Pointillism

A Painting Style

After reading this PowerPoint you should be able to tell me…

Who invented pointillism What pointillism is When it was first used Why we use dots

What’s Pointillism?

Pointillism is an original form of art created by George Seurat.

Pointillism is a bunch of tiny dots formed together to make a picture.

The Movement..

Pointillism began in France in 1886, and continued till 1906—select artists worked in this style for about 20 years before developing new techniques.

Why dots? When two colors are next to each other, your eye mixes

them and that is called optical mixing. Using optical mixing instead of physically mixing can make a brighter picture.

These artists believed that separate touches of pigments resulted in a greater vibrancy of color to the human eye.

Examples…

Impressed?

This style of painting seems easy to do, but it is very hard to make it work.

You need to plan the colors you will use so that the work does not begin to look muddy.

Pointillism takes a long time. For example, Seurat’s “A Sunday in the Park” took him two years to complete, covers a wall (81 inches by 120 inches) and has about 3,456,000 dots!

The Artists…

Georges Seurat

Paul Signac

Henri-Edmond Cross

Georges SeuratA Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884

Georges SeuratCircus Sideshow, 1887

Paul SignacPort-en-Bessin, 1888

Paul SignacSnow, Boulevard De Clichy, Paris, 1886

Henri-Edmond CrossThe Return of the Fisherman, 1896

Henri-Edmond CrossLandscape with Stars, 1905-1908

Henri-Edmond CrossLes Champs-Elysees, 1898

Some student work

Here is a picture used to inspire one students work

Here is the student’s pointillism work

The next slide has your first picture to try and copy using only points.