Op Art

Op Art, short for Optical Art, was an international movement that emerged in the mid-1960s, using precise geometric patterns, high-contrast color and repeated line to create illusions of movement, vibration or depth on a flat, static surface, engaging the physiology of vision itself as the work's subject. Bridget Riley's black-and-white paintings such as Movement in Squares produced disorienting optical vibration through pure line, while Victor Vasarely, often called the movement's father, worked with color grids and geometric distortion to similar illusionistic effect. The movement reached a mass audience through the 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, after which its imagery spread rapidly into fashion, textiles and graphic design, a commercial afterlife some critics felt diluted its serious perceptual investigations into mere decorative pattern.