Divisionism to Abstract Dots

      

Introduction

In the late 1800s, art movements arose in reaction to Impressionism.  Painters, later to be called pointillists, began using small marks of pure color to create special effects according to the color theory of the time.  The idea was for two colors adjacent to each other to mix in the eye of the viewer.  Two famous Pointillists were Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.   

          A related group of artists, the Divisionists, used small patches or strokes of color.  Among them were Andre Derain and Vincent Van Gogh.  To be inclusive, the term divisionism could cover both groups.

          Whether you have some, or perhaps no, acquaintance with the divisionists, you will find the following high quality YouTube videos pleasant and enlightening to round out our introduction.         

       By the Albertina Museum in Vienna please see Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh | Composition & Colour and another video: Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh | Ways of Pointillism.  

       By Art History School see The Story behind Great Paintings: Georges Seurat - Sunday on the Grande Jatte.  

       By Newfields see Science, Technology and Art | Neo-Impressionism.

As an aside, it is worth noting that many Aboriginal paintings use dots as we have seen earlier.

       The original divisionists are worthy of more attention and study but now we will proceed to our topic at hand, the modern abstract successors of the divisionists.

Neo Movements

Art and architecture have an abundance of neo or revival movements.  We present a short list with examples.  Neo Gothic architecture ‒- British Houses of Parliament;  Neo Expressionism, called Abstract Expressionism ‒- Jackson Polock; Neo Impressionism, actually another name for Divisionism ‒- Seurat and Signac.  Note that sometimes the Neo movement is close to its forerunner and sometimes it is more loosely related.

Neo Pointillism

A modern Neo Pointillist is the Italian - Canadian artist Santina Semadar Panetta. Some of her works relate to landscapes and so are semi abstract.  Other paintings may be inspired by nature but furthered by feelings and sensibilities.  Hence we will call them lyrically abstract. 

 

The painting shown is called Esaltazione in Italian, meaning Exaltation.  The high energy juxtaposition of colors causes them to shimmer or even startle when seen up close. Careful exercise of taste is required to achieve impact and interest while avoiding garishness.  Needless to say, you may wish to step back from the painting to obtain a more unified effect.

          Sizable Round Dots

Art using sizable round dots is related to neo divisionism in having separate areas of color but the overall character is very different.  The pure colors of the dots are separated by a uniform background color so they only interact weekly. 

Polka dots are what we have in mind.  They originated in the mid 1800s at about the same time that the polka dance and music emerged from Czeck lands in central Europe.  As happens at times, the dots by association picked up the name polka.  Clothing makers adopted the polka dots commonly in a one over two arrangement.  Above one row of dots, the next higher row is shifted.  Most commonly the dots are all the same color and contrast strongly with the background ‒- like white dots on a navy blue background.  I trust you have seen polka dot blouses or dresses. 

Tracy Adams

Please look at the grid of dots called (R)evolution 15 done by the Californian artist Tracy Adams.

           Note the diffused bleeding or haze around some dots and that some dots are barely visible. Those effects are achieved by the use of encaustic ‒- a pigmented hot wax medium. Since the work is large enough, 40” by 40”, that allows space to use a heat gun or hot air blower to move or modify color.  Tracy Adams’ work has an ethereal quality.  The dots seem to float at different distances in a liquid atmosphere.

        Recall that the artist Jasper Johns used encaustic to great effect for his flag paintings.  Encaustic imparts a kind of stable, timeless, old, classic, treasured look. 

Damien Hirst

         The celebrity British artist Damien Hirst makes what he calls spot paintings.  His first spot painting from 1986 was a free form painting of closely spaced spots, not in a grid.  More recently he makes grid style paintings with evenly spaced dots on a white background as large as 6 ft. by 10 ft. or more. 

        See our photo at an opening of a show of Hirst's spot paintings dating from 1986 to 2011. Hirst is wearing a red hat. He claims, as some kind of distinction, that no two spot colors are the same. The nicely composed photo is by the photographer Andy Guzzonatto.

                            

       What do you think of the large painting? What are its merits? What about its distribution of light and dark colors?

Hirst is criticized for having a huge production of dot paintings, 1365, almost all done by assistants.  He is a consummate marketer, having the gallerist-dealer Gagosian feature his dot paintings simultaneously at eleven galleries all around the world.  

       Hirst is also criticized for copying.  For instance, the American artist Thomas Downing was making spot paintings decades before Hirst. 

Further Hirst, on another occasion, arranged and sold a large number of “his” new artworks through an exclusive auction house event.  Art auctions usually handle works on the secondary market sold by owners.  Thus Hirst cut out or bypassed the commission of galleries that had supported, publicized, and nurtured him. 

      Yayoi Kusama

       The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama uses dots of various sizes and arrangements together in many original ways, on walls and free standing objects, and in mirrored rooms as in our example.   Note the dots are of various sizes and not in a strict pattern nor do they appear random.  We saw her work earlier in Art Linked with Clothing.

          I recommend seeing more of her works online or even obtain a book dedicated to her.  It would be a rewarding and enjoyable experience.