Pastel Painting

Pastel comes from the word paste. When talking of pastel, we usually refer to the sticks used to create art which is made of pure, powdered color pigment, bound together with a small amount of resin or gum. This same pigment is what is used with an oil medium to create oil paint. Since the pastel stick is the pigment’s most pure form, it gives a vivid color when used on any painting surface.

Pastel painting may have started with the early cave dwellers as seen in the archaeological finds of the 20th century. Pastels became a formal painting medium between the 16th to 18th centuries. Artists preferred to use pastel crayons in coloring their sketches or in create initial drafts for larger oil canvases. The works of Federico Barocci in the late 15th century, Daniel Dumoustier in the early 16th century and Claude Mellane in the mid-16th century are all examples of such drawings. These may be called predecessors of pastel painting as an independent art.

The elegant portraits of Rosalba Carriera in the early 17th century marked the golden era of pastel. Before this, chalk had long been used for sketching. It was kown that Carriera ordered especially made pastels bearing flesh tones which she used for sketching. She was very impressed with its subtlety and ease of use that she explored how pastel can be introduced as a more formal medium. Thus, pastel paintings were born. Her innovations were further perfected by Maurice Quentin de la Tour who was known as the greatest pastel portraitist of the eighteenth century. Many others followed who were equally inspired with the crispness and perfection that pastels bring to paintings.