From the first luminous notes of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sunday in the Park with George," we realize that the score is a kind of musical pointillism.
Just as painter Georges Seurat built his famous masterpiece dot by dot, Sondheim and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick build the musical texture note by note and voice by voice until an entire Sunday afternoon in the park comes into focus.
As we learn through this unique lesson in art history, Seurat based his revolutionary technique on color theory, placing tiny dots of contrasting colors beside one another rather than blending them on his palette.
Viewed up close, we see countless individual dots. Step back, and those tiny points of color blend in our eyes into luminous forms and vibrant scenes.
Nature has arrived at a remarkably similar solution.
Many flowers display tiny dots, streaks or veins of contrasting pigments called nectar guides. To us, they may look like delicate decorations. But to a bee — with compound eyes that perceive color differently, those contrasting markings become vivid guides, directing the insect to the flower's nectar while ensuring pollen is carried from blossom to blossom.
The song "Sunday" grows the way Seurat painted — with musical dots instead of colored ones. In nature, tiny specks of pigment become visual signposts for bees.
Individual notes become music. Individual dots become art. Individual markings help sustain the partnership between flowers and their pollinators.
Colorful dots on blossoms. Colorful dots of melody.
On a Sunday in the park, on a stage or when viewing Seurat's masterpiece at Chicago's Art Institute, tiny dots come together to create something far greater than the sum of their parts.
