Artists of the Pointillism Movement

Capitalizing on Color: The Origins of Pointillism 

In 1886, Paris witnessed the launch of what would go down in history as the last Impressionist exhibition. Breaking into the art world the previous decade, the Impressionist movement had upended expectations for painting across the European continent. With eight exhibitions held between the 1874 and the mid-1880s, the group was beginning to fracture. Some of the movement’s pioneers continued to seek new modes of creative expression. They wanted to push the boundaries of color and light in their work beyond the experimentation seen in early Impressionist painting. These intrepid artists became the core group of what was originally known as Neo-Impressionism – and at the core of this Neo-Impressionist movement were the Pointillists. 

French painter Georges Seurat is often lauded as the founder of the Pointillist movement; his early Pointillist paintings debuted at that last Impressionist showcase and caused a stir among critics for their avant-garde approach. His paintings also inspired a new generation of fellow painters and beyond. His mode of Pointillism encouraged a greater investigation of color and brushstroke that would fuel many modernist explorations in the early 20th century. 

Putting a Finer Point on it: What is Pointillism?

What was it about this new mode of painting that proved so captivating? Seurat’s Pointillism, like that expressed by his followers, was so named because it was a painterly technique that tasked the painter with applying layer upon layer of small points, dots, or dabs of paint to the surface of a composition. Requiring unprecedented discipline and patience – each layer of dots of oil paint were allowed to dry before the application of the next layer – the pursuit of Pointillism was driven in large part by a fascination with science. Specifically inspiring were advances in optical and color theories. 

By Seurat’s generation it was understood that the human eye was capable of blending two colors together when placed close to one another given some distance, and that the phenomenon of color separation occurred when the eye gets closer to those two points. This understanding was based on the research of Michel-Eugène Chevreul, a French chemist and physiologist who published his findings on color perception in 1839, which had an impact on many artists of the time. Chevreul’s color theory inspired conversations about the ways in which complimentary colors could be paired to amplify the sensation of their hues. These advances spurred Pointillism, as the method tasked the eye with playing with paired colors that could intensify the painterly surface.

Famous Pointillist Artists and Their Work

With a framework for the Pointillist technique in mind, let’s take a closer look at this technique in practice via the work of some of history’s most famous Pointillist painters. 

Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886)

Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the La Grande Jatte is a relatively colossal painting that in many ways announced the arrival of Pointillism as a technique. Displayed at the final Impressionist exhibition, Seurat’s painting became a landmark for its unique technique. In this composition, Seurat labored for nearly two years not only to create roughly sixty studies for this painting but also to build up the surface of his paintings with small dabs of color. The result was a captivating composition that gives audiences a glimpse of Belle-Epoque Paris in its prime. 

Seurat set his scene on the island of La Grande Jatte, a luscious park space created near the center of Paris that had recently been designed as a space for everyday leisure. Seurat illustrates this quotidian quality with his extensive case of characters enjoying a beautiful, sunny afternoon. This “snapshot” of modern Paris at the time might seem like a traditionally Impressionist subject, but the technique of Seurat’s work here exemplifies the distinctions of Pointillism. From across the gallery, Seurat’s painting comes into crisp focus; on approach, though, the viewer will experience that crispness melt away as the eye becomes aware of the multitude of dots of color carefully choreographed across the surface. 

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Camille Pissarro’s The Hay Harvest (1887)

While Georges Seurat was a new artistic voice in the Parisian art world, Camille Pissarro was one of its grandfathers. Launching his painting career in the 1850s in Paris after having moved from his birthplace of the island of Saint Thomas, Pissarro had advocated for artistic innovation for decades by the time he encountered Seurat’s novel style. Pissarro had been a key participant in the early days of Impressionism, so when he encountered an even more revolutionary approach he turned his support to this new generation of painters. He equally worked to absorb the ideas of Pointillism in his paintings like The Hay Harvest. 

In this painting Pissarro captures a peaceful, pastoral scene of farmhands hard at work in the hay fields. Each element of the composition is captured in small strokes of paint, however, a discerning eye might note that these don’t seem quite the same as Seurat’s meticulous points. This difference is owed in part to Pissarro’s pursuit of “Divisionism,” a more general style of painting into which Pointillism would fall. Divisionism advocated for the neat separation (or division) of colors into unique points, but it did not mandate the same sort of minute points that Seurat’s paintings exemplified. Accordingly, Pissarro built his painting from broader dabs of color, which means the viewer can perhaps more easily break apart these individual hues. Though not as neat as Seurat’s points, Pissarro’s The Hary Harvest still captures the incredible play with color that this generation of painters pursued. 

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Charles Angrand’s Couple in the Street (1887)

An influential figure in the avant-garde art world of Paris in the later years of the 19th century, Charles Angrand arrived in Paris in the 1880s and was soon after enveloped in Seurat’s network of artistic colleagues. His friendship with the artist perhaps encouraged him to experiment with the Pointillist technique, which soon became the style that earned Angrand acclaim. In a work like Couple in the Street, Angrand illustrates his depth of knowledge of Pointillism by constructing a compositional space densely packed with points of color that combine to illustrate a couple on a stroll. 

Perhaps to emphasize this grid-like  matrix, Angrand relied upon a limited palette range here to showcase how even within this restricted range these colors can dazzle the eye. This palette diversified as Angrand’s career progressed, as did his brushstrokes. By the beginning of the 20th century, Angrand’s strokes had become notably larger and pushed many of his paintings to the brink of abstraction. This variety across his body of work serves as a fantastic reminder of the ongoing quest for innovation that spurred so many of the artists in this Pointillist generation. 

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Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (1887)

Vincent van Gogh is a universally celebrated painter of the late 19th century. Not every fan of his work, though, will know that he also experimented with the technique of Pointillism. His Self-Portrait from 1887 offers evidence of this phase in his career, when the young artist was just finding his footing as a painter. Prior to this painting, van Gogh had struggled to identify a place for his art. His earlier works, identifiable by their rural themes and their drab palettes, had left the artist searching for a new spark. 

Inspiration struck when the artist arrived in Paris in 1886, just in time to visit the final Impressionist exhibition where Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was on display. It would seem that experiencing this exhibition transformed van Gogh’s thinking. Suddenly, his palette became saturated with brighter, more vibrant colors and his brushstrokes began to move away from the loose, gestural strokes characteristic of Impressionism. Replacing them were short, succinct strokes of paint ranging from dabs to hatches. Similar to Pissarro, van Gogh didn’t follow Seurat’s approach directly, but its influence can nevertheless be seen in the colorful combination of strokes that make up this self-portrait’s background. Van Gogh would deviate from Pointillism in the future, however, the idea of pairing colors together rather than blending them would become paramount in van Gogh’s most iconic paintings like The Bedroom at Arles or Starry Night (1889). 

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Albert Duboi-Pillet’s The Banks of the Marne at Dawn (circa 1888)

A self-taught artist who enjoyed a military career before he turned to painting in the 1870s, Albert Duboi-Pillet earns a spot among the most important artists working in the Pointillist technique. Even a glance at a painting like The Banks of the Marne at Dawn explains his popularity. Though he has selected here a rather common subject – the view of a bend in the Marne River at daybreak – he electrifies the composition with his choice of color. 

Using a palette dominated by orange, Duboi-Pillet conjures a warm and inviting atmosphere that both captures the cool mist of the early morning and the warmth of the sun as it rises slowly above the horizon. Adding more marvel to this work is that Duboi-Pillet executed this painting in watercolor, a medium even more finicky when it comes to distinguishing – rather than blending – colors. While some artists within Duboi-Pillet’s circle used watercolor only in their preparatory stages for a final work, Duboi-Pillet’s keen capabilities in the medium enabled him to conjure such striking contrasts deftly here. 

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Théo van Rysselberghe’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Alice Sèthe (1888)

While many of the Pointillist painters focused their compositions on views of modernity or of nature, Théo van Rysselberghe’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Alice Sèthe recalls that many Pointillists also applied the technique to portraits of various sitters. Born in Ghent, Rysselberghe was raised and trained in Belgium. His early career – which saw study trips to Morocco and early artistic successes at Ghent’s equivalent of the Parisian Salon exhibition –  fueled his pursuit of artistic novelty. It was perhaps because of this drive that Rysselberghe proved pivotal to the foundations of the avant-garde art group known as “Les XX” (“The Twenty”) and also perhaps why Rysselberghe was so inspired by the ideas of Pointillism. 

Rysselberghe captured numerous subjects but seems to have favored portraits, and this particular work showcases how splendidly he was able to capture the humanity of his sitters. Alice was the daughter of the Sèthe family of Brussels who were close family friends of Rysselberghe, and here he commemorates her youthful elegance in a painting that is widely considered the artist’s first Pointillist portrait. Creating an exquisite contrast between the soft blue of her ballgown and the warm tones of the gilded furnishings that serve as her backdrop, Rysselberghe captures both the refinement of the wealthy at the time, as well as the energy of painting’s forward-thinking approach. Rysselberghe would paint an equally remarkable portrait of Alice’s sister, Irma, in 1894, and between these two works one can see how rapidly Rysselberghe cultivated his Pointillist approach. 

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Paul Signac’s Portrait of Félix Fénéon (1890)

Often credited with first promoting ideas of Pointillism, art critic and dealer Félix Fénéon was one of the most influential voices in late 19th-century Paris. Paul Signac celebrates Fénéon’s support in the undeniably kaleidoscopic portrait, whose full title is: Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythms Go with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890. So psychedelic in its combinations of patterns and textures one could easily be mistaken in thinking this work was from the later 20th century, but in reality Signac’s Portrait of Félix Fénéon showcased the incredibly futuristic approaches that some members of the Pointillist circle were ready to embrace. 

Signac became enamored with Pointillism after having met Georges Seurat in 1884 and soon after was working to achieve a similar regularity in his style. His canvases often explored more conventional views like the landscape, however, this particular portrait reveals how powerful this play of Pointillist color could be. Signac was also pivotal in the formation of the Society of Independent Artists to further advocate for innovative artistic voices alongside Seurat and Dubois-Pillet. 

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Henri-Edmond Cross’s The Evening Air (1893)

In 1883, Henri-Edmund Cross made a fortuitous friendship, Amid travel associated with his exhibition of his work at the Universal Exposition in Nice that year, Cross made the acquaintance of Paul Signac. He soon fell in with Signac’s artistic circle, and by the subsequent century Cross was fully focused on Pointillist painting. It was around this same time that Cross moved to the south of France where, in 1893, he painted The Evening Air. 

This marvelous painting captures the powerful hues of a springtime sunset in a palette characteristically bright and airy. Across this work, Cross plays with line, light, and shadow. His use of short strokes to conjure the contours of his figures and of the landscape create striking contrast from the careful modeling of the landscape that earlier artists might have employed. His brushstrokes, somewhat larger than one might expect for a Pointillist painter, nevertheless capture his mastery of the technique. An ever devoted friend of Signac, Cross gifted this painting to the artist following its debut at the Independent Salon in 1894.

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Maximilien Luce’s The Port of Saint-Tropez (1893) 

Trained as a printmaker and also expert in the art of illustration, Maximilien Luce is perhaps best recognized for his role as another core member of the pioneering generation of Pointillists. Luce was introduced to the technique in the 1880s and from that point in his career made it his artistic focus. His focus in these paintings was on contemporary scenes in which light played a rather imposing presence, such as the Port of Saint-Tropez demonstrates. 

Paintings like The Port of Saint-Tropez exemplify his ability to capture the atmospheric effects of a sun-drenched harbor scene using these artfully divided brushstrokes. His selected palette amplifies the feel of the heat of the sun as it bakes the city, and his animated strokes of paint conjure a sense of the bustling of humanity along the port. 

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Anna Boch’s Falaise – Côte de Bretagne (1900-1902)

Though her early works were solidly Impressionist in style, Belgian painter Anna Boch evolved over the course of her career to become one of the few female artists to achieve acclaim as a Pointillist. Moreover, she was also the only female member of the Belgian modernist art group known as “Les XX” in the later years of the 19th century. Making the acquaintance of other Pointillists, like Théo van Rysselberghe – a fellow member of Les XX – Boch was treated to the technique and soon absorbed it into her work. 

Though Boch painted various subjects, her landscape paintings,  like Falaise – Côte de Bretagne, epitomize her facility with color. Here dabs of color mix with broader strokes to create a dynamic painterly surface that makes this view of the Brittany coast come to life. Though the subtle pink along the horizon suggests a sunset scene, Boch has tempered her palette to contemplate more the conversations between colors rather than the intensity of light on the landscape, which gives this painting a striking mellow mood. 

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A Passion for Pointillism 

Those knowledgeable in the Pointillist painters of the late 19th century can relay the incredible influence these artists held over the following generations. The play with color and form in these Pointillist works framed a larger conversation that would continue among the Fauves, like Henri Matisse, and the Futurists, such as Giacomo Balla. Beyond this enduring influence, Pointillist paintings are simply captivating. Their breathtaking use of color and passionate embrace of this remarkably precise painterly technique resulted in a style that exemplified the spirit of innovation of this era.