Was this art ever explained? Or is it just something to look at.

[Inzoum]

This was already explained. It's Garuda. The title of the painting is something along the lines of "The Adventurer and the Wind Goddess". There was a dev post about it. I'll try to find it and edit my post

EDIT:

The title of the original Amano painting is 嵐神と冒険者 (lit. translation: Storm God & Adventurer / loc. translation: The Lady of the Vortex and the Adventurer), so those who guessed Garuda, check your mailboxes for that gold star. A winner is you!

(Gold stars not available in the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, and the rest of the world)

source:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post899477

There's probably not much to infer from this image other than the fact that unsuspecting adventurers are mere playthings for the primal Garuda. She is sort of crazy, you know.

[Alhanelem]

So then, why does it look like Garuda is about to kiss this random female adventurer that looks something like an ark angel from XI?

[Tonkra]

So then, why does it look like Garuda is about to kiss this random female adventurer that looks something like an ark angel from XI?

it does not look like she tries to kiss him, more of "charming" him, twisting around her little finger.

reminds me a little of the scene where she invaded the small village and made her speech.
some kind of situation like this.

[Zyph]

female

Do you even Amano?

[Akira_Tenshi]

The new dev teams artwork is throwaway too then (There's no such thing as throwaway concept art, concept art is usually used for ideas and modified upon throughout, not thrown out). Also if you actually played FF games, especially the early ones, you'd know Amano's art work for FF games doesn't always have an overall meaning to the image but more of an image of either people/places from that game that may be designed to symbolize certain aspects. So there's no "meaning" behind it as of the past 1.0, there could have been further meaning if 1.0 was fully developed by release instead of rushed out.

Example:

XI's Zilart Artwork:



Looking at this image you'd say: "OMG CHOCOBO KNIGHTS!" if you're trying to look for an actual meaning.

FFV's Artwork:



Note the lack of Gilgamesh or Exdeath?

There's no real "meaning" to a lot of his art for the games depending on which ones you look at, but cover art/early images are just concept designs.

Last time I checked Exdeath wasn't in FF6 which is what that picture is from.

[Eldaena]

I always thought it was an elemental with some creative license.



but it also looks like this Garuda art too



So, it must be so. =p

[Twiddle]

OP from what i have seen, final fantasy art is not necessarily a full view of the game but more of a case to case type of a thing... quite often it's an interpretation of a moment in time during the game, or some how connected to it... but really i would not breath to much in to it... but if you really need something to settle your mind. That picture can be taken literally as one of the twelve in some way interacting with person... could be many things... Yoshitaka Amano's art is mainly a perspective more then an complete view....

[Siegtaru]

Last time I checked Exdeath wasn't in FF6 which is what that picture is from.

That artwork is from FFV... there isn't a Bartz or what looks like Krile in FFVI. ;P

[Momita]

So then, why does it look like Garuda is about to kiss this random female adventurer that looks something like an ark angel from XI?

[Kallera]

Would be cool if there was a reference to the cover picture in game, perhaps in a picture or cutscene?