Pointillist Art Timeline - Speech or Presentation Example

Final Project: Pointillist Art Timeline November 27, Pointillism: an art timeline An Introduction to PointillismIn response to your e-mail about the art timeline project, I decided to choose a style and medium of art that is well represented in our collection. After much examination of our various collections, I decided to go with painting as a medium, and to focus in particular on pointillist artwork. Before I go further with the timeline and present the ten significant paintings I have selected, I would like to provide a bit of text that can go on the online exhibit at the main page, so visitors to the site will know what it is exactly they are about to see. Pointillism as a painting style was developed in France towards the end of the 19th century by Georges Seurat as an offshoot from Impressionist painting (Osborne, 2001). It differs from most painting, where the mixture of colors was done on a pallet and then applied to the canvas. In Pointillist painting, the colors are applied to the canvas in “dots of pure pigment of uniform size” (Osborne, 2001). What makes the different shades and colors is the human eyes observation of many of these different-colored dots close to one another. Although this idea was not new, and had been in use by artists to varying degrees for quite a while, Pointillism took it to new extremes. Timeline Fig. 1 (1881) The Forest at Pontaubert Paris, France Georges Seurat Oil on Canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York This early work by Pointillist founder Georges Seurat shows his style of painting just before creating the Pointillist style (Forest at Pontaubert). The painting already exhibits much of the technique that would be used in later Pointillist masterpieces, such as the shades and colors being made up not of mixed colors on a pallet but of small dashes and blobs of colors placed close to one another on the canvas. It also shows the obvious signs of Impressionist influence on Seurat, whose attention to light and shadow is typical of that style of art, and which he took with him to the Pointillist style to an extreme degree. Fig. 2 (1884-1886) A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 Paris, France Georges Seurat Oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago A huge painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 (figure 2) is one of the most impressive masterpieces of the Pointillist movement. Georges Seurat, the artist, was also the founder of Pointillism, creating the technique from Impressionistic techniques used by earlier artists (A Sunday on La Grande Jatte). He visited “La Grande Jatte many times, making drawings and more than 30 oil sketches” (A Sunday on La Grande Jatte) to prepare for the final painting. Even though the attention to light is based on Impressionistic painting, its size and precision “contrast significantly with the small, spontaneous canvases of Impressionism” (A Sunday on La Grande Jatte). Fig. 3 (1887) Self-portrait Paris, France Vincent Van Gogh Oil on artists board Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Vincent Van Goghs work is world-famous, although most of it is known because of its wild swirls of color and “decorative clarity, expressive drawing, and violent chromatic contrasts” (Self-portrait). This self-portrait, out of a series that the artist completed over two years of his life in Paris, pre-dates the period which most of Van Goghs famous work came from. It uses Pointillist techniques that Van Gogh discovered in Paris, and shows that the work of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionists had a great effect on the famous painter. Although Van Goghs work later changed this impression stayed with him (Self-portrait). Fig. 4 (1887-1888) Circus Sideshow Paris, France Georges Seurat Oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Circus Sideshow, painted after Grande Jatte, is“the first important painting Seurat devoted to a scene of popular entertainment” (Circus Sideshow). It is not as large as his other paintings, either. Perhaps because of this it is “more mysterious in its allure” (Circus Sideshow). This is Seurats first night-time painting, giving the scene a much darker feel, but which still exhibits his trademark Pointillist style of dots of color (Circus Sideshow). These dots, perhaps because the white of the canvas comes through between them, still give the painting a fairly light feel. Fig. 5 (1890) Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 Paris, France Paul Signac Oil on canvas Museum of Modern Art, New York This early work by Paul Signac, the co-founder of the Pointillist movement along with Georges Seurat (Félix Fénéon) shows a wide variety of color and energy unlike the more muted, static works of Seurat. It shows a friend of the artist with a goatee, top hat, cane, and flower. The painting also exhibits the artists interest in science and Japanese printmaking (Félix Fénéon) in its choice of background painting style. All of this is achieved with the Pointillist technique of many small dots of single pigment colors. Fig. 6 (1890) Morning, Interior Paris, France Maximilien Luce Oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Maximilien Luce was a Neo-Impressionist (Morning, Interior), but this painting also shows a typical Impressionistic influence in the way light and shadow are represented in the painting, streaking across its background and interacting with the colors that are found there. These colors are applied in the Pointillist style, which Luce used at the time. The subject matter of the painting is a friend of the artists, who was also a Neo-Impressionist painter and who died shortly afterwards (Morning, Interior). Fig. 7 (1925) Lighthouse at Groix Groix, France Paul Signac Oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Although Groixs earlier work exhibited purely Pointillist ideas of style and composition, he later in life changed his method of painting as can be seen by this example. Instead of the single dots of color in works like Seurats La Grande Jatte, Signacs later work used longer pieces of pigment. This work, for example, shows the “mosaic-like strokes of color that were the hallmark of Signacs late style” (Lighthouse at Groix). It is proof that many Pointillists and Neo-Impressionists did not like to stay with one style, but liked to experiment. Fig. 8 (1963) Drowning Girl Roy Lichtenstein Oil on canvas Museum of Modern Art, New York This pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein is an interesting application of a Pointillist-like technique for color mixed with a more traditional style of line creation. The artist was heavily influenced by comic books for his artworks content and also for how it was represented, making it an example of pop art (Drowning Girl). Although the artist may have been indirectly influenced by Pointillism because he just copied the style of coloring from the comic book. However, he “manually simulated the Benday dots used in the mechanical reproduction of images” at the time (Drowning Girl). Fig. 9 (1986-1987) Lucas Chuck Close Oil and graphite on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Chuck Close is a modern practitioner of painting who falls more closely in the photorealistic school of art. However, he uses pointillist techniques such as “small dashes, dots of pigment, thumbprints, or applied pieces of colored paper” (Lucas, 2003) in his later works to achieve this startlingly realistic effect. What is especially interesting about Closes paintings is that they can be viewed in two different ways. If a viewer is very close to the painting, the pointillist technique is all that is visible. However, if the viewer goes far away, “they coalesce into an illusionistic portrait” (Lucas, 2003). Fig. 10 (1998) Marconi and Son Richard Hamilton Ink-jet (Iris) print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York One of the most interesting things about modern art is the way technology can play a role in it. This work by British artist Richard Hamilton is a wonderful example Although it looks as though it may just be a hyper-realistic painting, like Chuck Closes Lucas, it is actually a much-expanded version of a small photograph (Marconi and Son). The red green and flat white “exaggerate this abstraction of the walls and ceiling through digital manipulation” to create an effect that is almost Pointillist (Marconi and Son). The fact that the image is visibly made up of lots of little dots heightens that impression. Conclusion As can be seen, the work of the Pointillist movement is alive and well even today, a hundred plus years after its creation. Although almost nobody is creating purely Pointillist artwork of just dots of pigment, artists continue to experiment with color and form in ways very similar to Seurat, Signac, and the other painters involved in the original Pointillist movment. As computer technology becomes more accessible, no doubt more painters will go that route, exploring the possibilities of printing and computer graphics to represent light and color in new, yet strangely similar, ways. Bibliography A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 [Oil on canvas]. Figure 2. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from: Impressionism and Post-impressionism. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, at http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Impressionist/pages/IMP_7.shtml Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 [Oil on canvas]. Figure 5. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from The Collection. New York: Museum of Modern Art, at http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ATA%3AE%3Aex4667&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=6 Circus Sideshow [Oil on canvas]. Figure 4. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from European Painting Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/circus_sideshow_georges_seurat//objectview.aspx?OID=110002107&collID=11&dd1=11 Drowning Girl [Oil on canvas]. Figure 8. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from The Collection. New York: Museum of Modern Art, at http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=80249 The Forest at Pontaubert [Oil on canvas]. Figure 1. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from European Painting Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/the_forest_at_pontaubert_georges_seurat//objectview.aspx?OID=110002108&collID=11&dd1=11 Lighthouse at Groix [Oil on canvas]. Figure 7. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from European Painting Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/lighthouse_at_groix_paul_signac//objectview.aspx?OID=110003045&collID=11&dd1=11 Lucas [Oil and graphite on canvas]. (2003) Figure 9. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from: Modern Art Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/modern_art/lucas_chuck_close/objectview.aspx?collID=21&OID=210004973 Marconi and Son [Ink-jet (Iris) print]. Figure 10. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from: Modern Art Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/modern_art/marconi_son_richard_hamilton/objectview.aspx?page=1&sort=6&sortdir=asc&keyword=pointillis*&fp=1&dd1=21&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=21&OID=210011294&vT=1&hi=0&ov=0 Morning, Interior [Oil on canvas]. Figure 6. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from: European Painting Collection Database. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, at http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/morning_interior_maximilien_luce//objectview.aspx?OID=110001367&collID=11&dd1=11 Osborne, H. (2001). Pointillism. In H. Brigstoke (Ed.), Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. New York: Oxford UP. Self-portrait [Oil on artists board]. Figure 3. Retrieved on November 25, 2010 from:Interpretive Resource. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, at http://www.artic.edu/aic/resources/resource/94 Read More