Art Glossary
Pastel
Pastel is a medium of pure powdered pigment bound into a soft stick, applied dry directly to paper, giving brilliant, velvety colour with the immediacy of drawing.
Pastel sits between drawing and painting. The sticks are made of pure pigment held together with just enough binder to form a friable crayon; applied to a textured paper, the pigment is deposited as a layer of dry colour that can be left as line or blended with a finger or stump into soft, painterly fields. Because the pigment is barely bound and not suspended in any medium, pastel colour is exceptionally pure and luminous — there is no oil to yellow, no wash to dull it.
The medium flourished in the eighteenth century, especially for portraiture, where its soft bloom flattered the sitter and its speed suited a fashionable clientele. Rosalba Carriera and Maurice Quentin de La Tour were celebrated portraitists in pastel. In the later nineteenth century Edgar Degas transformed its possibilities, building up his dancers and bathers in vigorous layers of hatched and smudged colour, fixing and reworking the surface to achieve a richness closer to painting than to drawing.
Pastel's great virtues are immediacy and brilliance; its great vulnerability is fragility. The powdery surface smudges at a touch and must be protected behind glass, and fixatives that bind the pigment also tend to deaden its bloom — a tension every pastellist negotiates. Soft pastels give the most velvety effects; harder pastels and pastel pencils allow finer line.
To recognise pastel, look for the matte, velvety surface, the visible tooth of the paper catching the pigment, and the characteristic combination of crisp drawn line with softly blended, glowing colour.
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Frequently asked
What is pastel?
Pastel is pure powdered pigment bound into a soft stick and applied dry to paper, giving brilliant, velvety colour with the directness of drawing.
Which artist is famous for pastels?
Edgar Degas is the most celebrated modern pastellist, building his dancers and bathers in vigorous layers of hatched and blended colour.