Nouveau Sixties

Without a doubt, one of the coolest things about the music scene in the 1960s is the rock poster, so it's interesting to look back to the artistic influences of this art - the late 19th century!

In a way, it may seem funny to think that these swirly psychedelic images could really come from what might well be imagined as a stuffier time, far removed from the vibrant fluorescent colors of the technologically-booming 20th century and wild-child rock and roll. But at the end of the 1800s, Art Nouveau masters such as Alphonse Mucha were creating countless gold and pastel-hued poster prints, and artists of the period (including Aubrey Beardsley, also pictured below) were employing the use of stylized, curving, linear-heavy and beautifully embellished designs - often filled with peacocks and their feathers, which were then at the height of trends.

Art Nouveau ("New Art," also referred to as Jugendstil in German, meaning "youth style") is characterized by those organic, highly-stylized swooping forms rife with floral and plant-motifs, and yes, those hip and beautiful curvy swirly peacocks. Women are shown as free-spirits with long hair worn either waving and loose, or adorned with flowers or stars; first generation flower children. That a movement so closely connected with its concept of being "new" and "youth style"-oriented would resonate so strongly with the young rock scene of the '60s is not hard to imagine, and the shared aesthetic preference is certainly difficult to miss when comparing the graphic arts of the two periods.

Poster artists of the 1960s such as Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Stanley "Mouse" Miller, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Lee Conklin, and the group Hapshash and the Coloured Coat were responsible for creating the most famous images of the time. When advertising happenings that often took place at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore, they frequently used the lettering from the typeface by Alfred Roller of the Vienna Secessionists (a localized version of the Art Nouveau movement, which also included Gustav Klimt), and at times even directly lifted from previous works of the Art Nouveau period.
For instance, Stanley Mouse's poster for a 1966 Avalon Ballroom gig is just an "updated" version of Mucha's 1896 ad for cigarette papers. Another example is the album cover for the band Gypsy's 1970 release, which features Mucha's Zodiac.

Of course, the colors are one thing that made it through the Art Nouveau revival without being copied: in the 1960s, it was out with the subdued, natural tones and in with the loud, bright clashing hues of the psychedelic experience and NEW states of consciousness! Heavy...







Roller's 1903 lettering poster for a Secessionist exhibition