EARLIEST STUDIES: 1930's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE: Bauhaus design studies of the 20's.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Black and white reversals, checkerboards, zebras, harlequins, and other material studies.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Laid the basis for all future studies and experimentation (i.e. in kinetic examples of movement).

EARLIEST STUDIES: 1940's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Bell-Isle coastal landscape where he noted (1) pebles and shells on the coast and (2) how the sun became flattened as it set over the sea.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Flat elliptical pebble forms overlapping, appearing and disappearing

SIGNIFICANCE:
Vasarely learned through these studies that pure form and relationships could signify the world. One can see the sun, the clouds, the pebbles and the waves thus creating a feeling of the ocean through abstracted forms.

EARLIEST STUDIES: Late 1940's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Crackled glazed tiles that covered the walls of the Denfert-Rochereau subway in Paris. He first noted these lines in 1938 but did not draw them until 1948.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Intersecting linear patterns.

SIGNIFICANCE:
After direct translation of the Belle-Isle pebbles, Denfert represents a further abstraction from nature. The reading of the linear patters as either controured shapes or as an all over network.

EARLIEST STUDIES: Late 1940's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Southern French fort town buildings/windows and the patterns they make as bright sun and shadow overlap and intersect.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Shows cubist influences as solids and voids merge together. Forms and backgrounds alternate with each other.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Further steps towards the development of Vasarely's abstract forms leading to the creation of the plastic unit.

EARLIEST STUDIES: 1950's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Studies in Geography of the 1920's (isobar lines), photography and the use of positive and negative.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Black and white linear compositions, parallelisms, checkerboard deformations, spatial illusions, undulatory networks.

SIGNIFICANCE:
These formed a tremendous breakthrough in kinetic/spatial studies.

EARLIEST STUDIES: 1960's
ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Resulted from his studies in the 1950's and the definition of the Unite Plastique (1955).
Unit = single building block; but also as in
Unity = insperability of color and form.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
All over pattern, use of the color-form unit (plastic unit), graded scales, monochrome units on graded backgrounds.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Development of universal language of art through abstract plastic units (color-form units)

EARLIEST STUDIES: 1960's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Line Studies in color - form

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Line studies with occasional shading ranges, alternanaces, deep networks, square waves, curved waves, zooms.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Significant studies in line / movement / color-form relationships.

EARLIEST STUDIES: Mid 1960's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE: Planetary folklore and permutations studies.

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Three-dimensional plastic illusions which confuse and attack the vision. Cellular structures, axonometric cubes, unassignable volumes, ambiguity of forms.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Successful evocation of movement through color changes, illusionary and unreal spaces created through this alternate mode of seeing.

EARLIEST STUDIES: Mid-Late 1960's

ORIGIN / SOURCES / INSPIRATIONS FOR STYLE:
Culmination studies of spatial manipulations

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS:
Deep undulating surfaces or plains, with gradual color modulations, checkerboard grids, hexagon grids, octagon grids.

SIGNIFICANCE:
Culmiation works for a new language of art.