While there were fascinating artists that emerged during this time, the mainstream visual culture of the era, extremely well represented by magazine commercials, remained quite conservative, and not in a very good way.
However, the reason why ads (as well as many films, music and theater) from the era are captivating is because their creators managed to be artistic, smart and surprising – in other words, creative, despite the conventions of the time. And that definitely deserves applause.
What is fascinating about 1950s ads is that they were cartoonish, despite their creative qualities. Cartoonish basically means that they were firstly, not showing anything that was not highly mainstream and public and secondly, that they were presenting people has having schematic traits – if you will, from a conceptual point of view, the people and situations presented in these ads were the equivalent of a stick figure drawn by a child.
Of course, not to be understood that there were no three-dimensional visions of life in the 1950s – in certain areas of culture, we can even say that expressions of life in this decade had more depth than those of the 2000s or even of the teens of the 21st century.
Visual commercial imagery is always one of the good sources that help identify the pulse of a certain culture at a certain time in a certain place. Because of their highly commercial aspect, they focus on the main traits of a group and describe the norms and the things that shape the goals of many of the group’s members, which is why fashion ads present interest not only for their visual appeal, but also for the philosophical insight they carry with them.
Fraquoh and Franchomme
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