CategoriesStyles and Movements
Op Art
Abstract art of the 1950s and 1960s that uses precise pattern and colour to make still surfaces appear to pulse, swell or vibrate.
45 works · 10 related artists
About
Stripes that seem to bulge, ripple or flicker are the signature of an abstraction built on how the eye and brain process pattern. Geometry does the work: parallel lines that bend by small degrees, checkerboards that swell, moiré interference and complementary colours set edge to edge until they buzz. Victor Vasarely explored such effects from the 1930s, starting with studies of zebras, and after the war argued for a geometric art that could be multiplied and shared.
The tendency peaked in the 1960s. Bridget Riley painted Movement in Squares (1961) and Fall (1963); in Paris the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel, including François Morellet and Julio Le Parc, worked collectively on light and perception; the Venezuelans Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez made works that shift as viewers walk past. Critics soon dismissed the effects as tricks, yet Riley, Soto and Cruz-Diez pursued their research into perception for decades.
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