To a Summer's Day

Artist Bridget Riley (London, England, born 1931)

Date1980

Mediumacrylic on linen

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall (Height x Width x Depth): 115.5 × 251 × 5.1cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1986 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions.

LocationOn Display - Gallery 17

Object numberABDAG007493

Keywords

About MeBridget Riley is best known for her geometrically patterned abstract canvases with which she became famous in the early and mid-1960s. Her distinctive, optically vibrant paintings which critics called “Op Art” became the hallmark of the period in the1960s.

She explores optical phenomena and juxtaposes colour either by using a chromatic technique of identifiable hues or by selecting achromatic colors (black, white or gray). In doing so, her work appears to flicker, pulsate and move, encouraging the viewer’s visual tension.

In this picture, her love of nature and the sea shines out in her composition. It is an enigmatic composition in which the artist tries to capture the elusive and evanescent nature. The sinuous stripes of bright pink, green, white, blue and mauve dances, moves and flickers across the canvas like a set of colour rythms representing the ever-changing colours of the sun shimmering on the sea waves.

The artist has certainly drawn inspiration from the carefree days of her childhood on the Cornish coast. She wrote in her essay, "The Pleasures of Sight":

"Swimming through saucer-like reflections, dipping and flashing on the sea surface, one traced the colours back to the origins of those reflections. Some came directly from the sky and different coloured clouds, some from the golden greens of the vegetation growing on the cliffs, some from the red-organe seaweed on the blues and violets of adjacent rocks...On a fine day, for instance, all was bespattered with the glitter of bright sunlight and its tiny pinpoints of virtually black shadow - it was as though one was swimming through a diamond'.

Adopted by Ariana Kehoe.

To find out how to 'Adopt an Artwork' please email AAGMSupport-Us@aberdeencity.gov.uk
More About Me

Collections Wall

The use of only four colours, one shape and an irregular alignment produces a glorious wave-like movement across the painting.

Exhibitions

Gallery 17 - Abstract Art