Moving Your Brain Through Retro Art Color

Artists have been trying to depict movement on a flat surface since cavemen were inspired to paint their hunting pursuits on cave walls. In the mid 60s, the art of creating optical movement reached its high point with the abstract style of art and graphics known
as Op Art.

Starting in Europe, and later working its way to the US, “Op Art” is short for optical art and was an approach that grew from the abstract expressionist movement. Artists would reduce these abstract geometric forms and repeat them to stimulate movement using contrasting color and shapes. After a major 1965 exhibition of Op Art entitled the Responsive Eye, the public went gaga with this movement as it quickly became attached to the 60s culture.

Time magazine first coined the phrase “optical art” in an article appearing in October of 1964. The term defined Op art as an art comprised of illusion, appearing to the human eye to be moving––and even breathing––due to its mathematically-based compositions of contrasting colors and forms.

In the mid-60s, Op art was the "groovy" art that was showing up everywhere- in advertising, television and as LP album art. It might even show up on a 60s household drapes or furniture as a fashion motif.

Staring at these concoctions of color for one minute and quickly looking away will give you the flashbacks you had at that Grateful Dead (or Phish) concert when you thought you melted into the floor. The Op art movement fit nicely spring-boarding off the Pop art movement that was inspired by mass consumerism and popular culture with the artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Richard Hamilton leading the way.

It was Hamilton that would later go on to describe this art form––so reflective of society at the time––as “popular, transient, expendable, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy and glamorous.” These movements were, no doubt, a reaction against the clean, sometimes rigid design of the 50s.

In the 60s, design was no longer just about form and function––it was about style. The Pop and Op Art movements in this decade were a reflection of a new found and much celebrated subculture which was one of freedom, permissiveness, and, most importantly, progress.


It’s also important to note that these movements existed in the cultural capitals of the world. In London, Paris and New York, Op and Pop art was an international phenomenon promoted by the lifestyle magazines that emerged during the decade. 

The retro color of these movements still inspire the youth of today, with psychedelic colors and posters memorialized in retro artt projects and activities everywhere.

Find me some Op or Pop art links and I’ll make you a really nice brownie!

www.flyingblindpuppy.com