Venetian Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), the golden age of pastel

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Technique, which drew Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) deserves special discussion. Bed - a painting dry pencils, that is, drawing and painting simultaneously. The artist, who works in pastels, to virtuoso, quickly and with improvisation draw and have a sense of color. You can not mix colors, making them lighter or darker. Each tone corresponds to chalk. In the XVII century it was known to 40 shades of pastel, to XX century, they began 1650. Bed - material of mature artists. Edgar Degas (1834-1917) began to paint with pastels in forty years, James Whistler (1834-1903) - in fifty.
Jean-Baptiste Chardin (1699-1779) carried away by this technique, changed his seventh decade. One of his masterpieces - "Self-portrait with glasses" (1771) made it pastel.

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Soft crayons to draw the court came up with the French artist Jean Perreal at the end of the XV century. In 1499-m, while in Milan, Perreal shared secret with Leonardo da Vinci, who first used the bed in sketch-portrait of Isabella d'Este.
Artists quickly appreciated the benefits of the new material, its matte texture and bright color, which, unlike oil painting, not tarnished with age.
Pastel painted mainly portraits. Knowing not like a long time to pose for artists, and only with the help of crayons, a few touches of the painters can quickly fix on a sheet of facial features, black and white effects, a fabric and so on.
In the XVIII century, no technique of painting could not catch up in popularity with pastels. Bed fell in unison with the frivolous, changeable, frivolous nature of the Rococo era. This style looks like a fresh and playful. Even pretending to be oil painting pastels. Artists working wonders. They have learned to transfer chalks glitter brocade, the transparency of glass, the sparkle of diamonds, cold steel, velvet, warmth and tenderness of the skin and eye moisture. The most fashionable portrait painter in Rome and Paris was a painter Rosalba Carriera She painted in pastel only, and knew the secret of how to fix unstable colored powder on the paper. Even after centuries of its work have not lost their brightness.
Passion pastel enveloped the whole of Paris. The number of artists who prefer this technique to 1780 reached 2,5 thousand. In the French Academy of Fine Arts began to take the wording "by pastel painter." Extremely popular, Maurice Quentin de la Tour, wrote in this technique huge ceremonial portraits (for example, a portrait of Louis XV), for which glue paper from several pieces. The pieces were cut along the contour, were attached to the canvas, and the joints are masked sweeping strokes.
After experiencing in the XVIII century finest hour in the next century pastel has not lost influence, but has chosen specialization. Regardless of what the artist paints with pastels - landscape, portrait, still life or a visionary sketch - this technique is suitable for an intimate, chamber music, not for the throne halls, but for private interiors. The painter takes a bed when creating something for yourself, at the call of the soul. Therefore pastels great masters - a poignant sincerity art. Pastels are full of games and improvisation. Imperial sovereign styles - klassitsizim, Empire, academic style - not very bestowed this technique. A romance opened in the material and more new opportunities.
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries bed was back in vogue. Impressionists loved her for the brightness and the ability to allocate transmit full sunlight. Progenitor Odilon Redon Symbolism (1840-1916) embodied in pastels their mystical visions. The Museum d'Orsay in Paris Redon crayon drawings are shown in a separate room. In May 2004, first at Christie's auction in New York on his bed "Vase" (90h73 cm) went for $ 3.8 million
Unsurpassed master of pastels was Edgar Degas. "Belle Epoque" - as we now present themselves - many times without his impoverished pastelevyh singers, jockeys, blue ballerinas. Degas had a keen eye and unerring pattern, which enabled him to achieve in pastels unseen effects. Never pastel drawings were not so timid, careless and masterfully so precious in color. In February 2007, first at Sotheby's in London Degas pastel "Three dancers dressed in purple skirts" was sold for $ 7, 87 million
In Russia in pastels worked Repin, Serov, Levitan, Kustodiyev, Petrov-Vodkin. Serov in this technique, wrote the village studies, he used a bed in the famous portrait of Anna Pavlova (1908), who became a poster "Russian Seasons" in Paris. Very fond of the material Zinaida Serebryakova. She had a talent for seeing the value in the ordinary: a family breakfast or a morning toilet. Bright pastel colors brought us the immediacy and freshness of her eyes.

Note: Bed (French pastel, rastello Italian, diminutive of pasta - pastry) - painting dry soft colored pencils without frames. Pencils are made on the basis of colored pigments, worn to a fine powder, with the addition of gum arabic, milk, sometimes, chalk, gypsum, talc. Pastel crayons to draw a rough, often colored paper, cardboard, primed canvas, parchment, chamois.

Note: "There is nothing better than this kind of painting - wrote about pastels Roger De Peel in his treatise" The first foundations of Painting "(1684). - There are no dependence on oil (ie oil paints, which quickly dry and darken), the work can leave and start again at the request of and consistent with the presence of time. Various pencil can do the same thing and brush, and the work of the first, produces the same effect as the second.


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1 5.Avtor: Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757)