Cugnier, Jean Francois
French Pointillist
French pointillist Jean Francois Cugnier has exhibited in France, Europe and the United States. Born in 1949, his work is held in many international collections. His work depicts the Paris region. Pointillism was a revolutionary painting technique pioneered by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac in Paris in the mid-1880s. It was a reaction against the prevailing movement of Impressionism, which was based on the subjective responses of individual artists. Pointillism, by contrast, demanded a much more scientific approach, according to Sotheby’s. Pointillism was the name given to the work of French painter Seurat, who took the techniques of Impressionism — visible brush strokes, pure bold color, depiction of changing light and movement — in a new direction, which he referred to as “chromoluminarism.” By studying optical effects and color theory, Seurat reasoned that paint colors could remain pure as they are applied to the canvas, rather than being pre-blended, and through the process of “optical mixing” result in what the eye sees as a shimmering luminosity when viewed from an appropriate distance.