Global Multidisciplinary Perspectives Journal

Pointillism in History: The Metal-Dome Portrait of Mr John Marmond Halm, Ghana

Nii Lantey Golightly¹, Emmanuel Bonsu², Samuel Kissi Baah³, Kwame Baah Owusu Panin⁴

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Abstract

This article traces the historical emergence of Pointillism from the scientific colour theories of Michel-Eugène Chevreul and Ogden Rood, through its systematic development by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac as chromoluminarism, to its diffusion across Neo-Impressionist and later modern art practice. It explores the theoretical connection between Pointillism, Divisionism and Neo-Impressionism and the perceptual and optical principles, additive versus subtractive colour mixing, on which this technique is based. The case study moves beyond painted dots to a contemporary, practice-based project: a portrait of the Ghanaian art educator and metal artist, Mr John Marmond Halm, created not with paint but with hundreds of small, domed pieces of copper and aluminium sheet metal, laid over a leather substrate in a tonal-distribution pattern that echoes the Pointillist methods of separation. The tools, materials, and sequential organisation of the metal domes are documented and discussed photographically, and a new, more durable optical painting technique is reinterpreted in a metal medium in the context of West African art and design. The article concludes that Pointillism's underlying idea, the optical 'fusing' of individual units of colour or tone over a greater distance, is medium-independent and practitioner-independent, and has continued uninterrupted across almost 150 years through a succession of named artists in paint, glue, paper and metal, and recommends further experimentation in material and technique with the Pointillist method.

Keywords: Global Perspectives, Multidisciplinary Research, Innovation, Sustainable Development, Societal Progress, Knowledge Dissemination, Global Research

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Licensed under CC BY 4.0.