtube analytics is older than over 85 of the people watching this video shout out to my 65 plus year old viewers by the way now once again zetta strand's knack for including pixel related or video game art style in traditional paintings is evident and in the full painting you can clearly see such a distinction the other two by one painting is named wanderer or as the minecraft community calls it the rick astley painting is cropped from this larger painting here which is based on another famous painting called wanderer above the sea of fog some painting inception there for you on to the 2x2 paintings now when you look at this painting here called bust a painting of famous roman emperor marcus aurelius everything looks quite normal but looking at the actual non-pixelated version reveals an interesting feature the fire is pixelated and looks kind of like in-game minecraft fire once again we see zetta strand combining pixel-related artwork with traditional and classic art a similar theme is evident in the painting match skulls and roses as well as stage and void once again has mixed classical and pixelart elements with their originals all incorporating pixel art themes skulls and roses saw significant changes from the original with the minecraft version only including a zoomed in skull and roses nearby far from the unsettling nature of the original stage is based on the scenery from the game space quest 1 with the character graham from king's quest featured again likely one of zetastran's favorite game characters at the time however in the original the spider is not nearly as big or fearsome this may have been altered in the minecraft version to be more representative of a minecraft spider with the glowing red eyes now we are getting to the larger and more detailed paintings the only 4x2 painting in the game named fighters featured two pixelated men from the game international karate plus a fighting game from 1987 made for a game console i'd never heard of before called the commodore 64. the burning skull is probably one of the most recognizable paintings in the game simply a skull on fire with what looks like a very minecraft-esque moon and background well as a matter of fact it is a minecraft background as this painting was based off a minecraft screenshot this one right here to be specific making one of the only paintings in the game to actually have majority of its elements based off of minecraft also one thing to note is that the fire which looks very unlike minecraft's fire particles is clipping through the skull as we would actually see with how fire works with entities in game furthermore as i'm sure many of you already know since the painting was based off a minecraft screenshot the minecraft at-home team were able to crack the seed for it and ant venom has a good video talking about that if you're curious kong is a painting which many of you might already recognize as the original painting was also based on a screenshot from the donkey kong arcade game released in 1981. the minecraft version has been cropped as you can see and supposedly is from the final stage in the game named 100m the only stage where mario or known at the time as jumpman had to bring donkey kong down instead of just reaching the top pointer is another painting based off of the game international karate plus featuring the main character touching a large hand very similar to the famous fresco painting by michelangelo named the creation of adam this original painting once again mixed the traditional and pixel art styles the final large painting known as skeleton is a cropped painting of the character mean from the 1998 adventure game grim fandango alright so if you have a keen eye or memory you may realize that we haven't talked about one painting yet and that painting is the wither the last painting added to the game in minecraft 1.4.2 known as a pretty scary update this update added a variety of mobs such as witches bats with the skeletons and also the wither boss thus it was a fitting time to introduce such a painting however it is the only painting in the game which is not based on a real painting and while painting such a skull on fire had mostly minecraft elements it at least had a non-minecraft looking skull as its centerpiece wither on the other hand is the only painting in the game which is solely based off of minecraft alone with a minecraft related feature being its centerpiece and i think this is why it's well kind of boring there's no interesting story behind it the painting is not open to interpretation and view to something different by different people i mean it's simply just a portrait of the wither don't get me wrong it's not badly painted or anything that's not what i'm trying to say i'm just pointing out that there's nothing interesting to it you just take it at face value and that's it imagine if all the paintings in the game were solely minecraft related just being portraits of various mobs or landscapes that wouldn't be nearly as interesting to look at and talk about many of minecraft's paintings are so interesting because it's not clear what the painting is about and lets viewers interpret them in their own way i'm sure many of you saw some of the 1x1 and 2x1 paintings as something completely different to what they are due their immense pixelation and in my opinion that's the real beauty behind them okay then why haven't there been any new paintings in the game for so long now well we don't know for sure it could be that judah notch's departure from the game and more recently mojang's dissociation with him that led zetastran to be no longer interested in working with them or vice versa but i don't think that's true maybe mojang just seemingly have forgotten about the paintings or believe that there is already enough in the game and adding more will just dilute the pool of paintings we currently have like the music of minecraft the paintings have become synonymous with the game adding to minecraft's overall character minecraft is an open sandbox game enabling your creativity and the paintings are very similar to that being open to interpretation i do think that like minecraft's music though very few people would be able to capture and incorporate the ominous and video game like style which zetta strand in his paintings has so if he decided he didn't want any more of his paintings in the game it would be very hard to replace him now if you're curious more about the technicalities and detailed deconstruction behind the paintings there's a great video by solar sands who knows a lot more stuff about art unlike me if you enjoyed this video or learnt something new be sure to subscribe 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Channel: TheMisterEpic

Views: 350,636

Keywords: TheMisterEpic, themisterepic, minecraft, minecraft paintings, minecraft history, minecraft mystery, minecraft unsolved mystery, the strange history of minecrafts paintings, minecraft the untold story, minecraft art, minecraft pixel art, minecraft infdev, notch, kristoffer zetterstrand, who made the minecraft paintings and what do they say about the game, skull on fire seed, minecraft painting seed, minecraft painting, minecraft paintings unpixelated, minecraft paintings in real life

Id: 3bw_u8XCpm4

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2021