Talk:Pointillism

message: Worth mentioning Stephen Sondheim and Sunday in the Park with George in the music bit? MikeyB! 21:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The music isn't pointillist at all is it? Hyacinth 07:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but he claims (I believe) it is a different interpretation of Pointillism as a musical form MikeyB! 23:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree about pursuing the conversation here on the Talk page, and thanks for moving everything over here.  I also agree that the historical basis of the term, much of which I did not know before, deserves mention, and the information above is interesting and valid, so expansion of the article is a great idea.  However, to put something in a historical context, first we have to tell people what it is.  Pointillism is not simply historical.  It's a functional term at use in art and art history, and that is what should be brought to readers right up top.I really don't see the point in removing my edit - which was not reversion, but was my non-trivial writing and organizing work - to make a point about word origins, which are less pertinent in an encyclopedia than definitions.  For the time being, I am returning the piece to its spot in the introduction.  I think it will be interesting and valuable to include the historical context you have provided.  But surely that's not the way to introduce pointillism to a reader.Also, you might find the word "disparage" to be closer to what you're looking for than "ridicule" - but neither of these can reasonably be in the first sentence on the subject. - Corporal Tunnel 14:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sunday in the Park with George

message: I've - for now - moved the recent (badly formatted) addition to the article:  Pointillism can also be used in pen and ink pictures to create shading through spacing of dots.  Is this technique called pointilism? Stumps 05:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you know that it took 2 years for Seurat to paint A Sunday in the Park? Did you know that A Sunday in the Park has about 3,456,000 dots? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.128.142.105 (talk) 05:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No - I haven't tried counting them. But I have noted that not all the dots are primary colors. Pointillists relied on the blurring of dots when seen at a distance, but they used more than the three primaries (just look at the Seurat portrait used in the article).  The definition in the article needs modifying, at least with regard to the painting technique. Rikstar 21:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pen and ink 

message: This February 2010 edit added the paragraph:
:Neuroplasticity is a key element of observing a pointillistic image. While two individuals will observe the same photons reflecting off a photorealistic image and hitting their retinas, someone whose mind has been primed with the theory of pointillism will see a very different image as the image is interpreted in the visual cortex.
:
There are several problems with this passage; the easiest to explain is that its implication that the integration of raw visual data into a unified and conceptually meaningful image occurs in the visual cortext is simply incorrect. But the more serious difficulty is its statement that this integration process is somehow related to neuroplasticity.
Now I'm very well aware that the word is  the subject of some debate as to its definition: I was surprised to discover just now that the venerable Oxford English Dictionary doesn't yet include the term. But none of the candidate definitions really supports the unusual usage in the passage above, either. I don't have online access to page 337 of Jeffrey Schwartz's book, that's cited as a ref, but I'd be flabbergasted to learn that the good professor had actually described the internal processing by which we perceive an integrated image rather than just a mere random assortment of colored dots as an example of "neuroplasticity". Whatever the other variants in proposed definitions, that term is almost universally reserved for (considerably) longer-term processes by far. It's just extremely unusual in the field to apply the word to a single perceptual interpretation/construal event, as is being done in the above passage: One might as well say that anything that generates a P300 causes or is caused by neuroplasticity.
As most editors will be aware, nearly all persons with an interest in perception will use the noun "gestalt" in any discussion in this context, usually sooner rather than later, even if they don't happen to accept the theory of perceptual construal that's posited by so-called "gestalt psychology".  For reference, here's the OED's definition of that nearly indispensable term:
:gestalt (noun): A shape, configuration, or structure which as an object of perception forms a specific whole or unity incapable of expression simply in terms of its parts ( e.g. a melody in distinction from the notes that make it up ); cross-reference configuration, meaning 6.  Frequently attributional, as Gestalt psychology (noun): a school of psychology which holds that perceptions, reactions, etc., are gestalts; also elliptically.
Our own Gestalt psychology article's lead instances this "attributional" usage in introducing the so-called gestalt effect in its second sentence:
:The gestalt effect is the form-generating capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves.
There's more on the fascinating cognitive process whereby we integrate the "raw" sensory input (like the signals that arrive at the visual cortex) to generate a unified cognitive image or representation, and the many other theories that try to account for it,  in a section of our article on Visual perception, btw.  Anyway, because the usage of "neuroplasticity" in the passage is so strongly at odds with the typical meanings for the term, and also because the implication present in "as the image is interpreted in the visual cortex" that the integration/construal process occurs there is just incorrect, I've removed the passage. If there's a direct quotation from the book that we can helpfully use, though, I'd be glad to include it. Comments or objections, anyone?  – OhioStandard (talk) 03:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic use of "neuroplasticity" as being involved in perceptual integration 

message: The article mentions that:
:Pointillism is analogous to the four-color CMYK printing process used by some color printers and large presses that place dots of Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow, and Key (black). Televisions and computer monitors use a similar technique to represent image colors using Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) colors.
The technique used by CMYK printing is dithering, among others. The CMYK article even says so. Should there not be mention on this page of dithering, especially seeing as how it's popularly used for sprite and pixel art with a constricted palette?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.131.9.254 (talk) 18:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dithering 

message: Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that :File:Henri-Edmond Cross - The Evening Air - Google Art Project.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on June 22, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-06-22. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:File:Henri-Edmond Cross - The Evening Air - Google Art Project.jpg]] to appear as POTD soon