Optical art or Op art (from the English wordoptical art) - direction to artistic painting second half of the 20th century, hallmarks, which were optical illusions caused by a distorted perception of shapes and figures located in space.

The current is a logical continuation of one of the directions of modernism - technicism. The founder is the French artist Victor Vasarely.

From the point of view of science, the first experiments with optical illusions appeared at the end of the 19th century. Professor Thompson published an article in a scientific journal, in which two circular planes were shown as an illustration, creating a sense of movement. As an artistic movement, op art became known to the general public in 1965 at an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Later, collective exhibitions of various representatives of this artistic movement were successfully held around the world: the Zero group (Düsseldorf), the T. group (Milan) and many others.

Optical illusions are based on the peculiarities of human visual perception, this distortion is initially present in the mechanism of contemplation of the surrounding space by the human eye, in other words, the image is present not only in reality, but also in the individual's brain. As a result, scientists have established that the process of visual perception proceeds according to a number of rules, which artists successfully used to create their works.

Artist Bridget Riley creates a wave-like effect in Cataract 3. In her other work, Direct Curvature, she builds a rotating spiral from black and white lines.

Bridget Riley. "Cataract-3". 1967

Op art eventually becomes a global trend. Artists from different countries create optical paintings and hold collective exhibitions. In Italy, this is Marie Colombo, in Spain, Duarte Ibarolla, in the USSR, Vyacheslav Koleichuk.

Later, the features of Op-art were widely used in industrial design, posters, and decorative art.

Famous works in the style of op art

Joseph Albers is one of the founders of op art, a German and American artist, designer, poet and teacher. In this optical illusion, Albers experiments with the perception of space, playing with the arrangement of lines, he demonstrates how the depth of space can be ambiguously perceived. Black rectangular figures intersect with each other at different angles, disorienting the viewer's perception, it is not clear what is in front and what is behind.

Zigzag black and white lines create a sense of circular rotation. The brain interprets the image by alternating the pattern, and the circle appears to be moving. Riley herself said: "My work was developed on the basis of empirical analysis and synthesis, and I have always believed that perception is the medium through which experience gained in real life is passed."

Victor Vasarely. Duo-2. 1967. Contrasting warm and cold shades create an ambiguous illusion of three-dimensional structure. Are they concave or convex? The illusion is so realistic that we forget that this is just an image and not a real three-dimensional construction.

Soto came from Venezuela to France in 1950 and was one of the few South American artists who made an important contribution to the development of op art and kinetic art. In its form, the work "Sphere of Paris" seems to defy gravity, and resembles the source of the origin of the world and the universe. The work is created from thin blue rubber threads. Soto began making such works in the mid-1960s, and although this work was created many years after the OP art movement began to decline, it does not lose its appeal and artistic value. And the artist himself is respected for his creative constancy and devotion to op art.

The Museum of Modern Art in Paris is hosting an exhibition of "Queen optical illusions» Bridget Riley, whose work has become a symbol of the "swinging sixties"

IN last years sixties in fashion. One has only to remember how a couple of years ago any fashionista considered it her duty to buy herself little things in the style of “swinging London”. All fashion stores were filled with mini-dresses with a strict geometric pattern, shapeless coats with huge buttons and large jewelry. Last year, all of America celebrated the 40th anniversary of the famous "summer of love" - ​​many books about hippie aesthetics and psychedelic art were published. This year, France celebrates its “anniversary”: forty years ago, “May 68” happened. Of course, in honor of these and many other events, museums and galleries arrange very interesting exhibitions. Somewhere photographs of happy Californian hippies and French rebel students are exhibited, somewhere - posters of psychedelic groups, and somewhere - the work of representatives of the "counterculture", who are now considered great contemporary artists. Major museums pay tribute to trends in art that were at the height of fashion in the 1960s, and entered the 21st century almost forgotten. This summer, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris opened an exhibition dedicated to op art, or rather, its most important representative - the Englishwoman Bridget Riley (Bridget Riley).

First you need to find out what op art is and what it is eaten with. Op-art is an abbreviation for the English Optical Art, which means "optical art" or "the art of optical illusions." Paintings made in this genre are always abstract, most often it is a strict geometric abstraction. Op-art took a lot from Color Field Painting - a variety of abstract expressionism. At the word "abstract expressionism" everyone imagines Jackson Pollock (Jackson Pollock), furiously spraying paint on the canvas, but do not forget that such artists as Mark Rothko (Mark Rothko), Barnett Newman (Barnett Newman) and Ed Reinhardt (Ad Reinhardt), famous for the gloomy solemn paintings with images of "color fields". But their paintings are static, which cannot be said about the paintings of op-art artists. The geometric forms on the canvases of representatives of this movement, such as Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely (Victor Vasarely) and Jesus Rafael Soto (Jesus Rafael Soto), do not "stand still": they move, flow into each other, glow, shimmer, swell and generally ... live. The modern viewer, of course, will not be surprised by such a spectacle - his eye is already accustomed to floating forms in computer screensavers. But in order to use oil on canvas ... Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Italian futurists and many others, tried to convey the movement in their paintings, but only op art artists. Vasarely, Riley and others develop the ideas of artists such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, who taught students how to create optical illusions when they were teachers at the Bauhaus Institute. Albers even wrote the book Interaction of Colors, where he explored the human eye's perception of color and space. Thanks to this work, as well as the famous series of paintings "Dedication to the Square", the German artist is considered the father of op art.

One of the most important features of op art is the interaction of the painting with the viewer. According to Bridget Riley, a work of art "happens" only when the painting is in front of a person's eyes. By themselves, her canvases (and the creations of other op-art artists) are just paintings that depict some kind of abstract forms. They begin to move and shimmer only when someone looks at them. This corresponds to one of the main postulates of modern art, put forward by Marcel Duchamp (Marcel Duchamp): a urinal is a urinal, but when it is exhibited in a museum, where it is looked at and talked about, it is not a urinal, but a work of art.

Optical illusions by Riley and her colleagues came to court in the sixties of the last century. Op art works are very "psychedelic": standing in front of them, it is difficult to get rid of the thought that you have been visited by a small hallucination. Op-art abstracts appeared on Mary Quant's trendy mini-dresses and began to symbolize the joyful madness of "swinging London". The public liked op art very much, at all exhibitions of participants in this movement it was always crowded. The ideas of these artists began to be actively exploited for commercial purposes: Bridget Riley even had to sue one company that intended to use her favorite motifs as drawings on fabric. Op-art motifs even appeared on the poster for the 1968 Mexico Olympics! Despite all this, critics were skeptical of the movement. As Ulf Erdmann Ziegler writes in the newspaper Die Tageszeitung, at the time, Op Art was considered a "dwarf" against the background of such powerful movements as Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Land Art and Pop Art. For a long time, the paintings and objects of the participants in the movement gathered dust in the storerooms of museums. But now they're in en masse they get it out and exhibit it: there are many exhibitions dedicated to op art. For example, New York's Albright-Knox Gallery opened an exhibition exploring the influence of Op Art on contemporary art.

The Bridget Riley retrospective in Paris opened on June 12. This is the first major exhibition of the artist in France. Bridget Riley was born in 1931. She began by painting in the style of impressionism, and then she was attracted to divisionism. Creativity Georges Seurat (Georges Seurat) had a huge impact on Riley, instilling in her a "scientific" approach to art. The artist's early paintings were figurative, but after visiting an exhibition of Jackson Pollock's work, she decided to try her hand at abstract painting. Many abstract artists, having become famous and respected, disown their early creations, considering them insignificant student studies. But not Riley: at the retrospective in Paris you can see many works created by her at the very beginning of her career. “There is no Immaculate Conception,” she says ironically, referring to the inextricable link between her early landscapes and later Op Art paintings. The main inspiration for Riley's work is nature, especially the landscapes of Cornwall, where she grew up. According to her, one should look at her paintings the way you look at forests, mountains, the sea ...

Riley's most famous works are in black and white, but since the 1980s she has actively explored the possibilities of color and color contrasts. In the 1960s it was said that thanks to Riley's paintings, the viewer has the opportunity to experience sensations similar to seasickness or skydiving ...

Bridget Riley says a lot about the fact that the roots of her work lie in a centuries-old historical tradition. She wrote about many artists, from Nicolas Poussin to Bruce Nauman, and also curated an exhibition at the National Gallery in London, which exhibited paintings by Titian (Titian), Veronese (Paolo Veronese), El Greco (El Greco) , Peter Paul Rubens, Poussin and Cezanne. For a retrospective in Paris, the artist asked the Musée d'Orsay for some paintings by Cezanne, Seurat and Claude Monet, but the famous Parisian museum refused her.

How is the market for Bridget Riley's work? On this moment she is, no more, no less, the author of the most expensive work among living British artists. Recently, at Sotheby's, her painting "Canto 2" sold for $4.5 million. Of course, Riley is far from the crazy auction success of her compatriot Lucian Freud (Lucian Freud), but this is due to the general situation in the art market, where

It so happened historically that almost all famous artists are men. Today we will destroy this myth. From Bridget Riley's breathtaking optical illusions to Tracey Emin's bold and daring experiments, here are 8 big names that have left their mark on contemporary art.

Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas is a Dutch artist from Cape Town. She mainly paints portraits, models for which she takes from newspapers, magazines and Polaroid photographs. She paints virtuoso "wet", creating disturbing, gloomy and often provocative works. Dumas managed to become one of the most expensive contemporary artists. Her paintings and drawings usually look provocative: creepy, twisted faces and bodies, disturbing color combinations, narcotic breaking of forms. Dumas' themes are politics, race and sexuality, guilt and innocence, violence and tenderness.

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is an English artist, director and actress, one of the most famous representatives of the Young British Artists group. In addition to paintings, the artist is famous for the installation “My Bed” ( My bed), exhibited in 1999 at the Turner Prize Exhibition. The installation consisted of an unmade dirty bed with personal items scattered around it, including bloody underwear and used condoms.

Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville is a contemporary British artist who became famous for her monumental canvases, the main characters of which were female images. In 1994, she spent more than 48 hours watching plastic surgeons at work in New York clinics, witnessing the birth of a new beauty, which subsequently influenced her work.

Yayoi Kusama

Paintings, collages, soft sculptures, performances and installations by this Japanese artist share an obsession with repetition, patterns, and accumulation. Yayoi herself describes herself as a "compulsive artist" - she suffers from mental illness. On November 12, 2008, at Christie's auction, her work sold for $5,100,000, a record for a living female artist.

Julie Meretu

Julie Meretu is known for her rich large-format paintings. For example, Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation (2001) has a size of 2.59 x 5.49 m. In Meretu's work, layers of acrylic paint are intersected by lines made with markers, pencils and ink. Her work evokes a number of analogies - from the dynamism of Italian futurists and geometric abstraction to abstract expressionists. The starting point for Meretu is architecture and a modern city with an accelerated pace of life and densely populated streets.

Bridget Riley

Bridget Riley is a contemporary English artist, one of the largest representatives of op art. British artist Bridget Riley burst into the "swinging" 1960s with compositions that made the audience dazzled, dizzy, and even slightly nauseous. Looking at the work of Bridget Riley is a joyful activity, but it requires concentration and attention. It's even harder to take your eyes off them. You can sort out the principles by which her canvases are built as much as you like, but this will not explain their mystical appeal.

Paula Rego

Paula Rego is a Portuguese artist, illustrator and printmaker living and working in the UK. She constantly updates her work with new styles and techniques. From the collages of the 1950s and 60s, the animal series of the 80s, to the large compositions, pastels and series of prints, prints and lithographs of the present day, built on her imagination and childhood memories. Its main task is to visually tell its unusual and fascinating story.

Artist, one of the largest representatives of op art.

Life and art

In 1968 the artist won the International Prize at the Venice Biennale. In 1967, Riley begins to carry out various experiments with color and its various shades in his paintings - at first only with gray, then with other colors. In 1981, she travels to Egypt.

The artist worked in three art workshops, one of which was in Cornwall, the second in the London district of Kensington and Chelsea, the third in France, in the Vaucluse Valley. In 1983, she designs the interior of the Royal Hospital in Liverpool. She also worked on the artistic design of ballet performances.

Bridget Riley is a participant in the international exhibitions of contemporary art documenta 4 (1968) and documenta 6 (1977) in the German city of Kassel.

The artist was awarded the Orders of the British Empire and Knights of Honor.

Awards (selected)

• 1963: premium John Moore's Liverpool Exhibition
• 1963: premium AICA Critics Prize
• 1964: foundation scholarship Stuyvesant Foundation
• 1968: International Prize in Painting at the 34th Venice Biennale
• 2009: German award Goslarer Kaiserring"
• 2012: award Sikkens Prize

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Literature

• Bridget Riley: Malen um zu sehen. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2002. ISBN 978-3775711982.
• Julia Voss, Wulf Herzogenrath, Robert Kudielka: Bridget Riley. Verein zur Förderung Moderner Kunst E.V. Goslar, MönchehausMuseum Goslar, Goslar 2009, kein ISBN

Sources

Excerpt characterizing Riley, Bridget

“Don’t be angry,” Anna Pavlovna said, shaking her finger from the other end of the table, “c "est un si brave et excellent homme notre bon Viasmitinoff ... [This is such a wonderful person, our good Vyazmitinov ...]
Everyone laughed a lot. At the upper honorable end of the table, everyone seemed to be cheerful and under the influence of the most varied lively moods; only Pierre and Helene sat silently side by side almost at the lower end of the table; a radiant smile, independent of Sergei Kuzmich, was restrained on the faces of both - a smile of shame in front of their feelings. No matter what they said and no matter how others laughed and joked, no matter how appetizing they ate rhine wine, and sauté, and ice cream, no matter how they avoided this couple with their eyes, no matter how indifferent, inattentive to her, it was felt for some reason, by occasionally thrown at them glances that the joke about Sergei Kuzmich, and laughter, and food - everything was feigned, and all the forces of the attention of this whole society were directed only to this couple - Pierre and Helen. Prince Vasily imagined the sobs of Sergei Kuzmich and at the same time looked around his daughter; and while he was laughing, his expression said: “Well, well, everything is going well; Everything will be decided today." Anna Pavlovna threatened him for notre bon Viasmitinoff, and in her eyes, which flashed briefly at Pierre at that moment, Prince Vasily read congratulations on the future son-in-law and the happiness of his daughter. The old princess, offering wine to her neighbor with a sad sigh and looking angrily at her daughter, with this sigh seemed to be saying: “Yes, now there is nothing left for you and me but to drink sweet wine, my dear; now is the time for this youth to be so defiantly defiantly happy.” “And what nonsense is all that I tell, as if it interests me,” the diplomat thought, looking at the happy faces of his lovers, “this is happiness!”
Among those insignificantly petty, artificial interests that bound this society, there was a simple feeling of striving of a beautiful and healthy young man and woman for each other. And this human feeling overwhelmed everything and hovered above all their artificial babble. The jokes were not funny, the news was uninteresting, the animation obviously fake. Not only they, but the lackeys who served at the table seemed to feel the same and forgot the order of the service, looking at the beautiful Helene with her beaming face and at the red, fat, happy and restless face of Pierre. It seemed that the lights of the candles were focused only on these two happy faces.
Pierre felt that he was the center of everything, and this position both pleased and embarrassed him. He was in the state of a man deep in some kind of occupation. He didn't see anything clearly, didn't understand, and didn't hear anything. Only occasionally, unexpectedly, fragmentary thoughts and impressions from reality flickered in his soul.
“It's all over! he thought. – And how did it all happen? So fast! Now I know that not for her alone, not for myself alone, but for all this must inevitably come to pass. They are all so looking forward to it, so sure it will be, that I can't, I can't deceive them. But how will it be? Don't know; but it will be, it will certainly be!” thought Pierre, looking at those shoulders that glittered right next to his eyes.
Then suddenly he felt ashamed of something. He was embarrassed that he alone occupied the attention of everyone, that he was a lucky man in the eyes of others, that he, with his ugly face, was some kind of Paris possessing Elena. “But, it’s true, it always happens like that and it’s necessary,” he consoled himself. “And, by the way, what did I do for this?” When did it start? From Moscow, I went with Prince Vasily. There was nothing here yet. Then why didn't I stop at his place? Then I played cards with her and picked up her purse and went skating with her. When did it start, when did it all happen? And here he sits beside her as a bridegroom; hears, sees, feels her closeness, her breath, her movements, her beauty. Then suddenly it seems to him that it is not she, but he himself is so extraordinarily beautiful that that is why they look at him like that, and he, happy with the general surprise, straightens his chest, raises his head and rejoices at his happiness. Suddenly a voice, someone's familiar voice, is heard and says something to him another time. But Pierre is so busy that he does not understand what they say to him. “I ask you when you received a letter from Bolkonsky,” Prince Vasily repeats for the third time. “How distracted you are, my dear.

Life and art

In 1968 the artist won the International Prize at the Venice Biennale. In 1967, Riley begins to carry out various experiments with color and its various shades in his paintings - at first only with gray, then with other colors. In 1981, she travels to Egypt.

The artist worked in three art workshops, one of which was located in Cornwall, the second in the London district of Kensington and Chelsea, the third in France, in the Vaucluse Valley. In 1983, she designs the interior of the Royal Hospital in Liverpool. She also worked on the artistic design of ballet performances.

Bridget Riley is a participant in the international exhibitions of contemporary art documenta 4 (1968) and documenta 6 (1977) in the German city of Kassel.

The artist was awarded the Orders of the British Empire and Knights of Honor.

Awards (selected)

• 1963: premium John Moore's Liverpool Exhibition
• 1963: premium AICA Critics Prize
• 1964: foundation scholarship Stuyvesant Foundation
• 1968: International Prize in Painting at the 34th Venice Biennale
• 2003: Praemium Imperiale
• 2009: German award Goslarer Kaiserring"

Literature

• Bridget Riley: Malen um zu sehen. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2002. ISBN 978-3775711982.
• Julia Voss, Wulf Herzogenrath, Robert Kudielka: Bridget Riley. Verein zur Förderung Moderner Kunst E.V. Goslar, MönchehausMuseum Goslar, Goslar 2009, kein ISBN

Sources

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• April 24
• Born in 1931
• Born in London
• British Contemporary Artists
• women artists
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire

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• The district committee is closed, everyone went to the front
• Raven Riley

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Books

• What does it mean?! Understand Contemporary Art and Discover the Artist in You by Mary Richards. About the book: This interactive book introduces readers to the lives and works of 16 artists and teaches children and teenagers to form their own opinions about works of art. Tasks in this ... Buy for 687 rubles
• How to understand it Understand contemporary art and discover the artist in you, Richards M.. This interactive book introduces readers to the life and work of 16 artists and teaches children and teenagers to form their own opinions about works of art. Assignments in this interactive…