Revisiting Pointillism: A Useful Art Technique

Pointillism is one of those art history terms most educated people know and could define if asked. "Little dots of color on a page," one might say. Or another could mention the French neo-impressionists, most specifically Georges Seurat, famous for a painting depicting people strolling and relaxing in a park-like setting complete with trees and a river (usually titled as "Sunday Afternoon at La Grande Jatte").

Adding a key word here to the definition, little dots of "pure" color, of color straight out of the box or paint tube, may be helpful. Because, theoretically, no mixing of hues would even be necessary. Why not? Supposedly, because the colors would blend in the eye of the beholder, the viewer gazing at a painting. This retinal effect or optic illusion would enhance the feeling of luminosity for the particular image. In practice, some people could see it, claiming that finding the right viewing distance was essential, while others thought dot paintings just looked busy but dull or even muddy.

Seurat, a great artist who died young, was also well known for his drawings. Using a stippling technique, or developing what might look like a cloud of tiny marks when viewed in magnification, the artist created three-dimensional renderings which actually contained no, or hardly any, grays. In contrast, most pencil drawings by artists are all about gray values, with only minor marks of black for emphasis or areas of paper left blank for the highlights.

Today not many artists use the pointillist technique for entire paintings, and certainly not for major large-scale works. Smaller pieces or certain textured passages in larger ones can acquire a distinct charm, if not obvious increased luminosity, when handled in a pointillist style. But staying with "pure" colors is difficult. Most practitioners (yours truly being one) add plenty of white to tube colors, allow earth colors instead of only prismatic hues, and even opt for grays or other neutral tones to create an acceptable artwork. Varying the size and shape of the dots or dashes or brushstrokes is a common solution for a notably slow creative process.

Different arts-and-crafts media are readily adaptable for use with the technique. Oil paints are probably used most often. But watercolor and pastels also can be painstakingly applied to white or colored surfaces to produce effects ranging from nostalgic to dramatic, from placid to surreal when declared finished. Ink drawing tools and various printmaking media, such as linocut or intaglio, can be utilized in a pointillist manner. Collage artists can also embrace pointillist principles when completing paper or mixed-media pieces.

Digital media, thanks to photo software application advances, can also be manipulated to produce fanciful pointillist renderings. One widely popularized offshoot of the technique is visible in advertising images which, on closer inspection, turn out to be made up of individual photographs. For this idea, often referred to as photographic mosaics, much is owed to contemporary American artist Chuck Close whose huge portraits are developed as tiny-squared grids. Interestingly, a politicized adaptation is making the rounds, as JointheDot(TM) invites U.S. voters to submit letters to the two current Presidential nominees, letters which will be included in tiny hand-drawn squares meant to complete a photographic image of each leader, John McCain and Barack Obama.

It is a stretch, granted, but the "little dots of color" from the beginning of this essay have now become the tiny squares ultimately arranged to depict celebrated portraits. Considering this (possibly imaginary) evolution, one can dispute the critics who consign the idea of pointillism to past art history and instead insist that there is some evidence that the storied technique, if not the associated complex color theories, still is alive in collective memory. So, in conclusion, pointillism the art technique can be viewed as available for renewed consideration, adaptation, deconstruction, general tinkering, and overall reinvention.

Grace Glueck, "Building Up a Shimmer, Stroke by Careful Stroke", New York Times
"Patriotism Meets Pop-culture in What's Your Message to the Next President", MarketWatch/Wall Street Journal/PR Newswire
Jennie Yabroff, "Up 'Close' and Personal", Newsweek
"Largest photo mosaic-world record set by The Big Picture", World Records Academy, FL