Pointillism
Published May 09, 2004
The State of Florida requires two semesters (six credit hours) of Humanities courses in order to complete the general-education requirement for a two-year college degree. Being a bit of a glutton for punishment, I took the required two, and then a third as an elective.
I must admit, I don't get a lot of "art." I must not be cultured enough to appreciate it. I tend not to view a photograph of a guy with a bull-whip sticking out of his ass, or the Virgin Mary rendered in elephant shit, as "art." But hey, maybe that's just me...
What I do get, is a little something called Pointillism, a beautiful style typified by the works of a French fella named Georges Seurat. The masterpiece of this style is called Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte.
Pointillism has been decribed as such:
[A] form of painting in which the use of tiny primary-color dots is used to generate secondary colors. It is an offshoot of Impressionism, and is usually classified as a form of Post-Impressionism. It is very similar to Divisionism, but where Divisionism is concerned with color theory, Pointillism is more focused on the specific style of brushwork used to apply the paint.
The term "Pointillism" was first used with respect to the work of Georges Seurat, and he is the artist most closely associated with the movement. Among the relatively few artists following this style were Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross.
Pointillism is considered to have been an influence on the development of Fauvism.
Yeah, whatever. I just know I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.
You think there's any hope of cloning this Seurat guy, and making him do the Olsen Twins, in oil? (Pardon my double entendre. I'm feeling rather French tonight...)
RJ Elliott is a graduate student at the University Of Central Florida. His passions in life are sports, politics, nature, and women who have piercings they never told their daddy about. He dislikes daytime television, left-wing dictators, and people who talk like Garrison Keillor. He is ambivalent about the names "Trig" and "Piper."
- Pointillism
- Published: May 09, 2004
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: RJ Elliott
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I must admit, I don't get a lot of "art." I must not be cultured enough to appreciate it. I tend not to view a photograph of a guy with a bull-whip sticking out of his ass, or the Virgin Mary rendered in elephant shit, as "art." But hey, maybe that's just me...
I certainly wouldn't want either picture hanging above the mantle, and don't necessarily want to stand up for either instance as what I consider art either, however I just want to point out that some art is to entertain and appreciate, and some art is to convey a message.
Just like some books are solely to entertain and some books are intended to inform. While Stephen King and Rush Limbaugh both have books, we don't normally stand the books side by side in comparison, it's inaccurate to do so.
Also, art is subjective. If you looked at my fridge, you would see a bunch of paper hanging up, with nothing but squiggly lines all over it. It happens to be some of the best art I've ever had though.
In the broadest sense, it's art if you say it is.
I DO get most art, which is separate from determining whether it is "good" or "bad," but I don't much get photography as art. I usually see it as craft, although I appreciate some "treated" photgraphs, but that's something else again.
I'm one of those broadest sense people. I pretty much call everything art. I'm with Eric though, even if I think everything can be art, there is still a differentiation between "good" and "bad."
One type of art I've never understood the appeal of is color field painting (eg: Tom Rothko). All I'm saying is, how was that suppose to be innovative?
Anyway, I don't really see how crafts can be separated from arts though. The earliest forms of arts were crafts (eg: pottery).
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i think i have heard of this style of painting. it is very clever, and definitely more in a category of art i can appreciate as art.