Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or swelling or warping.
History
Francis Picabia, c. 1921–22, Optophone I, encre, aquarelle et mine de plomb sur papier, 72 × 60 cm. Reproduced in Galeries Dalmau, Picabia, exhibition catalogue, Barcelona, November 18 – December 8, 1922.Jesús Soto, Caracas (1996)
Illusionism, focused on the perception of extended space within a flat picture, is found from the earliest points of art history. However, the antecedents of op art, in terms of graphic effects and concern for exotic optical illusions, can be traced back to Neo-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism and Dada.[2] The Divisionists, a group of Neo-Impressionist painters, attempted to increase the apparent luminosity of their paintings through recourse to optics and optical illusions.[3]László Moholy-Nagy produced photographic op art and taught the subject in the Bauhaus; one of his lessons consisted of making his students produce holes in cards and then photographing them.[citation needed]
Time magazine coined the term op art in 1964, in response to Julian Stanczak's show Optical Paintings at the Martha Jackson Gallery, to mean a form of abstract art (specifically non-objective art) that uses optical illusions.[4][5] Works now described as "op art" had been produced for several years before Time's 1964 article. For instance, Victor Vasarely's painting Zebras (1938) is made up entirely of curvilinear black and white stripes not contained by contour lines. Consequently, the stripes appear to both meld into and burst forth from the surrounding background. Also, the early black and white "dazzle" panels that John McHale installed at the This Is Tomorrow exhibit in 1956 and his Pandora series at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1962 demonstrate proto-op art tendencies. Martin Gardner featured op art and its relation to mathematics in his July 1965 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. In Italy, Franco Grignani, who originally trained as an architect, became a leading force of graphic design where op art or kinetic art was central. His Woolmark logo (launched in Britain in 1964) is probably the most famous of all his designs.[6]
An optical illusion by the Hungarian-born artist Victor Vasarely in PécsOp art ceramic mosaics by Wojciech Fangor in a railway station in Warsaw in Poland (1963).Op art in modern architecture as a mosaic, painting with enamel paint on steel by Stefan Knapp in University of Toruń in Poland (1972).
Op art perhaps more closely derives from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus.[5] This German school, founded by Walter Gropius, stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students learned to focus on the overall design or entire composition to present unified works. Op art also stems from trompe-l'œil and anamorphosis. Links with psychological research have also been made, particularly with Gestalt theory and psychophysiology.[2] When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its instructors fled to the United States. There, the movement took root in Chicago and eventually at the Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers eventually taught.[7]
Op artists thus managed to exploit various phenomena," writes Popper, "the after-image and consecutive movement; line interference; the effect of dazzle; ambiguous figures and reversible perspective; successive colour contrasts and chromatic vibration; and in three-dimensional works different viewpoints and the superimposition of elements in space.[2]
In 1955, for the exhibition Mouvements at the Denise René gallery in Paris, Victor Vasarely and Pontus Hulten promoted in their "Yellow manifesto" some new kinetic expressions based on optical and luminous phenomenon as well as painting illusionism. The expression kinetic art in this modern form first appeared at the Museum für Gestaltung of Zürich in 1960, and found its major developments in the 1960s. In most European countries, it generally includes the form of optical art that mainly makes use of optical illusions, like op art, as well as art based on movement represented by Yacov Agam, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto, Gregorio Vardanega or Nicolas Schöffer. From 1961 to 1968, the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) founded by François Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Francisco Sobrino, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Yvaral, Joël Stein and Vera Molnár was a collective group of opto-kinetic artists that—according to its 1963 manifesto—appealed to the direct participation of the public with an influence on its behavior, notably through the use of interactive labyrinths.
Some members of the group Nouvelle tendance (1961–1965) in Europe also were engaged in op art as Almir Mavignier and Gerhard von Graevenitz, mainly with their serigraphics. They studied optical illusions. The term op irritated many of the artists labeled under it, specifically including Albers and Stanczak. They had discussed upon the birth of the term a better label, namely perceptual art.[8] From 1964, Arnold Schmidt (Arnold Alfred Schmidt) had several solo exhibitions of his large, black and white shaped optical paintings exhibited at the Terrain Gallery in New York.[9]
The exhibition was a success with the public (visitor attendance was over 180,000),[12] but less so with the critics.[13] Critics dismissed op art as portraying nothing more than trompe-l'œil, or tricks that fool the eye. Regardless, the public's acceptance increased, and op art images were used in a number of commercial contexts. One of Brian de Palma's early works was a documentary film on the exhibition.[14]
Method of operation
Black-and-white and the figure-ground relationship
Op art is a perceptual experience related to how vision functions. It is a dynamic visual art that stems from a discordant figure-ground relationship that puts the two planes—foreground and background—in a tense and contradictory juxtaposition. Artists create op art in two primary ways. The first, best known method, is to create effects through pattern and line. Often these paintings are black and white, or shades of gray (grisaille)—as in Bridget Riley's early paintings such as Current (1964), on the cover of The Responsive Eye catalog. Here, black and white wavy lines are close to one another on the canvas surface, creating a volatile figure-ground relationship. Getulio Alviani used aluminum surfaces, which he treated to create light patterns that change as the watcher moves (vibrating texture surfaces). Another reaction that occurs is that the lines create after-images of certain colors due to how the retina receives and processes light. As Goethe demonstrates in his treatise Theory of Colours, at the edge where light and dark meet, color arises because lightness and darkness are the two central properties in the creation of color.[citation needed]
Color
Beginning in 1965 Bridget Riley began to produce color-based op art;[15] however, other artists, such as Julian Stanczak and Richard Anuszkiewicz, were always interested in making color the primary focus of their work.[16]Josef Albers taught these two primary practitioners of the "Color Function" school at Yale in the 1950s. Often, colorist work is dominated by the same concerns of figure-ground movement, but they have the added element of contrasting colors that produce different effects on the eye. For instance, in Anuszkiewicz's "temple" paintings, the juxtaposition of two highly contrasting colors provokes a sense of depth in illusionistic three-dimensional space so that it appears as if the architectural shape is invading the viewer's space.
Intrinsic Harmony by Richard Anuszkiewicz, 1965
Victor Vasarely, Kezdi-Ga, 1970, Serigraph, Edition of 250, 20 × 20 in
Although op art is a unique style, it has similarities with styles such as abstract expressionism (color field painting). Although color field painting does not give us illusions, similarities can still be found. We can see that both of these styles are minimalist, only a few colors prevail, and no object or plot is shown. These styles can cause us emotion, since there is no clear plot, the human mind itself imagines and interprets it in its own way. Cold colors are usually associated with sadness, while warm colors are associated with joy. Also, op art and color field painting are characterized by the fact that the image is aesthetic and orderly.
Exhibitions
L'Œil moteur: Art optique et cinétique 1960–1975, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg, France, May 13–September 25, 2005.
Op Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany, February 17–May 20, 2007.
The Optical Edge, The Pratt Institute of Art, New York, March 8–April 14, 2007.
Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, February 16–June 17, 2007.
CLE OP: Cleveland Op Art Pioneers, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, April 9, 2011 – February 26, 2012
Bridget Riley has had several international exhibitions (e.g. Dia Center, New York, 2000; Tate Britain, London, 2003; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2004).
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas often consist of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.
Trompe-l'œil is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. Trompe-l'œil, which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving painted objects or spaces as real. Forced perspective is a related illusion in architecture.
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the Op art movement.
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator who is considered one of the most influential 20th-century art teachers in the United States. Born in 1888 in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany, into a Roman Catholic family with a background in craftsmanship, Albers received practical training in diverse skills like engraving glass, plumbing, and wiring during his childhood. He later worked as a schoolteacher from 1908 to 1913 and received his first public commission in 1918 and moved to Munich in 1919.
Richard Joseph Anuszkiewicz was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effects. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are the earliest examples of kinetic art. More pertinently speaking, kinetic art is a term that today most often refers to three-dimensional sculptures and figures such as mobiles that move naturally or are machine operated. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.
Julian Stanczak was a Polish-born American painter and printmaker who is considered a central figure of the Op art movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. Described as an artist whose work "evinced a tremendous geometric inventiveness", Stanczak is primarily known for his large-scale polychromatic abstract compositions made using acrylic paint on canvas in which he explored the perceptual dimensions of color.
Abstract illusionism is a name coined by art historian and critic Barbara Rose in 1967. Louis K. Meisel independently coined the term to define an artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the mid-1970s.
Getulio Alviani was an Italian painter based in Milan. He is considered to be an important International Optical - kinetic artist.
In art criticism of the 1960s and 1970s, flatness described the smoothness and absence of curvature or surface detail of a two-dimensional work of art.
Oliver Bevan is an English artist, who was born in Peterborough and educated at Eton College. After leaving school he spent a year in 1959–60 working for Voluntary Service Overseas in British North Borneo before returning to London to study painting at the Royal College of Art, where he became strongly influenced by Op Art and in particular the work of Victor Vasarely. Bevan graduated from the RCA in 1964 and had his first exhibition of Op Art-inspired paintings the following year. Optical, geometric and kinetic art then served him well until the late 1970s when he moved to the Canadian prairies for a two-year teaching post at the University of Saskatchewan. By the time he returned to London in 1979 he had abandoned abstract art in favour of figurative art and urban realism.
Edna Andrade was an American abstract artist. She was an early Op Artist.
Eusebio Sempere Juan was a Spanish sculptor, painter, and graphic artist whose abstract geometric works make him the most representative artist of the Kinetic art movement in Spain and one of Spain's foremost artists. His use of repetition of line and mastery of color to manipulate the way light plays on the surface give depth to his pictorial compositions.
Marina Apollonio is an Italian painter and optical artist. She lives and works in Padua.
Jeffrey Steele (1931–2021) was an abstract painter and founder of the Systems Group.
Francis Michael Celentano was one of the seminal artists in the op art movement that started in the 1960s. He was one of the featured artists in an exhibition called The Responsive Eye, which was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1965. He continued to contribute to the art form throughout his life, working in black and white, color, kinetic paintings and three dimensional studies.
Ben Frazier Cunningham was an American artist and teacher. In his early career he was a painter of murals at sites including Coit Tower in San Francisco. In his later career he explored color and perception in works sometimes labeled op art. His works are in the collections of major institutions including MOMA, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian.
Mervyn John Williams is a New Zealand artist. He was an early exponent of Op art in New Zealand in the 1960s–70s. In 1990 he originated a style of illusionary abstract painting based on chiaroscuro, creating the impression of three-dimensional forms and textures on a flat canvas. Since 2009 he has used digital techniques in returning to an Op art style. Williams is almost unique amongst his contemporaries in New Zealand art for having embraced abstraction at the start of his career and exclusively throughout. His work is held in all major New Zealand public collections. A monograph by Edward Hanfling was published by Ron Sang in 2014 coinciding with a survey exhibition.
Edwin "Ed" Mieczkowski was an American visual artist and painter associated with the op-art movement in the U.S. He was one of the co-founders of the Anonima group along with Francis Hewitt and Ernst Benkert in Cleveland in 1960 and taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1959 to 1998.
↑ "The Responsive Eye"(PDF) (Press release). New York: Museum of Modern Art. February 25, 1965. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
↑ Gordon Hyatt (writer and producer), Mike Wallace (presenter) (1965). The Responsive Eye (Television production). Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. Archived from the original on 2013-01-03. (Available on YouTube in three sections.)
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