The heyday of pastels in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Summary This paper is dedicated to the memory of Maria Bohusz (1950–1996), a Polish paper conservator and teacher of conservation, who lived and worked in Paris for the Central Laboratory of the Service de Restauration des Musées de France, based at Versailles. She was an inspiration to me in the pursuit of the study of pastels, and, more importantly, she was a friend. This paper looks at the emergence and development of pastel as a recognized artists' technique in its own right in the second part of the Eighteenth Century. The novelty of these pastels was their softness, which offered artists a swifter and more economical medium to obtain the painterly effects previously limited to oil painting. New extenders and binding media were employed in pastel production, and the growing demand for high-quality soft sticks was undoubtedly responsible for the broad range of artists' materials which was soon advocated in contemporary painting manuals. The trade in pastels responded quickly to the demands of artists who were competing to satisfy the popular demand for private portraiture. The particular predilection for pastel at this period is only explained by the favourable aesthetic context of rococo painting. The colours which were popular in textiles, interior decoration, and art were bright and lively, and white and ‘pastel’ hues were particularly fashionable. The finish then in vogue was matt and opaque, and the texture of pastels was ideal to depict the notorious eighteenth-century cosmetic make-up. In its heyday, the status of pastel paintings seems to have matched that of oils, and one finds that oils strove to achieve effects which were natural to pastels.

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