History of Pastel Painting

Pastel, originally, was an auxiliary discipline, but over time it became one of the favorite techniques of European artists. This technique began its procession in the distant XVII century, and by the XIX century, having reached its peak, it became one of the main means of artistic expression.

If we take into account the average life of classical painting techniques, then among them the pastel technique will be very young. She literally grew from auxiliary techniques to basic ones (prototype - charcoal drawing). Today, pastel is a technique that can give its follower great opportunities. This is facilitated by its widest possibilities, manifesting themselves in the transmission of color shades. The most striking aesthetic qualities of pastels are delicate velvety texture and dullness. The captivating softness and liveliness of colors caught the eye of more than one generation of artists (mostly portrait painters) in the 17th-18th centuries and impressionists of the 19th century, who paid much attention to the transmission of the smallest nuances of air and light. By the way, do not forget that pastel, unlike other techniques, is always ready to use, because to start working with it you do not need to make any preliminary preparations such as adding water, so it is very convenient when working outside the studio.

Predecessors

If initially the drawing was a preparatory sketch, a sketch, then already in the era of the early Renaissance, it acquired the appearance of an independent work of art. For a long time, drawings by famous artists moved from one workshop to another, serving as models for several generations of artists. Currently, there are a large number of sketches and sketches (mainly portraits and nudity) made by pencil, sanguine, pen and chalk. It was sanguine (red-brown pencil) along with chalk that became the forerunners of pastels. Looking back in time, you can find that the drawing received great recognition from Verrocchio and his student Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Titian and Raphael, and the Flemish artists Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck and many other famous painters. It is likely that the "technique of working with dry paints" the pastel, which Leonardo da Vinci mentioned in his writings, was supposed to include other colors besides white, red and brown, which are usually present in drawings that have survived today.

Materials for drawing

Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque (XV-XVII centuries) were able to achieve excellent graphic and tonal expressiveness, and using a limited set of materials. Some of them are used in our time by artists while working using the pastel technique. Black stone is an analogue of the current charcoal pencil used to draw contours and paint over dark areas, sanguine is needed for applying penumbra, and white chalk is used to transmit reflexes and highlights.

Louvre Museum, Paris (France). Rafael Santi (1483-1520). Venus and Psyche. An increase in interest in simple drawing during the Renaissance epoch made artists start searching for original color effects when creating it. A drawing made using sanguine is a vivid example of the origin of pastel technique.

Recognized Drawing Master - Rubens

Rubens is the author of several thousand studies, sketches and preparatory drawings for paintings. They were performed not only by the master, but also, in part, by his many students, since the number of orders exceeded the capabilities of one person. The drawings of this master are distinguished by extraordinary liveliness of the stroke and color expressiveness, they are extraordinary examples of masterpieces made in three-color schemes - black stone, white chalk and sanguine. Many believe that it was Rubens who contributed to the birth of the style, which all his followers began to imitate. The French in the XVIII century began to call him dessin a trois crayons (figure 3 with pencils). These works served as the basis for the development of practical methods of working with pastels.

Louvre Museum, Paris (France). Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Female portrait. This picture is made in 3 colors: black (coal), white (chalk) and red (sanguine). Such sophisticated technique can often be seen in modern pastelists, whose work is based on techniques developed by Rubens himself.

Louvre Museum, Paris (France). Pierre Briard (1559-1609). Portrait of a young woman. Colored paper creates a special sophistication. Portrait is a true example of pastel work.

Like many other Renaissance masters, Rubens used slightly tinted paper (cyan, gray, yellow and pink) in his work. For its preparation, a thin layer of glue was applied to the base, onto which subsequently a heavily ground pigment was poured. The colored background made it possible to use white color for the jewelry transmission of the play of light and shadow, and also set the general mood of the entire work as a whole. This technique is still popular with some famous artists.

XVIII century

The XVIII century - the sunset age of French absolutism, became a century for pastel painting, in which it reached the peak of its development, developing for future generations the basic technical methods of work. She was recognized as the most eminent masters and received the well-deserved title of high art. During this period, pastel became the favorite visual material of the masters of that era. It was then that techniques were developed that made it possible to uncover all the hidden possibilities in such a simple, at first glance, technique. It was a period of unprecedented flowering of refined pastel painting: pompous figures of the courtiers, the idyllic world of allegorical characters, female images that ideally meet the requirements of pastel work in transferring them in soft colors - all this diversity is embodied in the best examples of fine art of the XVIII century.

State Picture Gallery, Schlesheim Castle, near Munich. Joseph Vivien (1657-1734). Portrait of Louis, Duke of Burgundy. In this work, the pastel perfectly reflects all the many nuances of light and color, which, until then, was traditionally considered only available when working with oil.

Uffizi Gallery, Florence (Italy). Rosalba Carriere (1675-1757). Self portrait with a portrait of a sister. The famous artist of the XVIII century, who devoted herself to pastel painting and was able to make a significant contribution to the development of this technique.

Pastel mimics oil

Not much time passed and the pastel, in its capabilities, began to approach oil painting, while achieving such perfection that, looking at some portraits by great artists in the XVII-XVIII centuries, it is almost impossible to determine what material was used to create them - oil or pastel. Artists who sought to maximize the use of the capabilities of this technique were able to achieve that the pastel with great reliability and expressiveness, however, like oil, was able to convey any volume, texture, color and light (including the face and body of a person).

Great masters

Many eminent masters of the XVII-XVIII centuries worked as pastels. This is one of the founders of the French Academy, a painter at the court of King Louis XIV and the creator of his several portraits - Charles Lebrun (1b19-1b90); one of the most sophisticated portrait painters in the history of painting, whose works are characterized by sophistication of details, ease of texture and color richness - Rosalba Carri-era (1675-1757); an artist who devoted himself entirely to pastels, the creator of grandiose paintings that compete with the best creations of masters of oil painting - Maurice Cantin de Latour (1704-1788). Do not forget such masters of pastel painting as Francois Boucher (1703-1770) and Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) - who, although considered the greatest masters of Rococo, still devoted a lot of time to pastels.

Cabinet of drawings, Louvre Museum, Paris (France). Maurice Cantin de Latour (1704-1788). Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour. The pomposity and precision of the style could bring Latour great fame as a portrait painter.

Pastel practice: History of Pastel Painting Automatic translate