Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.: Op Art, also known as optical art. It is a style of visual art that make uses of optical illusions.

Explanation

A style of abstract art in which lines, forms, and space are organized in such a way as to provide optical illusions of an ambiguous nature, as alternately advancing and receding squares on a flat surface.
includes painting concerned with surface kinetics.
Used precise geometrical patterns painted in vivid colors or black-and-white to create optical illusions of movement
fool the viewer's sense of perspective

Example: Creating the illusion of a sphere bulging from a flat canvas

Artist used the properties of warm color which appear to advance and cool colors which appear to recede in these illusions.

Origins - Bauhaus - Geometric form

Founded in Germany in 1919 by Walter Gropius the Bauhaus school brought together artists, architects and designers in an extraordinary conversation about the nature of art in the age of technology school.
Bauhaus - school of Architecture and Applied Arts, its discipline style based on the fundamental geometric shapes of the cube, the rectangle and the circle.
The revolutionary Bauhaus teaching method replaced the traditional pupil-teacher relationship with the idea of a community of artists working together.
Despite being shut down by the Nazis in 1933, Bahaus lived on with other schools starting in the US and Budapest. Its influence on European and American art was immense and it was certainly one of the strongest influences on Op Art.
Victor Vasarely - the 'father of Op Art trained in the Budapest Bauhaus school.

An optical illusion by Hungarian-born, artist - Victor Vaseraly

Origins - Kinetic Art - Movement

Starting in 1913 with Duchamp’s ‘Bicycle wheel’ and popularised in Russia in the 1920s by artists such as Naum Gabo.
Kinetic Art concerned itself with the creation of real or illusory movement.
Approaches to the discipline were diverse. Sculptors such as Jean Tinguely used all sorts of materials, sometimes collecing scrap to construct moving sculptures.
For instance, ‘Cyclograveur’ invited the viewer to climb on the saddle and pedal to make it move.

Cyclograveur - 1959 Jean Tinguely

Alexander Calder, eliminated the conventional pedestal and hung his constructions from the ceiling on long rods, so they became known as mobiles.

The Flying Trapeze - 1925 Alexander Calder

How Op Art Work

Black-and-white and figure-ground relationship

created in two primary way

First creation

creation of effects through the use of pattern and line.
these paintings are black-and-white, or otherwise grisaille.
black and white wavy lines are placed to close to one another on the canvas surface, creating such as volatile figure-ground relationship that one's eyes begin hurt.

Getulio Alviani choose aluminum surfaces, treated in order to create pattern and line which change as the watcher moves (vibrating textures surface)

Second creation

Lines create after images of certain colors due to how the retina receives and processes light.

Goethe demonstrates Theory Of Color in his treatise, at the edge where the light and dark meet, color arises because lightness and darkness are the two central properties in the creation of color.

Color

Bridget Riley began to produce color-based op art.
Added element of contrasting colors which have different effects on eyes.
Juxtaposition of two highly contrasting colors provoke a sense of depth in illusionstic three-dimensional space so that it appears as if the architectural shape in invading the viewer's space.
Color view or color solid - description of it (necessary distortion).
For example, Stanczak's gift is for layering. He arranges transparent patterns upon patterns so that you see through them as gauziest screens, each one seeming to fold as if it moves.

Color interaction

Three major classes of the interaction of color - simultaneous contrast, successive contrast and reverse contrast.

Simultaneous contrast

Take place when one area of color is surrounded by another area of a different color.
Contrast enhances the different in brightness and/or color between the interacting area.
Such contrast effect are mutual, but if the surrounded area is larger and more intense than the area it encloses, then the contrast is correspondingly out of balance, and may appear to be exerted in one direction only.

Two sets of identical red and green squares within a striping pattern. Do the colors on each side of the stripes appear different? In each case, the squares on the left side appear darker and the right side appears lighter. View the images from the side of your monitor to exaggerate this effect.

Successive contrast

First one color is viewed and then another.
May be achieved either by fixing the eye steadily on one color and quickly replacing that color with another, or by shifting fixation from one color to another.

By complementary action, the same gray pigment will appear greenish when adjacent to red but reddish if adjacent to green. (Bottom) A green hue will seem cool if surrounded by yellow but warm when surrounded by blue-green.

Reverse contrast

Sometimes called the assimilation contrast or the spreading effect - the lightness of white or the darkness of black may seem to spread into neighboring regions.
Similarly, colors may appear to spread into or become assimilated into neighboring areas.
All such effects tend to make neighboring areas appear more alike, rather than to enhance their differences as in the more familiar simultaneous contrast, hence the term reverse contrast.

Acrylic, black and white 23x31. Illustrating closure, assimilation and contrast.

Pattern, Line, Optical Illusion and ‘Movement’

Op Art can be thought of as a development from Kinetic Art.
Provide the viewer with an illusion of movement on a static 2D surface.
Exploitation of the fallibility of the eye through the use of optical illusion provided Op Artists with the answer.
The use of repetition of pattern and line, often in high contrast black and white was one way Op Artists used to create this illusion of movement.
The overall optical effect of the technique leads the viewer to see flashing and vibration, or alternatively swelling or warping.

Riley’s Untitled Diagonal Curve is a good example of this technique, where black and white wavy lines are placed close to one another on the canvas making the surface appear to shimmer and move before the eyes.

Traditional Perspective and ‘Depth’

The separation of art from traditional perspective that began with Cezanne in the late 19th Century allowed for the birth of the Abstract and Expressionist movements amongst others, both important influences on Op Art.
Movements such as these de-emphasized (or, in many cases, eliminated altogether) representational subject matter.
Because of its geometrically-based nature, Op Art is, almost without exception, non-representational.
Despite this non-represenational nature, the Op Artists made extensive use of the traditional perspective techniques originally developed to allow for the accurate representation of the natural world in art, in order to create the feeling of depth and space within their paintings.


Victor Vasarely's Galaxie (shown right) is a classic example of the use of perspective in Op Art with the centralised vanishing point creating the illusion of a receeding frame or lattice set in space.

Colour Theory and the Science of Color

Op Art came an acute awareness of the work done on the science of colour and colour theory.
Colours appear to change depending on their proximity to other colours.
For example, a red shape on a white ground appears much lighter than the same red shape on a black ground.
Colours opposite each other on the colour wheel when placed next to each other seem to be of different intensity than when placed some distance apart.
Colours in the cool range – blues, purples & greens – are recessive and seem to sink back on the surface whilst the warm colours – red, orange and yellow particularly – are ‘emergent’.

Orient 4 - 1970 Bridget Riley

Op Art and The Science of Perception

The phrase ‘Op Art’ was coined around the time of the famous ‘Responsive Eye’ exhibition, with ‘Op’ of course referring to optics – the physical and psychological process of vision.
Work on the mathematical and scientific basis of perception had been ongoing since the 1800s, with much progress having been made in the 1950s and 1960s leading to a resurgence of interest in the field.
The Op Artists, through their study of the science behind how the eye and brain work together to perceive color, light, depth, perspective, size, shape, and motion, were able to put into practice the scientific work around visual perception.
Op Art exploits the functional relationship between the eye’s retina (the organ that ‘sees’ patterns) and the brain (the organ that interprets patterns).
Certain visual stimuli can cause confusion between these two organs, resulting in the perception of irrational optical phenomena, something the Op Artists used to full effect.

The Hermann Grid (1870s) Ludimar Hermann

Victor Vasarely

Original name was Gyözö Vásárhelyi.
Born in Pécs, Hungary on 9 April 1908.
In 1927 Vasarely began his artistic training at a private drawing school in Budapest.
One year later he joined the training centre 'Mühely' (German 'workshop') which was run by Sándor Bortnyik and taught the ideas of the Bauhaus.
After moving to Paris in 1930 Vasarely was successful as a graphic designer and systematically explored the optical and emotional scope of the different graphic techniques.
This led to his understanding in 1947 that geometric forms could evoke a sensory perception conveying new ideas of space, matter and energy.
He developed his own geometric form of abstraction, which he varied to create different optical patterns with a kinetic effect.
Makes a grid in which he arranges geometric forms in brilliant colours in such a way that the eye perceives a fluctuating movement.
Designed murals of metal and ceramic, mainly for buildings in France.
Exhibited works regularly at the documenta in Kassel between 1955 and 1968.
The official spiral-shaped logo of the 20th Olympic games in Munich was designed by Vasarely.
In 1976 the artist founded the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence which supported the creation of an institute for contemporary design and architecture in 1981.
The Vasarely Museum in the artist's birth-town Pécs was opened in 1976, followed by the opening of a second museum in Zichy Palace in Budapest in 1987.
Victor Vasarely died in Paris on 15 March 1997, his foundation had to be closed soon after his death, but the care for the artist's appreciated image world was secured by the refurbishment of Vasarely's estate by his daughter Michelle.