pointillism

[pwan-tl-iz-uhm, -tee-iz-, poin-tl-iz-]

noun

(sometimes initial capital letter)

1. a theory and technique developed by the neo-impressionists, based on the principle that juxtaposed dots of pure color, as blue and yellow, are optically mixed into the resulting hue, as green, by the viewer.

pointillism

/ -tiːˌɪzəm, ˈpwæntɪˌlɪzəm, ˈpɔɪn- /

noun

1. Also called: divisionism. the technique of painting elaborated from impressionism, in which dots of unmixed colour are juxtaposed on a white ground so that from a distance they fuse in the viewer's eye into appropriate intermediate tones

Other Word Forms

• pointillist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pointillism¹

1900–05; < French pointillisme, equivalent to pointill ( er ) to mark with points + -isme -ism

Word History and Origins

Origin of pointillism¹

C19: from French, from pointiller to mark with tiny dots, from pointille little point, from Italian puntiglio, from punto _point

Example Sentences

In these landscapes, naturalism and abstraction often battle to a pulsating draw by means of a magnified, or coarsened pointillism that recalls Seurat in its mosaic-like array of dots, dashes and commas.

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The paintings, done in a pointillism style, shimmered with the high-contrast pop of a flash photo or an instant Polaroid.

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In “Colors of Summer,” Stream captures the avian residents of our region with pointillism and symbolism, drawing on his Sun’Aq Aleut ancestry.

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Your notes at the end of the novel mention your method of “narrative pointillism.“

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Larrimore remixes half a dozen French painting styles, chiefly pointillism, to make her otherworldly garden scenes.

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