Optical Art is an abstract painting that uses illusory color contrast, geometric imagery such as Hermann grids, and optical logic to create a strong illusion. It usually causes viewers' visual confusion, such as the three-dimensionality or distortion, rotation, bounce, bump, and other visual effects that are produced when looking at a two-dimensional work.
After the early 1950s, the Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely (1908-1997) established an painting work "Vega 200" composed of geometric figures and intense colors. Together with the members of Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), Vasarely had a strong research and creative perspective on color, geometry and optical science. In 1965, the "The Responsive Eye" held by MoMA in the United States was the key exhibition to establish the name "Optical Art." This exhibition selected a total of 123 artworks from 123 artists, demonstrated the artist's work on the empirical study of the eyes on colors, patterns and light in time and space.
The Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (1923-), known as one of the greatest artistic innovators of the 20th and 21st centuries, is the representative artist who has brought color research to the forefront. This master of Kinetic Art and Optical Art lived and worked in Paris since the 1960s. During the Kinetic Art period (60s), he began research and art practice on color, lines and perception. His series of "Physichromie", one of the masterpieces of philosophical and universal influence, shows the precise calculation and expression of the color thinking, layout and human perception experience of this outstanding thinkers in the color field.
Argentine artist Julio Le Parc (1928-), one of the founding members of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), also contributes to the research and development of Kinetic Art and Optical Art. His "Continual Mobiles" experiment, which combines motion, light, space and vision in his two-dimensional and three-dimensional works, breaks people's established thinking about substance and space, and gives viewers a different visual experience. In 1966, his outstanding creative power won him the Venice Biennale Main Painting Award.
Born in the United Kingdom, Bridget Louise Riley (1931-), another founding member of the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), was inspired by her observations of nature's light, color and cloud composition as a child. Her early works used black and white (sometimes in grey) lines and geometric shapes to bring a sense of rhythm and dizziness. In her later works, she studied color, and through the coloring, she transformed the different cultural experiences she felt in foreign travel into her works. In 1968, she became the first female artist to receive the International Painting Award at the Venice Biennale.
Related art works: http://www.yicollecta.com/en/collections/25
Figure 1：Portrait of Carlos Cruz-Diez © Atelier Cruz-Diez Paris
Figure 2 top left：Julio Le Parc, Série 23-14/3, 1970, Acrylique sur toile, 130 x 130 cm © Julio Le Parc
Figure 2 top middle：Victor Vasarely, Untitled from Homage to Picasso, 1973, Screenprint from a portfolio of thirty-one lithographs © MoMA; © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Figure 2 top right corner：Julio Le Parc, Mutation of Forms, 1959 © The Met Breuer
Figure 2 middle row left：Julio Le Parc: Form into Action, installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami 2014 © Pérez Art Museum Miami 2016 © Photo courtesy Pérez Art Museum Miami
Figure 2 middle row right：Victor Vasarely, Kroa-MC, 1969 © 2018 Stäedel Museum
Figure 2 left bottom：Julio Le Parc, Lithograph, Primeras modulaciones 8, 2018
Figure 2 right bottom：Carlos Cruz-Diez, Etching, Induction du Jaune Masnou 2014
