Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Coined by art critics in the late 19th century, it was used to ridicule the art of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, spawning the movement known as Neo-Impressionism. The Chromoluminarism movement, influenced by Charles Blanc, used individual dots or patches of color which interacted optically to create colors rather than mixing the colors on the palette. Blanc merged the development of science and aesthetics. It was this use of the scientific rules and theories of colors that separated the Chromoluminariists from the Impressionists who used instinct and intuition to create colors in their paintings. Divisionism required the viewer to combine the colors optically instead of physically mixing pigments. Divisionists believed that they were achieving the maximum luminosity scientifically possible. In addition to Seurat and Signac, other Divisionist and Neo-Impressionist painters include Camille and Lucien Pissaro, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Charles Angrand, Robert Delaunay and Maximilien Luce. Contemporary post-modern painters that use pointillism in their works include Chuck Close, B. Shawn Cox, Damien Hirst and Roy Lichtenstein. I love the way pointillism makes a painting pop.
Bricolage is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker"), with the English term DIY ("Do-it-yourself") being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. This approach became popular in the early twentieth century when resources were scarce, and aspects of surrealism, dada and cubism have a bricolage character. Bricolage is a characteristic of post-modern art practice. Catherine Moon describes bricolage as the remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of separate materials or artifacts to produce new meanings and insights. A political aspect of bricolage was introduced by the Italian movement, arte povera, which allowed artists to bypass the commercialism of the art world. The London-based Japanese artist, Tomoko Takahashi, uses debris, scraps and other found objects as part of her installation pieces. Other “bricoleurs” include Leonardo Drew, Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Mario Mertz, Beatriz Milhazes, Brian Phillips, Carol Rama and Robert Rauschenberg. I have experimented with bricolage in a few of my paintings and enjoy the edgy aesthetic that it creates in a work.
If you are a 2D painter and you are looking to add another dimension to your works, try using either bricolage or pointillism (or both). It will definitely spice up your art and make your paintings stand out from the crowd.