Pointillism - art written in points

''Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte'' is one of the first paintings done in the technique of pointillism. Created between 1884 and 1886, its author Georges Seurat initially painted an impressionistic picture but later used many small dots and lines. The viewer has to stand at a certain distance for the dots to begin to merge.

Pointillism - key features

Pointillism (from the French: pointiller - to dot, to punctuate) next to divisionism is one of the first Neo-Impressionist techniques. In both techniques, artists were interested in using modern optical theories, and discoveries from the fields of physiology and psychology of vision. Some believe that Neo-Impressionism was the first true avant-garde movement in painting.

Importantly, pointillism stands in sharp contrast to traditional methods of mixing pigments on the palette. It can be compared to the four-colour CMYK printing process used by some colour printers and large presses, in which dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black) are placed side by side. It is known that Seurat worked under artificial lighting to avoid the problems of changing natural light in the painting process. Unlike the impressionists, who specifically worked quickly, in daylight, in order to capture the rapidly changing weather conditions or just the changing light during the day.

Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Camille Pissarro

Everyone should associate three names with the technique of pointillism - Seurat, Signac and Pissarro. Georges Seurat created the technique, in 1883 he completed the first pointillist painting, "Bathing in Asnieres". Only seven years later he contracted diphtheria and died. However, a group of artists had previously gathered around the painter, including Paul Signac and Camille Pissarro. Both painted with small dots and dashes and both knew Vincent van Gogh. It was thanks to them that Van Gogh painted several pictures in the technique discussed in this article.

These paintings can now be seen in the most important museums in the world: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d'Orsay, the Albertina in Vienna and many others.