Collection: Divisionism

Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, is the systematic colour theory underlying Pointillism. The technique separates each colour into its component primaries and applies them in distinct adjacent strokes so that the eye, rather than the palette, performs the mixing. The system was codified principally by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in the 1880s, drawing on the colour theories of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Ogden Rood, and Charles Blanc.

The French wing included Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Charles Angrand, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Hippolyte Petitjean, and the briefly affiliated Camille Pissarro. An Italian Divisionism developed independently in Lombardy and Piedmont in the same period, championed by Vittore Grubicy de Dragon at the Milan Triennale of 1891 and codified by Gaetano Previati's 1906 treatise Principi scientifici del divisionismo. The principal Italian Divisionists were Giovanni Segantini, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Angelo Morbelli, Plinio Nomellini, and Matteo Olivero.

Italian Divisionism fed directly into early Italian Futurism, where divisionist mark-making became the basis for the rendering of motion in the work of Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini, and Carlo Carrà.