The Sixties

I've been thinking about the Sixties lately, for no particular reason, and one of the things that strikes me is that it was a period characterised by a preoccupation with things that were detailed, complex, elaborate. I never took LSD but I suspect that its mind-altering qualities influenced the culture, especially the young counter-culture. This is demonstrated in the record sleeves of the day:

Certain artworks became fashionable (this is in England), partly through being reproduced in the Sunday Times and Observer magazines, for example Durer etchings:

The Pre-Raphaelites:

John Waterhouse. Not officially a member but very similar in style.

Many of them were available as posters. In the sixties posters were prolific. Interior decoration tended toward white walls with perhaps a contrasting one in purple, burnt orange or sage green.

The layout of underground press publications such as Oz illustrates this fascination with detail:

This particular trend may have begun with pop art which began to produce fragmented images (Peter Blake, Robert Rauschenberg, and taught us to see ordinary objects as suitable subjects for art (Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol). Photography came to the fore with David Bailey and others. Art Deco and Art Nouveau became popular, again partly through Sunday magazine illustrations. Clothes styles became more colourful and elaborate, from the mods to the hippies.

I can remember walking down the Kings Road in Chelsea at its peak and feeling that I was engulfed in an exuberant spectacle.