Artistic Elements

THE POINT

A point is the visual element upon which all others are based. It can be defined as a singularity in space, it has really no size or, in geometric terms, the area where two coordinates meet. When an artist marks a simple point on the surface, (the surface is also referred to as the ground), they immediately create a figure-ground relationship. That is, the point becomes the figure and the space around it becomes the ground. Our eyes differentiate between the two, and their arrangement has everything to do with how we see a final composition.

Point: create form

Even though the point is very small, the point itself can be used as a way to create forms. For example, Pointillism is a style of painting made famous by the French artist Georges Seurat in the late nineteenth century. He and others in the Pointillist group created paintings by using dots of different colors close together that optically mixed to form lines, shapes, colors, and forms within a composition. His large canvas Sunday Afternoon on the Grande Jatte is a testament to the pointillist style and aesthetic. Its creation was a painstaking process but one that generated new ways of thinking about color and form.

Here's how it works, look at the images below, on the right is a detail of Georges Seurat's painting, La Parade de Cirque, 1887-89, on the left you see an image of lots of different colored dots -- that is a very small section of the painting, it is a close-up of the brushstrokes and paint colors that create the whole image! Now look back to the right and you start to see how all of those dots are starting to optically mix to create the image.

Seurat detail

Georges Seurat, La Parade de Cirque, details, 1887-89. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Licensed under Creative Commons

Point: create texture

You can also use points as texture to enhance in image, as used in the painting style of Tinga Tinga, named after it's founder Edward Said Tingatinga. This art form came into being in the second half of the 20th century in Tanzania and has developed alongside the tourist industry throughout East Africa. Points are used to create interesting texture on stylized imagery. Here is an example of an Edward Said Tingatinga painting:

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Point: create pattern

In this module, we are looking mainly at how the design element of point is used to create art. Aboriginal art used point to create deeply meaningful stories through it's multilayered imagery. I would encourage you to at least take a peek at this list of facts about Aboriginal art! Here is a small detail of a painting:

Michaelle Possum Nungurrayi - Womens Ceremony

Detail: Michelle Possum Nungurrayi 'Womens Ceremony' 51"x78", Kate Owen Gallery, Australia

Here is another painting by Michelle Possum Nungurrayi, "Women's Dreaming" to give you a sense of scale and complexity, the size of this piece is 50" x 81".

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