What Is Pointillism?

What Is Pointillism?

What Is Pointillism?
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 4 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.21

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		inspiration, literature, optical, wealthy, based, unique, lasted, shimmer, theory, artists, secondary, order, influence, however, boring, become
	content words:		Georges Seurat, La Grande Jatte, Art Institute, Another French, Paul Signac, So Georges Seurat

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What Is Pointillism?
By Colleen Messina

¹     If you like polka dots, you will love pointillism. Pointillism is a style of art. Artists who paint in this style use thousands of tiny dots to create their paintings. Pointillist artists have a lot of patience.

²     Pointillists used confetti-size dots on their canvases. These dots do a strange thing when you look at them from far away. Different color dots blend together to create new colors. They also look like they shimmer. This is because the dots play a trick on your eyes. This trick is called "optical mixing." The artists who used dots felt that optical mixing made their pictures look brighter. It was like a reward for all of their patience.

³     The pointillist artists used dots in the three primary colors. The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. In order to create a secondary color, the artist put dots in two primary colors next to each other. The secondary colors are green, purple, and orange. For example, to create green, the artists placed yellow and blue dots close together. To make orange, the artists used red and yellow dots, and to create purple, the artists used red and blue dots. Pointillism is scientific. The artists had to think a lot about what they were doing.

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