Visual dynamics, a relatively new development in the visual arts, is the illusion of movement where there is none. Visually dynamic paintings, sometimes called “op art,” visual research, and chart painting, may appear to wriggle, vibrate, or produce strong after-image movements. The paintings are typically composed of repetitive, simple, geometric forms with contrasting colors which are close in value.

Attitudes toward form, color and imagery typical of visual dynamics can be seen developing in earlier painters, the Impressionists, the De Stijl, Russian Constructivists and Kandinsky. Victor Vasarely, in the 1940s, created illusory movement through forms, although only recently has color been used dynamically by Richard Anuszkiewicz and Larry Poons.

Illusory movement may be created either from a multiplicity of simple forms and extreme color contrast in figure-ground relationship, or from an unstable edge caused by close value relationships between figure and ground colors. The first may be called a form-vibrational system; the second, an edge-vibrational system. Dynamic quality is markedly influenced by environmental lighting, position of the viewer, and physiological functions of the eye.

Being new, visually dynamic art is still simple in its physical makeup and elicits a relatively simple response from the viewer. It seems to contain many possibilities for development as a significant art experience.