Blog Post 2 – Elizabeth Lin

February 6, 2019April 7, 2019

And the Psychedelic Poster was Born

Wes Wilson:

Wes Wilson is generally accepted as the “father of the 1960s rock concert poster” and he considers himself as the first psychedelic poster artist. In addition, he invented the style that is now synonymous with the peace movement and the psychedelic era.

Wilson’s posters were intended for a certain audience- one that was tuned in to the psychedelic experience- and to do so, he translated the sights and sounds of counterculture society into psychedelic iconography. His work quickly moved from psychedelic subculture into the mainstream culture by taking what he understood about promotional art and turning it upside down.

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019

Illustration’s Early Masters: Coles Phillips (1880-1927)

Coles Phillips:

Coles Phillips was an American illustrator that was the first to introduce the Art Deco styles into advertising design. He created illustrations of magazine covers of very modern and seductively designed women by using radical techniques. This became his signature trademark, the “Fadeaway Girl”, which became a hallmark throughout his career. While other illustrators created more elegant images, Phillips used a certain cerebral approach and design device to create his “Fadeaway Girl” technique. He cleverly linked the background colour surrounding the model’s dress to its colour so that she would give the impression of being close and far away at the same time. To do so he subtly combined the foreground and background by using the same colour to add to his other uses of unique compositions and themes, and pastels.

I thoroughly enjoy Coles Phillips’ illustrations. Especially, his “Fadeaway Girl”, the technique that he was famously known for. The contrast between the flatly coloured dress and the model’s exposed flesh is well used and if I were to live during his time, I would’ve definitely been enamoured in the ads he illustrated for. I also appreciate the “simplicity” he has managed to display in his illustrations as I know that to successfully pull it off, extensive planning must’ve been used.

September 23, 2018September 26, 2018

High Renaissance and Mannerism: Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1520)

Hieronymus Bosch:

Hieronymus Bosch was a Netherland painter of the early 16th century. He was one of art’s first visionary geniuses, the first original thinker, and the first artist to visually express beings and realms unknown to human understanding. Instead of paintings that merely depicted reality, he painted equally convincing concrete and tangible shapes of the fear that had haunted people in the Middle Ages. And he was the first artist to succeed in doing so! He became famous for his apocalyptic representations of the powers of evil and was most celebrated for his rich details and symbolic narrative portrayals of the dance between Heaven and Hell as well as the age-old tales of morality and the eventual fate of sinners.

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