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The artists almost unanimously reported LSD to be an enhancement to their creativity.

The two paintings were compared by Janiger and also the artist. They were subsequently asked to do the same painting while under the influence of LSD. Janiger asked a group of 50 different artists to each do a painting from life of a subject of the artist's choosing. Hofmann saw the drug's potential for poets and artists as well, and took great interest in the German writer Ernst Jünger's psychedelic experiments.Įarly artistic experimentation with LSD was conducted in a clinical context by Los Angeles–based psychiatrist Oscar Janiger. For two decades following its discovery LSD was marketed by Sandoz as an important drug for psychological and neurological research. Other early examples include Antonin Artaud who writes of his peyote experience in Voyage to the Land of the Tarahumara (1937) and Henri Michaux who wrote Misérable Miracle (1956), to describe his experiments with mescaline and hashish.Īldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) remain definitive statements on the psychedelic experience.Īlbert Hofmann and his colleagues at Sandoz Laboratories were convinced immediately after its discovery in 1943 of the power and promise of LSD. The early examples of 'psychedelic art' are literary rather than visual, although there are some examples in the Surrealist art movement, such as Remedios Varo and André Masson. In particular, art researchers Tim Lapetino and James Orok trace the connection of psychedelic art with Dadaism, Surrealism, Lettrism, and Situationism. Mikhail Bulgakov is the first writer to describe narcotic hallucinations.

Whereas the surrealist was fascinated by Freud's theory of the unconscious, the psychedelic artist has been literally 'turned on' by Albert Hofmann's discovery of LSD.Īmong the work forerunners of psychedelic art, the following authors and artists can be noted: Lautreamont, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Stanislav Witkevich, Antonin Artaud, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, De Quincey, Terence McKenna, Carlos Castaneda.

Both movements have strong ties to important developments in science. Whereas the mechanism for surrealism is the observance of dreams, a psychedelic artist turns to drug induced hallucinations. The psychedelic art movement is similar to the surrealist movement in that it prescribes a mechanism for obtaining inspiration. Psychedelic art is informed by the notion that altered states of consciousness produced by psychedelic drugs are a source of artistic inspiration. Innovative typography and hand-lettering, including warping and transposition of positive and negative spaces.Phosphenes, spirals, concentric circles, diffraction patterns, and other entoptic motifs.Morphing of objects or themes and sometimes collage.Extreme depth of detail or stylization of detail.Bright and/or highly contrasting colors.

Kaleidoscopic, fractal, or paisley patterns.

Fantastic, metaphysical, and surrealistic subject matter.

Concert posters, album covers, liquid light shows, liquid light art, murals, comic books, underground newspapers and more reflected not only the kaleidoscopically swirling colour patterns of LSD hallucinations, but also revolutionary political, social and spiritual sentiments inspired by insights derived from these psychedelic states of consciousness. Psychedelic visual arts were a counterpart to psychedelic rock music.

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In common parlance 'psychedelic art' refers above all to the art movement of the late 1960s counterculture, featuring highly distorted or surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation (including cartoons) to evoke, convey, or enhance psychedelic experiences. By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered 'psychedelic'. The word 'psychedelic' (coined by British psychologist Humphry Osmond) means 'mind manifesting'. Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT.

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