The Invention of Pastel Painting

The Invention of Pastel Painting explores the sudden emergence of pastel as a painting medium in the late seventeenth century, firmly situating its development within a social and cultural context.

Chalks and pastels are particularly appropriate materials for portraits because they appear effortlessly to convey the warm tones and soft, matte velvety surface of skin. Portraits and head studies therefore figure prominently in histories of pastel. The Invention of Pastel Painting describes the relatively sudden emergence in the later seventeenth century of sets of friable pastel sticks and a new artistic practice of painting in pastel. The author reconsiders the use of natural and fabricated drawing sticks as tools, firmly locating their use in the context of historical function. ‘Artistic techniques have a social history; they are signs endowed with cultural meaning by society.’ The visual, documentary and etymological evidence does not support the concept of a narrative history of pastel gradually progressing from a ‘simple’ original state in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, Jean and Francois Clouet and the Dumonstiers to an increasingly richly coloured and technically complex visual record in the paintings of Robert Nanteuil, Joseph Vivien and Rosalba Carriera, and then continuing to evolve through the nineteenth century. In considering the history of chalk and pastel, the author argues that the change is aesthetic, not formal, and is grounded in social function and technical response. She has drawn not only on artists’ letters and accounts, documents, critical and theoretical writings, and, broadly, the secondary literature, but also on close visual examination and scientific analysis of selected chalk drawings and paintings in pastel, particularly those created between 1500 and 1750.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chalk and pastel

Distinguishing between chalk and pastel in drawings, words and texts

Historical meanings of 'pastel'

Evidence for naturally occuring coloured chalk drawing sticks

Painting with pastel

Painting in pastel: a new artistic practice

Evidence from contemporary texts

Sets of pastels

The pastellist's tools

The paper support

Pastel: a socially appropriate substitute for oil painting

Robert Nanteuil and the prestige of painting in pastel

Evidence for materials and techniques

Paper supports

Painting pastel portraits

Relationship of function to material

A small portrait in graphite on parchment

Thesis portraits

'New heights': Joseph Vivien's large-scale pastel portrait paintings

The reception of Vivien's pastel paintings

Vivien's activity as a pastel painter

Material and technical evidence

Vivien's choice of pastel

Summary

Making up the face: technique and meaning in Carriera's pastel portraits

Carriera's pastel portraits

Carriera's achievement in pastel: pleasurable deception, fragile illusion

Fashion, appearance and class

Ideals of beauty

Painting the face: pastel and make-up

Venetian prototypes

Carriera's materials and working practice

Carriera's papers

Paper colour

Carriera's sources of blue paper

Additonal characteristics of Carriera's papers

Carriera's working procedures

Secondary support

Primary support preparation

Preparatory drawings, underdrawings and underpainting

The pastel painting

Brushwork

Sources of Carriera's pastel sticks

Summary

Presenting pastel portraits

Introduction

Material issues affecting presentation

Glazing

Frames

Evidence for reconstructing the presentation of pastels

Abundance or restraint: public versus private display

Framing in themed groups

Fixatives and 'the precious powder ... which falls off as easily as scales from a butterfly's wings'

Pastel in the nineteenth century

Appendix 1 Index to art-making and related topics in Carriera's correspondence

Appendix 2 Currency, wages and measurement

Appendix 3 Conditions of examination

Appendix 4 The conservation of pastels

Appendix 5 Earlier related publications by the author

Notes

References

Index

• By (author) Thea Burns

"...a handsome and welcome addition to the excellent library of conservation and art historical literature available from Archetype Publications...The Invention of Pastel Painting is an invaluable reference book for conservators, art historians, connoisseurs, educators, custodians and collectors on all aspects of the medium." Journal of the Canadian Association for Conservation 33 (2008) 49-50 "Thea Burns has produced an exceptional book on an esoteric and seductive subject - the invention and early history of the art of pastel painting. For conservators working on pastels from any period, this volume is an excellent one to read and keep as reference, as it covers the topic with an amount of detail unseen in previous works on the subject...For all interested readers, it is an engaging and informative book which should form part of any serious collection of books on artists' materials and techniques." Journal of the Institute of Conservation 32(1) (March 2009) 129-131 "The Invention of Pastel Painting is the first publication to fully distinguish, characterize, and establish a historical usage of pastels through the study of primary source material and technical examination of selected works from 1500 to 1750 executed in dry friable color...[It] provides a unique contribution to the subject of pastel, one that clearly defines the historic medium and provides a foundation upon which future historical and conservation-related research could be built." Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 49 (2010) 115-117
—

...a handsome and welcome addition to the excellent library of conservation and art historical literature available from Archetype Publications...The Invention of Pastel Painting is an invaluable reference book for conservators, art historians, connoisseurs, educators, custodians and collectors on all aspects of the medium.

—

Thea Burns has produced an exceptional book on an esoteric and seductive subject - the invention and early history of the art of pastel painting. For conservators working on pastels from any period, this volume is an excellent one to read and keep as reference, as it covers the topic with an amount of detail unseen in previous works on the subject...For all interested readers, it is an engaging and informative book which should form part of any serious collection of books on artists' materials and techniques.

—

The Invention of Pastel Painting is the first publication to fully distinguish, characterize, and establish a historical usage of pastels through the study of primary source material and technical examination of selected works from 1500 to 1750 executed in dry friable color...[It] provides a unique contribution to the subject of pastel, one that clearly defines the historic medium and provides a foundation upon which future historical and conservation-related research could be built.

—