Pointillism

Or the painting technique, which is characterized by the decomposition of colors into small points, with a highly surprising result

We are in France around 1870 within the neo-impressionist movement, and George Seurat, a true forerunner and putative father of this “way of painting,” also had his very personal definition of his pictorial vision, namely “chromo-luminarism,” but also “divisionism.”

He had not made trivial matters with the critics of the time, always careful to despise the new, almost defending a fort, composed of that tradition that however would always have a great need for innovation. And it is in this context that the new movement was renamed pointillism, downgrading it to minor painting. It remains to be emphasized that pointillism and divisionism are associated with the same technique, but some critics have always claimed that they are two different techniques that coexist within the same movement.

The basic difference with Impressionism, based on transience, the moment, light, and obviously en plein air, pointillist works are created in the studio, without movement, more aloof and devoid of all those nuances that have always been part of Impressionism.

The most famous exponents of pointillism? Without a shadow of a doubt Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, true putative fathers of this splendid painting technique that did not take long to arrive also in Italy, with the already mentioned parallel current, namely divisionism, through prominent figures such as Giovanni Segantini and Pelizza da Volpedo, to name a few, who, unlike the French, heirs of the Impressionist heritage, brought with them the late Romanticism.

With futurism knocking at the door.

Photo Credit by Wikipedia

Zero Biscuit by Mauro Lama