pointillism

Method of oil painting developed in the 1880s by the French neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat. He used small dabs of pure colour laid side by side that, when viewed from a distance, blend together to make other colours, forms, and outlines, and give an impression of shimmering light.

Seurat's reliance on the ‘optical mixing’ of colour was inspired by the scientific colour theories of Herman Helmholtz and Michel-Eugène Chevreul. The technique used more regular and even brushstrokes than those of the Impressionists, who mixed pigments to create the colour required. Seurat's work is seen as inaugurating the school of neo-Impressionism, and his use of pointillism was taken up by, among others, Camille Pissaro and Paul Signac.

The term pointillism was coined by the French critic Félix Fénéon in 1886, although both Seurat and Signac preferred the word ‘divisionism’.

pointillism

In music, a form of 1950s serialism in which melody and harmony were replaced by complexes of isolated tones. Pointillism was inspired by Anton Webern and adopted by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Igor Stravinsky.

Although not strictly serial, the music of Iannis Xenakis and John Cage at this time was also pointillist in texture.