Layers of Meaning

Sunday in Chicago with George

NPR's Susan Stamberg recently reported on a new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago entitled Seurat and the Making of "La Grande Jatte" NPR has an recording of this radio piece, which is well worth the four minutes of listening.

Stamberg makes the revelation that pointillism and the pointillist style is not refering to dots of paint. Instead point in French means stitch. The word was coined to describe the tapestry-like effect of Seurat's paint as it played across the canvas.

The artcyclopedia explains: "Pointillism is a form of painting in which the use of tiny primary-color dots is used to generate secondary colors." Which ties in neatly with the Art Institute of Chicago's explanation of the inspiration for pointillism (birth of color theory): " These early paintings were informed by the law of contrast as articulated in the writings of M.-E. Chevreul. A noted 19th-century color theorist, Chevreul observed that just as dark and light oppositions enhance each other, any color is likewise heightened when placed beside its “complement”—located on the opposite side of the color wheel. When the complements red and green are put side by side, for instance, the red will seem redder and the green, greener.

Seurat was also aware of how the optical mixture of colors in the eye was different from their mixture on the palette. Juxtaposing related shades of a color on a canvas (yellows and greens for example) will create a more vivid and luminous effect than if the colors had been mixed on the palette."

A page of selected works viewing of the study cards that Seurat used in composing the painting.

If you would like to apply pointillist theory in fiber art, you might want to begin with some exercises written for painters, but they could be done in thread or fused fabric, for example: Tapestries of Color by Tina Tammaro or Create a pointillist painting from Keppel Union School District in California.