Op Art

Optical art, or Op art as it is better known, is an abbreviation for Optical Art, a modern art movement that developed in the United States and Europe in the mid-1960s. Op art paintings exploit the fallibility of the eye through the use of optical illusions induced by abstract spiral or wavy patterns, stripes, spots, etc. Hungarian-born French painter Victor Vasarely (1908-) and British painter Bridget Riley (1931-) were leading exponents. The term was first coined in America's Time magazine in October 1964, and by 1965 it was well entrenched in the art world and soon spilled over into advertising and design in popular culture.