What painting technique uses small dots of pure color?

Pointillism is the painting technique that uses small dots of pure color to build an image. Instead of blending pigments extensively on a palette, artists place separate spots that the viewer’s eye optically combines.

Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in the 1880s, branching from Impressionism. Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is its best-known example. The approach was influenced by contemporary ideas about color perception and how neighboring colors appear when viewed together.

Pointillism is closely related to Divisionism, but the terms are not identical. Divisionism emphasizes the scientific separation of color, while Pointillism more specifically describes the visible dot-based brushwork. Critics initially used “Pointillism” mockingly in the late 1880s, but the name became standard.

The method is sometimes compared with CMYK printing and RGB screens, which also create larger visual effects from small color units. However, painted dots are pigments on a surface, not beams of colored light.