Pointillism is seen as part of the Post-Impressionism movement. The style was founded by the artists George Seurat and Paul Signac. Unlike Impressionism, pointillists used only dots of pure color to create images.
The accumulation of dots constituted an integral image. Pointillism is not only a direction of art and painting, it is a specific technique for painting pictures. The peak of development of the direction is considered to be the 1880s - 90s.
Origin
Art historians believe that pointillism, as an art direction, was a product of neo-impressionism. The year of birth of the style is 1885, the country is France, where the founders of the direction studied and developed.
Most famous painting, representing the style - "Sunday on the Island" by J. Seurat. it is a recognized masterpiece: the canvas is over 6 feet high and 10 feet wide. Seurat worked on it for about two years - painstaking work required precise drawing of small dots of different colors that made up the landscape. You can see the painting today at Art Institute in Chicago.
Symbolism as a style in painting
Representatives of the direction
The founder of pointillism was Georges Seurat, who was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Traditional classical artist rejected impressionism, in favor of scientific method, which he developed around 1884 and called "chromoluminarism". Based on the scientific theory of color by the French chemist Chevreul and the American physicist Ogden Rude. The method was used earlier, but it was Seurat who began to apply it systematically as the main way of drawing images on the canvas. Seurat's main student was the former impressionist Paul Signac. The landscape painter Signac was attracted by the methods of pointillism and divisionism, and after the death of Seurat in 1891, he continued the work of a teacher. In addition to oil and watercolor paintings, he created etchings, lithographs, pen and ink works. Interestingly, Signac was one of the first buyers of the painting by Henri Matisse. 
Mannerism as a style in painting
Signac not only became the heir to Seurat's style, but also an experimenter - he worked with the distance between points, studying the features of its influence on the perception of a mosaic image by the eye. On the canvases of Seurat, the points are located at the same distance, in Signac - they approach and move away from each other.
The result of the artist's experiments is the creation of dynamic, volumetric images by drawing points at different distances.
Other famous representatives style:
Experimented with basic directional techniques. In some works, he used thin, small dots of paint. In others, he used large strokes of paint to achieve a particular effect. 
French neo-impressionist, used pointillism in many works. His most famous paintings- a series of works "Notre Dame". 
He painted several paintings using the technique of pointillism. The most famous and iconic work is a portrait of his wife and daughter. The artist's technique developed in the direction of increasing strokes, their coarser rendering. 
The history of the Gothic style in painting
Vincent Van Gogh
Experiments with pointillism belong to Vincent van Gogh - using a dotted technique, a self-portrait was painted in 1887. 
Camille Pissarro
For 5 years he worked in the style of pointillism. 
Style Features
Works in the style of pointillism cannot be confused with anything - the canvas consists of short strokes of a round or rectangular shape. In translation, the name of the direction of painting means "to write with dots." 
color theory
In creating the style, Seurat used general position color theory - the human eye mixes the colors of points located nearby. In the image of objects on the canvas, dots of contrasting shades are used - blue and orange, red and green, yellow and blue. Thanks to this technique, objects are expressive. neighboring colors do not mix with each other. The optical effect of the dots is calculated on the fact that color combinations and transformations will be performed by our eye.
art deco painting style
The painting "Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte" Seurat, was a shock and the opening of the exhibition of the Impressionists in 1886. Thanks to the effect of color theory, the image turned out to be alive and multi-dimensional from a distance. If you get closer, the picture breaks up into dots. The artist's goal is achieved - he conveyed the oscillation air environment and the beauty of nature.
Divisionism
Seurat called this style of painting "Divisionism", when he invented it, the name was changed through long time. The fewer dots, the clearer picture and more sharp lines, just like the screen resolution on a computer monitor. In many ways, pointillism can be called a science as well as an art. Pointillism used optical illusions to create images from many small dots close together. When viewed closely, the picture looks blurry, fuzzy, from afar - the object depicted by the artist is exactly visible. The technique of applying an image to a canvas is compared to pixels on computer monitors. 
Expressionism as a style in painting
Peace energy
The idea of the pointillists is to convey the energy of the surrounding world with the help of an unusual technique of painting canvases. They did not plan to shock or surprise the audience, but unusual technique provoked criticism and misunderstanding. The essence of criticism is that the use of dots for writing pictures turns painting into a mechanical, tedious task, which kills creativity and individuality.
In children's creativity
Style is often used to develop children's creativity. Toddlers are delighted with the transformation of the image, which is viewed from afar and at close range.
Pointillism as a style in painting Pointillism is seen as part of the Post-Impressionism movement. The style was founded by the artists George Seurat and Paul Signac. Unlike Impressionism, pointillists used only dots of pure color to create images. The accumulation of dots constituted an integral image. Pointillism is not only a direction of art and painting, it is a specific technique for painting pictures. The peak of development of the direction is considered to be the 1880s - 90s. The most famous canvas representing the style is “Sunday on the Island” by J. Seurat. This is a recognized masterpiece: the canvas is over 6 feet high and 10 feet wide. Seurat worked on it for about two years - painstaking work required precise drawing of small dots of different colors that made up the landscape. You can see the canvas today at the Art Institute in Chicago. The founder of pointillism was Georges Seurat, who was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The traditional classical artist rejected Impressionism in favor of a scientific method which he developed around 1884 and called "Chromoluminarism". Based on the scientific theory of color by the French chemist Chevreul and the American physicist Ogden Rude. The method was used earlier, but it was Seurat who began to apply it systematically as the main way of drawing images on the canvas. Seurat's main student was the former impressionist Paul Signac. The landscape painter Signac was attracted by the methods of pointillism and divisionism, and after the death of Seurat in 1891, he continued the work of a teacher. In addition to oil and watercolor paintings, he created etchings, lithographs, pen and ink works. Interestingly, Signac was one of the first buyers of the painting by Henri Matisse. Signac not only became the heir to Seurat's style, but also an experimenter - he worked with the distance between points, studying the features of its influence on the perception of a mosaic image by the eye. On the canvases of Seurat, the points are located at the same distance, in Signac - they approach and move away from each other. The result of the artist's experiments is the creation of dynamic, three-dimensional images by drawing dots at different distances. Works in the style of pointillism cannot be confused with anything - the canvas consists of short strokes of a round or rectangular shape. In translation, the name of the direction of painting means "to write with dots." Style is often used to develop children's creativity. Toddlers are delighted with the transformation of the image, which is viewed from afar and at close range. Psychologists consider painting and creativity necessary for the harmonious development of the personality, but traditional drawing is not given to all children, so other techniques should be used. Pointillism for the development of children's creativity is one of the most successful methods for introducing a child to drawing. Through the use of style, children develop memory, imagination, thinking, attention. Finger painting, as one of the pointillism techniques, is not only interesting, but also a fun drawing technique. Pointillism is an unusual milestone in the development of painting at the end of the 19th century, which has become not only a direction and technique for creating images, but also a scientific method. Style is actively used to develop creativity in children at the present stage.
The 19th and 20th centuries were rich in new trends in art. Artists experimented a lot, looking for new expressive forms and possibilities. And as a result of such searches, pointillism appeared in painting. Let's talk about what its specificity is, who invented it and who especially excelled in this style.
Term meaning
The name of the style "pointillism" comes from the French word for "dot". From the same word comes, for example, the name ballet shoes- pointe shoes. The name is associated with the peculiarities of fine art. Pointillism in painting, therefore, can be described as a "dotted" style.
History of pointillism
At the end of the 19th century, active research was carried out in the field of theory, physics and psychology of color. They wanted to find tools that would allow the author to convey his idea and emotional message to the viewer as fully as possible. chemical theory Eugene Chevrel's colors mutual influence different colors on each other and the physical theory of Ogden Rude about mixing colors gave impetus to new experiments and searches. Also at this time there are big disputes about the psychology of color, about its symbolism and influence on the psycho-emotional state of a person. All these scientific researches have led to the fact that artists are beginning to take a new approach to painting technique. At this time, the Impressionists were actively exploring the possibilities of paints for conveying light, air and water space. They sought to convey a momentary, living feeling of the movement of natural elements. Classical technology did not give them such an opportunity. As a result of searches and experiments in 1885, pointillism appeared in painting. What is the peculiarity of this style?
Method and technique of pointillism in painting
The very name of the style speaks of the peculiarities of the manner of writing. The artist paints in small square strokes. The movement of his brush resembles the light flutter of a butterfly, which touches the canvas only for a moment and then again breaks away from it. But the essence of the method is not only in the special imposition of a paint layer on the surface of the canvas. The search for special opportunities that affect the viewer gave rise to pointillism in painting. How to draw to convey the beauty of a moment of nature and the feeling of the moment that the artist experienced? Here main question, which painters asked themselves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. French artists influenced scientific discoveries in the theory of color and light, as well as thanks to the discovery of photography, which captured the moment of being, they began to experiment with the imposition of colors on the canvas. And pointillism was one of the options new technology. Paints in this style were not mixed on the palette, as was customary in classical painting, but were superimposed in their original form with small strokes. Moreover, contrasting, according to the coloristic circle, tones always side by side. Red was superimposed next to green, yellow - to blue, etc. This made it possible for the eye to perceive a vivid sensation of air and light. When perceiving a picture, the human eye itself produced a mixture of colors, and a multicolored work was obtained. The technique of pointillism is very complex and painstaking. It is similar in its decorativeness and complexity to mosaics. But the artists were not afraid of such a volume of work, since it allowed them to solve the artistic task.
Founders
In 1885 appeared new style in painting - pointillism, its birth is connected, first of all, with the name of the French artist Georges Seurat. He was disappointed in the classical pictorial manner and sought to find his own style. To do this, he actively studied scientific works on color theory. He was greatly influenced by the already mentioned works on physics and chemistry, as well as Charles Blanc's studies on color. Seurat decisively abandoned the impressionist approach to painting, based on instantaneous sensation. He believed that the artist should proceed from scientific discoveries. The Creator, in his opinion, should not rely on inspiration or a momentary sensation, but should carefully calculate his every step, based on psychophysiological and physical knowledge. The artist first formulated his discoveries in the field of color science in the theory of chromoluminarism, and later substantiated a new approach - divisionism or pointillism. In 1884-86, he painted a huge canvas, which later became very famous - "Sunday on the island of Grand Jat." Its size - two by three meters, was designed for perception at a distance. The work has become a classic of pointillism. Unfortunately, Seurat did not have time to fully develop his theory and translate it into works, he died at a young age, and in the future the direction is associated with the name of his student, the former impressionist Paul Signac.
Pointillist artists
It was Signac who brought the theory to the absolute and told the world about what pointillism in painting is. Pictures-reproductions of his works appeared in magazines and on postcards, as they were very decorative and unusual. Signac not only painted and brought pointillism to perfection in his canvases, but also created a serious theoretical work"From Eugene Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism", which has become a kind of textbook for artists of this direction. The artist was mainly engaged in painting landscapes, and the point technique allows him to achieve incredible atmospheric and airiness. Signac also experimented in graphics and in black and white painting. The success and unusual effect of pointillist works attracted the attention of others. outstanding painters. Camille Pissarro worked in dot technique at the end of his life, V. Van Gogh tried his hand at this technique. Well-known pointillists were Ch. Angrand, M. Luce, T. van Reisselberge, A. Lozhe, A. E. Cross. This style has not lost its relevance to this day. But there was no such mass pointillism as at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The most famous contemporary pointillists are Benjamin Laading and Miguel Endara.
Works in the style of pointillism
Classical pointillism in painting is represented by the works of Georges Seurat: "Circus", "Ships at Sea", "Bathers in Asnières" and Paul Signac: "Harbor in Marseille", "Breakfast", "Venice, Pink Cloud". As well as the experimental works of Van Gogh "The Sower and the Sunset", A. Matisse "Parrot Tulips", paintings by C. Pissarro "Hampton", "Haymaking in Eragny", "Children in the courtyard of the estate". Today, works in this technique are masterpieces that are hunted by museums and collectors. After all, there are few such paintings, and they are real rarities.
In the 19th century, a wave of innovative artists swept France, rejecting the old school of painting and looking for new ways of creative expression. A breakthrough in this area was the formation of the impressionism style, which was fundamentally different from all fine technique that existed at that time. All more artists adjoined the new trend and brought their ideas into it.
Term meaning
One of these ideas was experimenting with color and trying to turn the process of creating an image on canvas into a scientific experiment. Thus, a new direction in painting was formed - pointillism. The name is based on the characteristic manner of writing pictures. This new style was not spontaneous and spontaneous, like classical impressionism, the artist was clearly aware of what he was doing and what result he wanted to achieve.
The name comes from the French word pointel - a dotted letter, to write with dots. Less commonly used is another name - divisionism, which means "separation". Pointillism in painting means the manner of writing by applying individual colorful dots at a certain distance from each other.
The emergence of style and color theory
The technique of pointillism in painting is not just a chaotic application of colored dots. Each of them occupies its strictly defined place. For example, blue should be next to yellow, red - to green. Because, according to color theory, from points of two different colors that are next to each other, the human eye itself mixes the third color. Yellow and blue dots located nearby, mixed on the retina of the eye, will seem to us in green. The first to put these features into practice was the French artist Georges-Pierre Seurat.
He felt cramped within the framework of Impressionism after he began to study the scientific research of Eugene Chevrel, Hermann Helmholtz, Ogden Rude. In their scientific papers they wrote about the perception of color by the retina, about light spectra, about color formation. Under their influence, he decided to make a kind of revolution in fine arts based on the theory of color mixing. Its essence is that there are three main adaptive colors - red, green and blue, mixing which, you can get any perceived human eye shade.
Pointillism in painting by Georges Seurat
Through experiments, Seurat came to the conclusion that the most convenient technique for implementing his ideas would be point. He took the basic pure colors and successively filled the space of the canvas with neat dots, creating at the same time quite specific images. The first successful experience, which he presented to the general public, was "Sunday on the island of Grande Jatte".
The picture produced very strong impression on the spectators. At close range, they could only see a mosaic canvas woven from a thousand small dots. But when they moved a few steps away from the picture, a lively and multifaceted scene appeared in front of them, in which one could clearly distinguish the swaying of the air. Moreover, the audience did not even suspect that only three primary colors and two additional ones, not mixed with each other, were used in the picture. Optical mixing of colors occurred already directly on the retina when viewing the picture at a distance.
Seurat, unlike many artists, did not work in the open air (in outdoors), but in the workshop, using photographs. This gave him many advantages. He could take his time, carefully select colors and think through each stroke, and, importantly, he could not follow the changing lighting, not catch the right moment. The artist lived short life, did not live to be 32 years old, but managed to introduce own style pointillism in painting, find like-minded people and followers.
Followers
Together with Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, another young french artist. He somewhat modified Seurat's technique, experimenting with strokes, with the size and distance between them. He sought to achieve greater dynamics in his paintings. Signac's color ripples are more noticeable than those of his predecessor, but this does not spoil his work in the least, on the contrary, it creates the effect of moving light. Paul Signac also wrote a treatise substantiating a new direction in painting.
In addition to the two most famous adherents, pointillism in painting had several more followers, including those outside France, including Camille Pissarro, Georges Lemmen, Theo Van Riesselberge, Hippolyte Ptizhan, Henri Edmond Cross, Giovanni Segantini, Nikolai Meshcheryakov.
Camille Pissarro, who was very significant figure among artists, spoke of the pointillists as scientific neo-impressionists. Over time, pointillism has changed and transformed into futurism. In its original form, it for a long time ceased to exist.
Pointillism in our time
AT contemporary art again began to return to pointillism in painting. Artists began to widely use various optical effects in their work. The most famous contemporary pointillist is Matthew Davis. His paintings come closest to classical technique, although he uses not only dots, but also large color spots.
Two more bright representative working in this direction, William Betts and Miguel Endara. True, as far as Miguel is concerned, his paintings are related to pointillism only by the very process of drawing with dots.
Pointillism in painting for children
The study of color plays very important role in the education of the child. Color science develops memory, attention, perception in children. BUT dot drawing contributes to the development of perseverance, fine motor skills Moreover, such an activity can captivate for several hours.
In this case, you can use different materials, felt-tip pens or paints, and instead of brushes, paint can be applied directly with your fingers. For this, there are special children's finger paints, completely non-toxic. Drawing with dots for children is much easier than traditional way, it's a lot of fun. Even the simplest subject, drawn by a child in this style, will look picturesque.
In fact, the artists did not walk in ballet flats, but drew pictures in the style of pointillism (from the French pointiller - “to write with dots”, pointillism - from the French pointel - “letter with dots”).
Pointillism is one of the most interesting and unusual destinations painting. This is such a manner of painting pictures with separate strokes of the correct, dotted or rectangular shape. The artists, applying pure colors to the canvas, counted on the optical mixing of colors in the eye of the viewer, and they succeeded.
Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859−1891) designed the original painting technique writing in small dotted strokes with the inclusion of contrasting (additional) colors, which suggested their merging on the retina - that is, as it happens during perception sunlight and colors in nature. In pointillist paintings Blue colour is next to yellow, red is next to green, yellow near blue.
The goal of all pictorial experiments was to create a pictorial analogue of the light-air environment. With a slight departure from the picture, the colors mix on the viewer's retina, causing sensations of vibrating air and changeable light.
In one of the main works of Seurat - the painting "Sunday on the Island of Grande Jatte" depicts Parisians relaxing on the banks of the Seine on Sunday.
The artist created a living space, as if oscillating from the movement of warm air, in which generalized silhouettes do not seem flat, and a sharp line between spatial zones, created by a thick shadow in the foreground, does not allow the image to become an ordinary pattern on a plane.
But in the paintings of the pointillist Paul Signac (1863−1935), the mosaic of dotted strokes acquires an energy different from the slow rhythm of the picturesque images of Seurat. The strokes are either close or slightly distant from each other, creating the effect of a mass of color that seems to be born before the eyes of the viewer. And the paintings are simply mesmerizing with their beauty and singularity.
Many critics of the time believed that new method canceled letters creative individuality artist and turned his work into a boring mechanical application of strokes. But as you can see from these pictures, this was not the case at all. Pointillist technique helped to create bright, contrasting and very beautiful pictures.
The paintings of pointillist artists attract with their unusualness, make the viewer admire them only because they are “painted with dots”.
Photo from www. art-spb.ru.
