Pastels
Are an art medium comprising sticks made from powdered pigments and a binder in a wide range of colours. The pigments used are the same as those for all coloured artists materials, including oil paints. The colour effects produced by pastels are thought to be the closest to natural dry pigments than any other art medium.
When the full surface being used is covered completely by the pastels, it is called a ‘pastel painting’. When there is something of the original surface showing, it’s called a ‘pastel sketch’ or ‘pastel drawing’. Pastel paintings, being made with a medium that has the highest pigment density of all the mediums, allows for very saturated colours.
Pastels started to be manufactured in the 1400s with Leonardo da Vinci making mention of it after learning about it from Jean Perreal, a French artist who arrived in Milan in 1499.
In the 16th century, pastels were occasionally used for initial preparatory drawings and studies.
The medium became particularly fashionable for portrait painting during the 18th century. Key artists working at this time in the medium include: Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Rosalba Carriera and Maurice Quentin de la Tour who never worked in oils. Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin’s pastel still life paintings are much esteemed as well as the works of Jean Etienne Liotard, a Swiss-French artist.
In England John Russell was regarded as the best practitioner in the 18th Century and in colonial America the medium was occasionally used for portraits by John Singleton Copley.
Pastels became unpopular in France around the time of the French Revolution as they were reminiscent of the frivolity of the overthrown ‘Ancien Regime’. Eugene Delacroix and Jean-Francois Millet revived it as a popular medium during the mid-19th Century and Edouard Manet took the unusual (at the time) step of pastel painting some portraits on canvas. Edgar Degas innovated using new pastel techniques and pastels went on to become his primary medium after 1885. Odilon Reddon also created a large amount of work in pastels.
In 1880, James Abbot McNeill Whistler created an oeuvre in pastels with Venice as the subject and it was likley this contributed to a growing eagerness for the use of pastels in the US, particularly when he was able to demonstrate how you could create an atmosphere or place with just a few strokes.
Many modern artists favour pastels because of the broad range of bright colours available. Notable modern artists who have used pastels extensively include Daniel Greene, Wolf Kahn, R.B. Kitaj, Francesco Clemente and Fernando Botero.