Op Art & Kinetic Art |
| Welcome to the modern art/contemporary art movement of Op art. This article is written to try and help you get an idea of how the modern art/contemporary art movement of Op Art began and to outline what it was about. Op Art was just one of the modern art movements to dominate the 20th centaury. From reading these articles you will be able to see how one contemporary art movement effected another contemporary art movement. You will be able to see how certain modern art movements were particularly influential in the creation and inspiration of another contemporary art/modern art movement. We have seen De Stijl, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism, Impressionism, minimalist, Dadaism, Pop Art, Post impressionism, Surrealism and other Abstract art movements. Now it is time to look at the modern art/contemporary art movement of Op Art. Please enjoy the article: |
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Op Art style painting |
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The modern art/contemporary art movement of Op art started in 1964. A group of artists were demonstrating the relationship between seeing and understanding through mainting pictures that consisted of optical illusions. The idea of Op Art was to highlight the fact that the eyes can trick the mind in to seeing things that aren't there and that if visual illusions can trick the eye so can words and propaganda.
The term Op Art for this modern art/contemporary art movement arose from when an article in Time magazine in 1964 was written about the contemporary art movement. Time magazine gave the term 'Op Art' to paintings that focused on manipulation of the eye. The modern art/contemporary art movement that was Op Art became very popular with the intellectuals and throughout social circles.
The forming of this modern art/contemporary art movement was as a result of previous modern and traditional art movements. The renaissance artists experimented with optical illusions so that flat surfaces could appear 3 dimensional. The mannerists would create alternate images for the human eye. They would often distort their paintings with puzzle like images in order to create illusions. So it is possible to see a natural progression which lead to the modern art movement of Op art being founded.
The Op artists said that the majority of their inspiration came from the post Impressionist art movement. For example 'Seurat' created a style of painting called Pointillism which was a huge inspiration to the Op Artists. Pointillism consists of dots which appear to form together to make different colours which is in fact an optical illusion.
The modern art/contemporary art movement of Op art used the above techniques and their art proved to be very popular during the 1960's.
Below are the artists that invented and pioneered Op Art. Please click on their names to find out information about each artist:
To find out about the other major pioneering artists that contributed to the Op art movement please click on their names below:
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If you found this article interesting please read the other modern art/contemporary art movement articles outlining:Post Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract art, De Stijl, Expressionism, Conceptual Art, Fauvism, Futurism, Impressionism, minimalist, Dadaism, Pop Art, Pointillism, Op Art, Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism and other modern art, contemporary art or abstract art movements. |
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