Numiscollect @ WMF: Striking pointillism series returns with a whale for the second ‘Dot Art’ coin

One of the most distinctive issues of last years World Money Fair was Numiscollect’s first foray into the style of Pointillism. An art style that builds up images with coloured dots that blend together the further away you stand, it takes a special skill to do effectively, and few master it.

No such problems for Numiscollect on this evidence. The setting sun, and the heavy waves in the sea, are brought to life and given dynamism by the variable sizes of coloured dot. It’s amazing how something so simple can breath such life into a piece of art. Only the whale eschews the technique for a straight depiction, much like the trunk and roots of the first coin, ‘Tree of Life’ It makes a strong focal point for the artwork, necessary because the reduced canvas makes doing so with dots perhaps a step too far.

That isn’t to say this is a small coin. At three ounces and 65 mm in diameter, this black proof issue is a big piece for the weight, aided by Smartmintings ability to create precise defined relief with relatively little metal. Boxed with a Certificate of Authenticity, just 333 of these will be minted. An extremely unique piece, which should join Powercoin’s mosaic-style issues as something an art admirer would love to have in their coin collection. Available to order now,

WHAT IS POINTILLISM?

Developed by Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat and Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac, both Frenchmen working in Paris in the mid-1880’s, Pointillism was an artistic technique that built up an image using pure colours in small dots. This relied on the viewers brain to form the image in a way that was more visually striking.

It was the work of a French chemist called Michel Eugène Chevreul who discovered that, while working to help restore a tapestry, how colours were placed next to each other was far more important than how they were mixed within themselves. Seurat used Chevreul’s book, ‘Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours to develop the art of painting with dots of colour, instead of mixing them on a palette.

Considered to have grown from Neo-impressionism, Pointillism caused quite a stir at the time, with even the great Vincent Van Gogh claiming to have seen a “revelation of colour” after a visit to the studio where Seurat worked his magic, although Van Gogh had a style of his own that was too different for him to embrace this new, more technical method.

Famous works include Can-Can, Circus Sideshow, and Die Modelle, by Seurat, with Signacs work including such admired pieces as ‘The Windmills at Overschie’, and ‘The Yellow Sail’. Other notable proponents of the Pointillist style werHenri-Edmond Cross, Theo van Rysselberghe, and Georges Lemmen.