PrimeLuck ArtsPointillism
Pointillism builds an image from tiny dots of pure colour that blend in the viewer's eye. It is part of the wider Neo-Impressionist movement.
- Period
- Nineteenth-century art
- Approximate dates
- c. 1886 to c. 1906
- Place of origin
- Paris, France
- Key regions
- France, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy
- Art forms
- Painting, drawing
- Major artists
- Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro (for a time), Maximilien Luce
Visual introduction
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Georges Seurat · 1884 to 1886 · Oil on canvas · Art Institute of Chicago
A calm park scene built entirely from tiny dots of colour and carefully planned shapes.
Bathers at Asnieres
Georges Seurat · 1884 · Oil on canvas · National Gallery, London
An early large work where Seurat tested a more ordered, dotted way of painting light.
Portrait of Felix Feneon (Opus 217)
Paul Signac · 1890 · Oil on canvas · Museum of Modern Art, New York
A decorative colour pattern behind the sitter shows how far dots and colour theory could go.
Historical context
Georges Seurat developed the method in the mid 1880s, inspired by colour theory and optics, including the work of Michel Eugene Chevreul. He wanted to make Impressionism more ordered and scientific.
Paul Signac helped spread the approach. Seurat died young, in 1891, but the idea of breaking colour into parts influenced Fauvism and later painting and printing.
Visual characteristics
Technique: small dots or dabs of pure colour placed side by side, so that the eye mixes them from a distance (optical mixture).
Composition: carefully planned, still and calm, with simplified forms.
Subject: modern leisure, harbours and landscapes, painted in bright, luminous colour.
Related movements
Sources and further reading
Further reading: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Tate, Art Terms. Smarthistory.