Pointillism

Pointillism, a method of painting in which small, closely juxtaposed dots or strokes of pure colour are deposited on the canvas. Seen from a distance at which they are mixed by the eye, these “points” produce the illusion of a solid field of colour and give an effect of heightened luminosity.

The technique, based on the colour theories of Impressionism, was systematically developed by the French painter Georges Seurat, the founder of Neo-Impressionism, in the late 19th century. Seurat's painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (shown at the Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1886) is one of the most celebrated examples of Pointillism. After he met Seurat in 1884, the French Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac became an ardent exponent of the technique.