3. EPCOT

Alright – let's take a second to talk about Imagineer Herb Ryman, because from here on out, we're sticking with his work.

Ryman began his career with the Walt Disney Company as an art director for such iconic films as Fantasia and Dumbo. But it was in 1953 that he tackled what might have been his most important assignment:

Walt took him aside and asked him to put to paper some ideas that he'd been thinking about. He described his grand plan to create a park where children and parents could play together, enjoying three-dimensional attractions that told the kinds of stories he had to that point only told on film. Two years later, Disneyland came to life after originally being dreamed up on Ryman's easel.

A decade after that, Walt again recruited Ryman to help put a new grand idea to paper – only this one was far, far more ambitious than Disneyland. Walt was trying to design a community for the future – one in which technology and progress defined the community's ideals. He was looking to build EPCOT.

What you see above is an image that perfectly captures what EPCOT was meant to be, as Walt saw it. The theme park we have now is really nothing more than a tribute to those ideals – the true EPCOT was meant to be an inspirational city of the future. And, Ryman captured that perfectly in his grand rendering of the entire community.

It looks simultaneously dreamlike and real, with a soft-focus that keeps it perpetually locked away in the land of could-have-been. It's impossible not to stare at it and think about what the real Progress City might have looked like, and what we might have seen developed there. And, if you feel even slightly more inspired to create when looking at it, well, Ryman did his job.

2. Spaceship Earth

Alas, when Walt passed away in 1966, the plans for Progress City and EPCOT were shelved – only to be resurrected somewhat as a new theme park for the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando in 1982. This new park would be largely inspired by the visual aesthetic of Walt's EPCOT, but instead of being a real, working city, it would be modeled as something more closely resembling a permanent World's Fair.

And so, once again, Ryman was brought in to help capture visually what Imagineers were hoping the new EPCOT Center would look like. And, boy did he deliver.

The image above is of the main entrance plaza – complete with a rendering of the park's icon, Spaceship Earth – and wow, it really is a breathtaking piece. The most amazing aspect of this work is its mystery: It gives you just enough information to trigger your mind into coming up with all kinds of different stories to inhabit it – everything from the light shining down from above to the families enjoying the park to the Mickey Mouse balloon floating away. Like all great art, it sits with you after looking at it for a while – and, like all great concept art, it gets you excited to experience that attraction and park when it finally comes to life. 

1. Horizons

But when it comes to Ryman's work, for my money, this particular image stands alone.

That is concept art for one of Walt Disney World's most beloved extinct attractions: Horizons. But what makes it amazing isn't just that it's concept art for such a fondly-remembered attraction – it's really something much more than that.

As much as we love Horizons, and as much as we all love to remember it, if we were able to magically teleport back in time and ride it again, there's no way it would live up to the version of it that plays on repeat in our minds. Its quaint view of the future, its slow-moving ride system, its delightfully retro score – all of these things are wonderful in hindsight, but would likely feel slightly less magical in the real world.

But that's precisely why this image hits home so hard. Unlike the photos of Horizons that exist, or the extensive video walkthroughs or CGI recreations, Ryman's painting captures that feeling of Horizons that we remember. It doesn't show the plastic and metal reality – instead, it shows Horizons as it feels to us now in our collective memory.

Even the people riding the attraction don't seem to come from the real world. Who is this businessman at Epcot in a suit with a briefcase? And what are these two sets of twins doing dressed like they're heading to a French private school? Don't they know it's hot in Florida?

None of that matters, though, because this painting isn't a painting of Horizons as it was – it's a painting of Horizons as it should be. Ultimately, that's what separates great concept art from the rest: It reflects the world back at us in such a way as to make us feel something new. And, wouldn't you know it, that's what great fine art does too.