Saturday, March 31, 2007

Art nouveau vs Psychedelic art

Art nouveau (c.1880 to 1910)
Art nouveau is considered as the first modern style in 20th century. The way this school work is to stop looking back to the previois style happening and leaving tracks in the history. More over raise its own inspiration from things and creatures around, particular in the natural world. It features sinuous, curving designs, usually based on an image or theme taken from nature. A central motif of art nouveau is the 'whiplash' curve.
With the elegant expression in design, Nouveau is widely applied in the architecture.

Style:
-Sinuous, elongated, curvy lines
-The whiplash line
-Vertical lines and height
-Stylised flowers, leaves, roots, buds and seedpods
-The female form - in a pre-Raphaelite pose with long, flowing hair
-Exotic woods, marquetry, iridescent glass, silver and semi-precious stones


Some examples:



Designed in 1899, the Porte Dauphine station exhibits Hector Guimard's only surviving enclosed edicule of the Paris Métro.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_nouveau
The Peacock Skirt, by Aubrey Beardsley, (1892).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_nouveau





After Mucha (Kelly Haggard)


www.kineticarts.org/images/nouveau_irises.jpg








P22 Art Nouveau Cafe


Psychedelic art


"Psychedelic art is art inspired by the psychedelic experience induced by drugs such as LSD, Mescaline, and Psilocybin . The word "psychedelic" (coined by British psychologist Humphrey Osmond) means "mind manifesting". By that definition all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic". However, in common parlance "Psychedelic Art" refers above all to the art movement of the 1960s counterculture. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music. Concert posters, album covers, lightshows, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness."( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art)
Ok, that's what they theorically say. Overall, Psychedelic art and design is the term represented to a brand new shool of art which is the mix of the previous styles. It's partly considered as an early art model in Post-modernism period. So, we can realize the complxity and surrealistic in each artwork. Most of the artist when stepping into this school have to force themselves to be "psychedelic" in order to truely express the spirit of this school. However, as its tendency to collect the oldies and turn them into a new whole, there's usually more repeats than new ideas.

Style:
-Kaleidoscopic, fractal or paisley patterns
-Bright and/or highly contrasting colors
-Extreme depth of detail or stylization of detail.
-Morphing of objects and/or themes and sometimes collage
-Inclusion of phosphenes and other entoptic motifs
-Repetition of motifs

Some examples:



Santana's Abraxas (album) cover by Mati Klarwein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art






Land of Psychedelic Illuminations: example of fractal influence


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_art

PNP" 2007 WILLIAM JAMES TAYLOR JUNIOR

http://www.psychedelic-art.net/gallery-album_Kaleidescape.html?PHPSESSID=d1e119d1c0c8b2c6ec67a0882fdcf514

Conclusion:

Each of these two shools of art did not Only occur in one specific field but generally cover all the fields of the period it appeared. In my opinion, they are the two independent shools of art but overlapping each other at the point of expression style. Both shools base on freedom in expressing the artists' ideas and quite complicated as the use of curves and free lines. However, Art Nouveau gives the viewer the feels of comfort, gentle and neat.On the other hand, Psychedelic seems to be more complex and headache. This is partly based on their choices in color, while Art Nouveau tends to uses light and bright colors to show off the feels of modern, clean and neat, Psychedelic prefers using the group of hot, heavy to create some kind of obsession (maybe in both positive and negative ways), overall, to design an impressive experiences.

Nouveau and Psychedelic arts' elements could be applied in the contemporary design tendency, anyway, just as some length. In my opinion, i like the clean, neat and gentle feelings of Nouveau and extremely shocked with the "insance" expression and impressively hot colors of the Psychedelic. The combination of these characteristics should produce a new interesting school, i guess.

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