The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (140 page)

divisionism
.

A method and technique of painting by which colour effects are obtained not by mixing pigments on the
palette
but by applying small areas or dots of unmixed pigment on the canvas in such a way that to a spectator standing at an appropriate distance they appear to react together. This method, which produces greater luminosity and brilliance of colour than if the colours are physically mixed, has been employed to some extent by many artists in
alla prima
painting, although it is contrary to the traditional principles of painting by superimposed
glazes
and
scumbles
. Notable precursors of divisionism were
Watteau
and
Delacroix
. It was also employed empirically by the
Impressionists
, but it was not developed systematically and scientifically until
Seurat
and the
Neo-Impressionists
. Seurat (in common with other contemporaries) spoke of an ‘optical mixture’, but (contrary to what is usually stated) the dots do not really fuse in the viewer's eye to make different colours, for they remain visible as dots. Rather, they seem to vibrate, creating something of the shimmering effect experienced in strong sunlight. The effect is noted in Ogden Rood's
Modern Chromatics
(1879), a treatise on colour theory well known to Seurat. Camille
Pissarro
, who was closely associated with Seurat at this time, said that the optimum viewing distance for a picture painted by the divisionist method was three times the diagonal measurement. The terms divisionism and
pointillism
are not always clearly differentiated, but whereas divisionism refers mainly to the underlying theory, pointillism describes the actual painting technique associated with Seurat and his followers. ‘Divisionism’ (usually with a capital ‘D’) was also the name of an Italian movement, a version of
Neo-Impressionism
, that flourished in the last decade of the 19th cent. and the first decade of the 20th cent. It was one of the sources of
Futurism
.

 
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(1891–1969).
German painter and printmaker. In the 1920s he was, with George
Grosz
, the outstanding artist of the
Neue Sachlichkeit
movement, his work conveying his disillusionment and disgust at the horrors of war and the depravities of a decadent society with complete psychological truth and devastating emotional effect.
The Match Seller
(Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 1920), for example, is a pitiless depiction of indifference to suffering, showing passersby ignoring a blind and limbless ex-soldier begging in the street, and Dix's fifty etchings entitled
The War
(1924) have been described by G. H. Hamilton (
Painting and Sculpture in Europe
, 1880–1940, 1967) as ‘perhaps the most powerful as well as the most unpleasant anti-war statements in modern art’. Another favourite theme was prostitution and he was a brilliantly incisive portraitist (
Sylvia von Harden
, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1926). In 1927 he was appointed a teacher at the Dresden Academy, but his anti-military stance drew the wrath of the Nazi regime and he was dismissed from his academic posts in 1933 and his work declared
degenerate
. He went to live quietly in the country near Lake Constance and painted traditional landscapes, yet he still aroused suspicion; in 1939 he was arrested on a charge of complicity in a plot on Hitler's life, but was soon released. He was conscripted into the
Volkssturm
(Home Guard) in 1945 and was a prisoner in France 1945–6; he then returned to Lake Constance. His work after the war lost much of the strength of his great Neue Sachlichkeit period and much of it was inspired by religious mysticism.

 
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(1899–1970).
Australian painter. In 1929 he won a travelling scholarship that enabled him to study at the
Slade
School under Henry
Tonks
and did not return to Australia until 1938. His work reveals the broad artistic education he gained on his travels in Europe, and his rich textures and colours, show, in particular, a debt to the
Expressionism
of Chaïm
Soutine
. In 1943/4 he won the Archibald Prize for portraiture, awarded annually by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, with a portrait of his fellow-artist, Joshua Smith. The award, which was contested in the courts by two of the unsuccessful competitors on the grounds that it was not a portrait but a caricature, created a
cause célèbre
for modernism in Australia and Dobell (who won the case) became a household name. In 1949 and again in 1950 he visited the highlands of New Guinea, and as a result of this experience his work became broader in execution and more decorative. Dobell was unique among Australian artists in combining successfully a mastery of
Renaissance
tradition (particularly in portraiture) with a profound insight into the character and values of 20th-cent. Australians.

 
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(1886–1963).
British sculptor. His early work consisted mainly of paintings, the few surviving examples showing how impressed he was by the
Post-Impressionist
exhibitions organized by Roger
Fry
. After the First World War (when he was on active service with the Artists' Rifles), he turned increasingly to sculpture, and in the 1920s and 1930s gained an outstanding reputation: in 1925 Roger Fry described his work as ‘true sculpture and pure sculpture… almost the first time that such a thing has been even attempted in England’. He worked in both metal and stone (he was one of the earliest to revive direct carving) and his sophisticated stylizations made him one of the pioneers of modern British sculpture. The monumental dignity of his work was in the classical tradition of
Maillol
, and like him Dobson found the female nude the most satisfactory subject for three-dimensional composition, as in
Cornucopia
(University of Hull, 1925–7), described by Clive
Bell
as ‘the finest piece of sculpture by an Englishman since—I don't know when’. He was also outstanding as a portrait sculptor, as witness his head of Sir Osbert Sitwell in polished brass (Tate, London, 1923). His craftsmanship was superb and he played an important role as a liberal-minded and kind-hearted teacher at the
Royal College of Art
, where he was Professor of Sculpture, 1946–53. With the rise of a younger generation led by Henry
Moore
, however, Dobson's prestige as an artist dropped and he was regarded as ‘dated’; the memorial exhibition of his work organized by the Arts Council in 1966 was not well received. Since then he has again been recognized as one of the outstanding figures in 20th-cent. British sculpture.

 
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