Arts & Culture
How Pointillism Exploits Optical Mixing in Color Theory
Quick fact
Pointillism was developed by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in the 1880s. Seurat called it 'chromoluminarism'—a technique that relies on the viewer's eye to mix colors optically rather than on the palette.
Why this is interesting
Have you ever looked at a TV screen up close and seen only tiny red, green, and blue dots, yet from a distance they form a full-color image? Pointillist artists discovered this same optical trick over a century ago—using nothing but paint.