Inspired by Pointillism

Pointillism is a pictorial technique that gave birth to its artistic movement in painting. The method consisted of juxtaposing small dots or square of vibrant colours, rather than mixing colour pigments on a palette. Portraits, landscapes, and everyday life scenes would then come to life under the artist's multiple tiny brushstrokes. Though the technique existed since the 16th century, it is the French painter Georges Seurat who officialised it as a movement in the late nineteenth century.

Art critics first employed the term "pointillism" as a pejorative designation for this new pictorial method. The late 19th-century art world was characterised by conflicts between Academic Art and Impressionist artists, as the latter was trying to defy the established rules. The Ecole des Beaux Arts rejected the works of the pointillist painters, who were not responding to the precepts of the Academy. The pointillist painter Paul Signac then replaced the derogatory term of pointillism by theorising the technique under the name of “divisionism." Paul Signac's divisionism followed the guidelines of meticulous colour theory. The theory was based on the association of complementary colours to create light, contrast, and harmony. Artists resorted to the "chromatic circle" system and optical phenomena to depict sceneries, mixing blue with orange, red with green, yellow with purple... They performed the work of a magician, tricking the viewer's naked eye that the small dots were unified flat tints from a distance.

Georges Seurat's monumental canvas “A Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" was one of the first recognised pointillist painting. The painting was exhibited in 1886 at the final Impressionist exhibition and differentiated itself from Impressionist art. Artists such as Seurat, Paul Signac, Lucien and Camille Pissarro were fervent supporters of the practice, and created the “Society of Independent Artists." Influential art critics started rallying to the pointillist's cause. Felix Feneon was particularly important in spreading the movement to the general public. It was him who coined the term “neo-impressionism" for the first time in 1886, and wrote the pointillist's Manifesto titled From Eugene Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism. Neo-Impressionist painters operated a scientific systematisation of Impressionism and were against the flow of the contemporary movement of symbolism.

Pointillism remained a significant source of inspiration in Modern Art, and several Post-Impressionist masters drew inspiration from the pointillist movement, like Henri Matisse or Vincent Van Gogh. Today, contemporary artist such as Skoya Assemat-Tessandier are retaking the principles of this artistic practice to produces canvases of pointillist backgrounds, revealing elegant silhouettes. In this selection of paintings, drawings, and watercolours you'll discover artworks inspired by the soothing practice of pointillism.