Ben-Day dots

(noun)

The Ben-Day dots printing process, named after illustrator and printer Benjamin Henry Day, Jr., is similar to Pointillism. Depending on the effect, color and optical illusion needed, small colored dots are closely spaced, widely spaced, or overlapping. Pulp comic books of the 1950s and 1960s used Ben-Day dots in the four process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to inexpensively create shading and secondary colors such as green, purple, orange and flesh tones.

Related Terms

Examples of Ben-Day dots in the following topics:

  • Categorizing Art

    • For example, Roy Lichtenstein—a painter associated with the American Pop art movement of the 1960s—was not a pointillist, despite his use of dots.
    • Lichtenstein used evenly spaced Ben-Day dots (the type used to reproduce color in comic strips) as a style to question the "high" art of painting with the "low" art of comics, thus commenting on class distinctions in culture.
    • Pointillism, a technique in late Impressionism (1880s) developed especially by the artist Georges Seurat, employs dots to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to approximate the way people really see color.
    • Both artists use dots, but the particular style and technique relate to the artistic movement adopted by each artist.
    • The style employs dots to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to approximate the way people really see color.

  • Pop Art

    • His characteristic style featured thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic reproduction.

  • Malagan Carvings

    • They take place irregularly and typically take several days, requiring months or years of preparation.While a malagan ceremony is always held in the name of one or more people who have died in recent years, it is not at all a mortuary rite; many other interactions take place within the overall event, including announcements, repayment of debts, recognition of obligations, resolution of disputes, and many other customary activities.
    • Contemporary masters of Malagan form include Ben Sisia of Libba Village (northern New Ireland) and Edward Salle of Lava Village (Tatau, Tabar Islands, New Ireland).

  • Romanesque Illustrated Books

    • The book opens with an illustrated calendar, each month beginning with the historiated letters "KL", an abbreviation for kalenda (i.e. the first day of the month).
    • These are the earliest English miniatures to have gold-leaf backgrounds incised with patterns of lines and dots.

  • Codices of the Mixtec

    • Above each participant's head is a glyph, or pictograph, with a dot.
    • The glyphs below the warriors are calendrical day signs.

  • Burmese Art

    • Burma is particularly renowned for its richness of Buddhist architecture, and is justifiably called "The Land of Pagodas," as Buddhist monasteries and gilded pagodas dot the landscape.
    • The styles, ground plans, and construction techniques used are very similar to those of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda in the Andhra region in present-day south-eastern India.
    • The Pagan Empire is famous for its religious architecture: over 2,000 temples from the period survive to the present day.