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Psychedelic posters were not the first time that the world was fascinated by unintentional artwork. Earlier, during the nineteenth century the world was swept up by posters plastered across cities that advertising everything from magical remedies to bicycle bells. The posters created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec transported even the most poverty-stricken folk to faraway places, but as the belle époque gave way to a much harsher reality that would become littered with wars and social unrest, the beautiful poster eventually become a forgotten art. Until they had a resurgence in the 1960’s thanks to the a small group of artist residing in the San Francisco Bay area. Fueled by rock-n-roll, psychedelic hallucinogens, and inspired by imagery borrowed from around the world, psychedelic posters became an identifiable trademark to the revolutionary time that were the 1960’s. As a younger generation was beginning to look at their surrounding and were unhappy with them, they took it upon themselves to create something that represented their ideology better. Walter Medeiros writes,‘‘age of media with its heavy dosage of visual input, especially from television. For them, all images were part of a common visual vocabulary’’ (Owen and Dickson 62). Because of this the 1960’s became a melting pot that played host to a plethora of new ideas, from social norms to music to the artwork inspired by it all. Artist and musicians alike were experimenting with new ways to take their art to a new level. Across the nation people were beginning to experiment with drugs like LSD and Marijuana, and artists were no exception, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. This excessive drug use by artist created psychedelic posters that were unique and creative... ... middle of paper ... ...e images from the 1960’s and would be “one of the most widely circulated of all time; six million or more were distributed with the enormously popular album”(OWEN EDWARDS 26). The rise of rock’n’roll gave away to a new level of art that continues to resonate. In conclusion, the psychedelic posters of the 1960’s became a symbolic representation of the changes that occurred during the 1960’s. The posters represented nights filled by music and dancing fueled by a free-spirited approach to mind altering drugs. The San Francisco Bay Area was forever changed. The venues that still remain from that time continue to put out posters, places like The Fillmore and The Warfield continue to hand out posters at the end of the show to take home. Paying homage to a time when they were collected, possibly with hope of bringing a new approach to the design of posters once again.

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