Victor Vasarel
Victor Vasarel
Victor Vasarel
Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian-French artist credited with having created the Op
Art movement. Vasarelys paintings and sculpture utilized geometrical shapes and
colorful graphics to create illusions of special depth on two-dimensional surfaces.
This abstract method of painting, also known as Kineticism, borrowed from a diverse
range of influences, including Bauhaus principles, Wassily Kandinskys abstraction,
and the Constructivist movement, which had a particularly significant impact on
Vasarelys practice. Born Vsrhelyi Gyozo on April 9, 1906 in Pcs, Hungary, the
artist originally studied medicine, but switched to painting after two years. Vasarely
enrolled in the Hungarian branch of the Bauhaus in Budapest in the late 1920s.
After settling in Paris in 1930, Vasarely worked as a graphic artist and developed his
signature abstract aesthetic.
Considered one of the progenitors of Op Art for his optically complex and illusionistic
paintings, Victor Vasarely spent the course of a long, critically acclaimed career
seeking, and arguing for, an approach to art making that was deeply social. He
placed primary importance on the development of an engaging, accessible visual
language that could be universally understoodthis language, for Vasarely, was
geometric abstraction, more commonly known as Op Art. Through precise
combinations of lines, geometric shapes, colors, and shading, he created eyepopping paintings, full of the illusion of depth, movement, and three-dimensionality.
More than pleasing tricks for the eye, Vasarely insisted, pure form and pure color
can signify the world.
Bibliography:
http://www.op-art.co.uk/victor-vasarely/
http://www.vasarely-victor.com/
http://artist.christies.com/Victor-Vasarely--49122.aspx
http://www.fondationvasarely.fr/uk/vasarely4.php
http://www.artrepublic.com/biographies/260-victor-vasarely.html
https://www.masterworksfineart.com/artist/victor-vasarely/