From the 15th century
Pastel is a technique that has survived through various eras. Prized then abandoned, its use evolved and gradually regained favor with painters.
It is a colored stick composed of pigments, a filler, and a binder. Dry pastels (soft or hard) exist, very different from oil pastels (oil or wax). A letter from Leonardo da Vinci (1511) attributes its invention to France. As early as 1465, pastels appeared tentatively to enhance pencil drawings. Portrait of Jouvenel des Ursins by J. Fouquet) treated in “half-color.”
It is used in addition for ¾ portraits created using “three pencils”: black chalk, red chalk, and white. The use of pastel is therefore limited to a series of basic colors: yellow, white, pink, brown, etc. Few colors are produced. Often executed on colored paper, it is only used as a highlight. It is practical, fast, and allows for easy play with material effects, blending and erasing, and layering, allowing it to evolve from drawing to painting. It is ideal for preparatory work by oil painters such as Cranach, Clouet, Bassano, and Barocci.
In the 18th century, it was the golden age of pastel
It became the ideal tool for portraiture. Previously, oil portraits required long pauses and completion times, which increased the final cost.
Pastels arrived, allowing for faster completion, as the model no longer had to pause for an excessive amount of time, no drying time, and no varnishing. Quickly finished, quickly delivered. High society and the bourgeoisie seized upon this genre to have their portraits painted… (Boucher, Perronneau) But it was Maurice Quentin de la Tour who gave this genre its reputation. As the official painter of the royal family and high-ranking dignitaries, he dedicated himself to this technique, and we see the decor become richer and more reflective of the gilded interiors of the period, with the perfect execution of full-length portraits. Women could also devote themselves to female portraits in pastel, a genre that remained minor, requiring little space and little time to devote to the studio (VIGEE LEBRUN, Rosalba CARRIERA). Ancient allegories and pre-Romantic outdoor scenes made their appearance.
But in the 19th century, everything changed.
In 1839, we saw the arrival of photography (Daguerreotype). As it developed, it forced pastel artists to revisit their craft. The studio portrait was supplanted by photography. But it would evolve into another form. The arrival of the train would disrupt habits, allowing easier travel to bucolic locales that were becoming fashionable.
A place for pictorial exploration… Color was added where photography remained in black and white, and subjects were more closely linked to everyday life. Degas’s dancers, Toulouse-Lautrec’s cabarets, Millet and Monet’s rural scenes, and Manet’s portraits, Mary Cassat, and Berthe Morisot all reflect this freedom of new forms, generous and vibrant color, vigorous handling, and varied framing.
Pastel was the tool that allowed the Impressionists to best capture the speed and immediacy of the subject. It could combine a line with the addition of overlaying material, blurring contours, hatching details to reveal them, and making the light burst forth. Symbolists such as Redon and Khnopff also favored pastel as a wonderful tool to embody their dreamlike visions with subtlety. The texture of the pastel grain was finely used, creating halos of light and ethereal materials that shrouded these works in mystery.
A Society of Pastelists of France was founded in 1870, creating a showcase for pastel. The color palette became shimmering and diversified in all its nuances among manufacturers. (Paris World’s Fair in 1889 – pastel pavilion where Girault presented a showcase of his entire range.)
The beginning of the 20th century
After the global conflicts that decimated painters, pastel established itself as a much more marginal practice, less favored by the emerging abstraction, blending with other techniques. Picasso experimented with his schematic lines, Kupka with his colorful geometries, Klee, Miro…
We can associate great names with pastel, but few painters truly dedicated themselves to it. Sam Szafran (1934-2019) is the French artist who brought pastel back into national collections and museums. Staircases and philodendrons rendered in pastel are his subjects. Carefully chosen compositions, somewhere between realism and stylization, and a measured use of color, bring a contemporary expression to painting. The exceptional nuances of pastel colors and its subtle tracery gave it his preferred technique, to which he remained faithful throughout his work.
Nevertheless, pastel was rarely seen in exhibitions and collections in the 20th century. To respond to this neglect to which pastel artists are often relegated, Jean Pierre MERAT refounded the Société des Pastellistes de France in 1984.
ART DU PASTEL EN France was created in 2001 to further this desire to inform and communicate about this technique, promoting it through Pastel Festivals and practical workshops. The Giverny and Notre Dame de Gravenchon exhibitions were also created. These popular annual events offer a beautiful showcase of national and international pastels, regularly welcoming associations from around the world.
The pastel field days are always popular opportunities for exchange and meeting among pastel artists.
Since June 2023, Berric, in Morbihan, has become the venue for our annual exhibition.