Optical Art 1
Op Art Op Art can be traced back to the Bauhaus style of geometric shapes You can also see the influence of the Kinetic movement in Op Art Etudes Bauhaus C, 1929 Victor Vasarely Bicycle wheel, 1913 Marcel Duchamp Cyclograveur, 1929 Jean Tinguely 2
What is Op Art? Op Art or Optical Art are abstract pieces Highly contrasting, sometimes colour but more often painted in black and white When looked at the works give the illusion of movement The viewer is dazzled, sees flashing, vibration, swelling, warping and hidden images Untitled Diagonal Curve, 1966 Bridget Riley
Victor Vasarely - Hungarian painter,1906-97 Studied medicine for two years Studied at the Muhely Academy - the Bauhaus equivalent in Bud His studies in medicine left him with a strong sense of scientific m
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Bridget Riley - English painter, 1931 - Studied painting at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art Taught Art at several schools and colleges Changed style dramatically before developing Op art in the mid 1
Riley was inspired by the pointillist technique of Seurat Riley turned to abstraction around 1960 Her work is said to induce feelings of seasickness
High-voltage - is how the British painter Bridget Riley describes her work 8
Cataract III 1967 From 1967 onwards Riley began to use more colour. It is the positioning of the colour which produces the feeling of movement. The colour groupings affected the spaces between them to produce fleeting glimpses of other colours and the illusion of movement.
Riley s works are large scale. Small colour studies are used to plan the paintings, then they are scaled up and painted by hand without the use of ruler or masking tape She has the help assistants because the pieces are so large She is still working today 10
Carlos Cruz-Diez - Venezuela, 1923- Transchromie, 1965 Coloured, transparent strips which change according to the movement of the viewer and the intensity of the light Physiocromie, 1959 layers of coloured screens which trap light
Jim Lambie - 1964 - Glasgow In 1999 Lambie created pieces influenced by Op Art Zobop, 1999 Vinyl tape
The influence of Op Art on fashion
Photorealism 14
Photorealism Super realistic paintings and sculptures The results were almost photographic Artists worked from photographs closely copying every detail Evolved from the work of Pop Art and a reaction to Abstract Expressionism Although its centre was the United States, the Photorealism movement was also strong in Europe from the late 1960 s to the1970 s In Europe this type of art is known as Super-realism
American Photorealist painters: Chuck Close, 1940 - Richard Estes, 1932 - Audrey Flack, 1931 - Charles Bell, 1935-95 Ralph Goings, 1928-16
Richard Estes, 1932- Telephone Booths, 1968 Times Square, 2004 Best known for his paintings of city scenes of New York He compiles his compositions from multiple source photographs He often incorporates reflective surfaces, such as shop windows and shiny cars
Chuck Close, 1940- Big Self-Portrait, 1967/8 Acrylic on canvas Georgia, 1985 pulp paper on Canvas Andres, 2006 Jacquard tapestry Suffers from Prosopagnosia (face blindness) Works in many different mediums Severely paralysed from a spinal artery collapse in the 1980 s
Close repeats images in different mediums and styles Mark, 1978/9 Mark, 2012 Felt stamp 19
Self-portrait, 2005/5 20
Audrey Flack, 1931- Marilyn, 1977 Flack began using photographs as material for her paintings as far back as the early sixties Her paintings tell stories through still-life s and portraits
Charles Bell, 1935-1995 His paintings and graphic prints are distinguished by the fact that the subject matter is depicted in a scale as much as ten times life size, with colours which are the clear and vibrant
Ralph Goings,1928- Donut, 1995... It occurred to me that projecting and tracing the photograph instead of copying it freehand would be even more shocking. To copy a photograph literally was considered a bad thing to do. It went against all of my art school training... some people were upset by what I was doing and said it can't possibly be art'. That gave me encouragement in a perverse way, because I was delighted to be doing something that was really upsetting people... I was having a hell of a lot of fun..."