The closest an artist comes to painting with pure pigment is when applying soft pastel to the ground. From the earliest cave art, humans have applied powdered earths and chalks to surfaces. Some of the oldest surviving masterpieces made using coloured chalks include those of Leonardo da Vinci, and are sometimes incorrectly referred to as pastels.

An example is this drawing of Isabella d’Este from 1500, described here as using “black and red chalk, yellow pastel chalk on paper”. But there is no such thing as “pastel chalk”, any more than there is “oil watercolour”.

Pastels are much more than just a stick of pigmented chalk or coloured earth, as they’re made by mixing pigment and a bulking powder, with water containing a gum or glue, into a thick dough-like paste. That paste is dried slowly in sticks to become sufficiently firm as to be capable of being sharpened and applied to paper or another ground.

Painting in pastels requires many sticks of different colours; although those can be blended on the paper or ground, pastels don’t mix like oil paints to produce good intermediate colours. You can’t paint properly in pastels with just half a dozen different colours, but need dozens or hundreds to support a broad spectrum. This shows one of my sets of pastels, a Winsor & Newton boxed set of 200.

Careful assessment by Thea Burns has established that the earliest painter in pastels was probably Robert Nanteuil.

Nanteuil’s Portrait of Monseigneur Louis Doni d’Attichy, Bishop of Riez from 1663 is one of the first true pastel paintings, relatively small, but expertly worked. When these became popular in the eighteenth century they quickly became all the rage. Unlike oil paints applied in layers over a period of weeks, pastels adhere to the ground mechanically, and have no drying time. A good pastellist could produce a fine portrait in just a few sittings, making them far less demanding on both parties, much quicker, and of course considerably cheaper. The ‘look’ of pastel paintings also came into vogue, with flesh looking lifelike with a soft, matte finish.

Initially there were no fixatives to help the adhesion of pastel to ground, so they all had to be glazed, and even then didn’t prove as durable as a well-made oil painting. But at that price, only the very rich would care.

Next, mainstream artists started using pastels in preparatory work and sketches, here Charles Antoine Coypel’s dramatic portrait of Medea (c 1715).

One of the most brilliant of this first big wave of pastellists was Rosalba Carriera, whose work demonstrated that a good pastel painter could match the accomplishments of the best oil painters of the day. She had a painterly style at times, as shown in her rich marks in Africa, for which I don’t have a date.

In the fingers of a skilled pastellist, materials like hair and fur that had long challenged painters in oils became great strengths. Carriera’s superb Self-Portrait as ‘Winter’ from 1730-31 is a fine example, as seen in the detail below.

Look carefully and you can see individual grains of pastel that form each mark she made. She didn’t just apply her pastels dry and from the stick, but in places turned them back into a paste using water, and applied that to the paper with a brush.

The star pastellist of the middle of that century was undoubtedly Maurice Quentin de La Tour, whose works are readily seen in the Louvre and elsewhere.

De La Tour not only excelled at modelling softer surfaces and materials to which pastels are so suited, but tackled harder and glittery materials used in jewellery and the like. They’re particularly well shown in his Portrait of Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, Dauphine of France (1731–1767) (1756-60).

After de La Tour, the next brilliant pastellist was quite a contrast: Jean-Etienne Liotard, whose meticulous realism is just breathtaking. Applying his pastels to parchment rather than paper, he was able to paint painstakingly detailed works like The Chocolate Girl (c 1744-45). This shows how the medium was moving on from regular portraits.

Only when you see the patterned grain of the pastel on parchment does it become clear that this is not oil paint. I still marvel at the glass of water: surely a demonstration tour de force to make the viewer gasp in wonder.

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s simple portrait of a baby from about 1790 takes up from where Carriera and de La Tour had made their marks. This infant’s face is softly rendered, but their clothes are sketched in a loose style far in advance of oil paintings of the day.

Pastel painting remained popular through the nineteenth century, but its next major advances came with those around the Impressionists, rather than the core Impressionists, who overwhelmingly preferred oils.

Édouard Manet’s Woman Fastening Her Garter (1878-79) shows a motif many would associate more with Degas, and a spontaneous and sketchy style, with an emphasis on form.

Paul César Helleu was radical and exciting in his pastels; his portrait of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough (c 1900) combines perfect, smooth blending over her face with vigorous mark-making through the fabrics and the ornate frame of the chair, as shown in the detail below.

Edgar Degas was another innovative painter in pastels, whose work encouraged Odilon Redon to take the medium on into the twentieth century.

His recurrent theme of a small sailing boat, which kept appearing in Redon’s later paintings, was expressed most extensively in his pastels. Some, like Flower Clouds (c 1903), above, show the boat sketched in roughly, his paper being dominated by nebulous patches of colour from behind.

His best-known painting of the boat, The Yellow Sail (c 1905), below, was painted in pastel too. He exploits new and more intense pigments here, for the sparkling gems in the boat, and the clothing of the two women.

Although the period since has seen new media such as acrylics, there is still nothing else like painting in pure pigment.

Reference

Thea Burns (2007) The Invention of Pastel Painting, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 12 3.

In the long-distant past, our ancestors discovered that processing some natural products created glues. The raw materials either came from boiling animal bones, hide, and other offal, or from natural exudates of plants, and these came to be used as the binder for paints. Being ancient in origin, different combinations of binder, pigment, and other substances developed, and those have left a confusion of terms, including glue tempera, and distemper. These represent a spectrum of paints, ranging from those using only glue and pigment, to others also incorporating substantial amounts of powdered chalk or lime to increase their opacity, and related to whitewash.

Glue tempera was used in antiquity, and outside Europe remains in widespread use. It has several disadvantages for the painter, including:

• ‘Drying light’; as the paint dries, so it undergoes marked colour change, reducing the intensity of chroma.
• Mechanical fragility of the paint layer, which is particularly susceptible to abrasion and/or cracking.
• Solution on re-wetting, so that glue tempera can easily be reworked like watercolour, but is unsuitable for exposure to water or damp. Hardening of the glue binder isn’t the result of a stable polymerisation as with oil paints, and can readily be reversed.
• Relatively poor protection of light-sensitive pigments, resulting in some fading over time.

Taken together these mean that what we see in glue tempera paintings today is often quite different from how they looked at the time they were painted.

In the early Renaissance, some artists used glue tempera extensively and with great success, although surviving works haven’t aged as well as those painted using egg tempera or oils.

Dieric Bouts’ The Entombment from about 1450 was painted using glue tempera on linen. As it’s now well over half a millennium old its colours have faded, but it remains worth seeking out when you next visit The National Gallery in London.

In the south of Europe, Andrea Mantegna was one of its great exponents, as shown in his marvellous glue tempera and gold painting of A Sibyl and a Prophet from about 1495. Because this is monochrome and uses gold as the pigment, this has neither changed colour nor faded.

Some artists, such as Joris Hoefnagel, continued to use these ancient techniques, as shown in this painting of Diana and Actaeon from 1597. This is finely executed in glue tempera and gold on vellum, and its colours have survived well.

With the widespread adoption of oil paint, glue tempera almost disappeared until it was revived at the end of the eighteenth century by William Blake.

Blake painted a series of major works in what he termed tempera, using glue as their binder. This Adoration of the Kings from 1799 shows the dulling of colour and fine cracking from his use of stretched canvas as its support.

Some of Blake’s glue tempera paintings have survived in better condition: The Christ Child Asleep on the Cross, or Our Lady Adoring the Infant Jesus Asleep on the Cross from 1799-1800 has fared better, retaining more of its original colour.

Paintings such as Blake’s Virgin and Child in Egypt from 1810 show the fine modelling he was able to achieve in its figures. Overall, though, the condition of his glue tempera paintings isn’t good. It has been suggested that some of their variation is attributable to different sources of glue, clearly of major importance. For a long time, glues provided for this and similar purposes in painting have been referred to as rabbit skin glue, but in reality the great majority have been derived from a wide range of animal products, often in uncontrolled conditions.

After Blake, the medium fell back into obscurity until later in the nineteenth century, when it was revived by movements attempting to return to techniques of the past, most prominently the Nabis in France.

Pierre Bonnard used glue tempera early in his career, when painting this exquisite three-panelled Japoniste screen of The Stork and Four Frogs in about 1889, as the Nabis were forming. Using more modern pigments, Bonnard has achieved high chroma, comparable to anything in oils, and quite unlike traditional glue tempera.

Odilon Redon experimented with glue tempera in his painting of Buddha from 1904.

Édouard Vuillard used glue tempera in many of his paintings both during his Nabi period and later, for example in this view Under the Trees of the Red House from about 1905.

Vuillard’s At The Pavillons in Cricqueboeuf. In Front of the House, from 1911, shows how effective the medium can be.

Vuillard continued to use glue tempera in his late realist paintings, such as Morning Concert, Place Vintimille from 1937-38, showing a trio of friends playing for the artist in his Paris apartment.

Glue tempera remains in use today by a very few artists, who at least have a wider range of lightfast pigments to choose from, and more consistent formulations of glue to act as binder.

Rumours still abound as to the cause of Napoleon’s death over two centuries ago. One theory, not currently in favour, is that he was poisoned by arsenic in the wallpaper. At the time, that would have been unusual, but by the 1860s such deaths were significant enough to be reported in newspapers. Their ultimate cause was also one of the factors behind the success of Impressionist landscape painting: emerald green.

Getting a good range of green pigments was vital for landscape painting, and more generally for coloured commercial products such as wallpaper and clothing. The first of the ‘poison greens’ to be discovered was that named after Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the Swedish chemist who originally made it in 1775: copper arsenite, a highly toxic salt of arsenic. Soon after its introduction from about 1780, it became clear that it tended to darken with age, and the search began for a replacement.

Little attention has been paid to the use of Scheele’s green, and it isn’t clear how widely it was used, or even when it was first used in painting.

JMW Turner’s early oil sketch of Guildford from the Banks of the Wey, painted in about 1805, has been found to contain Scheele’s green. Given its range of greens, that could be quite extensive.

Wilhelm Sattler, a paint manufacturer in Schweinfurt, Germany, worked with Friedrich Russ to discover an even better arsenic compound for use as a colourant, and from 1814 Sattler’s company manufactured Schweinfurt or emerald green, the equally toxic copper acetoarsenite. Its alluringly brilliant green colour appears very stable, with only slight darkening resulting from reaction with hydrogen sulphide, a common atmospheric pollutant.

By about 1830-32, when Turner painted Going to School as an illustration for Rogers’s Poems, he had switched to using emerald green, obvious from its characteristic colour standing out from the small bag on the boy’s back.

Turner used emerald green again in this watercolour painting of Rouen, Looking Downstream from about 1832, here in combination with other pigments, so less brashly.

Concerns over the established toxicity of these two greens were raised by 1839, when warnings were first issued in Bavaria. Despite those, the use of emerald green became more widespread, and it was even ‘fixed’ to ball gowns using albumen or dextrin, which allowed its poisonous dust to brush free from the garment when dancing. It also became particularly popular, and insidiously toxic, in coloured wallpapers. When applied on damp walls, as were common at the time, fungal products could produce trimethyl arsine gas, which is thought to have been responsible for many of the symptoms and deaths that were reported.

Édouard Manet’s Music in the Tuileries (1862) is an unusual example of a painting containing both Scheele’s and emerald greens. Manet used them in combination in two different glazes applied to the areas of foliage. In one transparent glaze, they are mixed with yellow lake, small amounts of ivory black, and yellow ochre; the other more opaque glaze consists of the two greens, with yellow ochre and white.

The last recorded use of Scheele’s green was by Edwin Landseer in 1866.

The Impressionists relied heavily on emerald green for its brilliance and intensity of colour. Frédéric Bazille’s Self-Portrait with Palette (1865) shows some emerald green paint on his palette, squeezed out and ready to paint vegetation such as sunlit grass.

Claude Monet used emerald green among other green pigments and mixtures in his famous Bathers at la Grenouillère, painted in 1869. It has also been found widely in the landscapes of Cézanne, Gauguin, Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh.

By the late nineteenth century, concern over the consequences of using emerald green in household products had risen to the point where the pigment was banned in a succession of countries.

Paul Gauguin’s Arlésiennes (Mistral) (Old Women at Arles) (1888) uses emerald green for the band of bright green grass sweeping up across the painting from the right. It is also mixed for the skin and hair of some of the figures, and in the foliage more generally.

Odilon Redon’s pastel painting of Sîta from about 1893 uses emerald green, chrome yellow and chalk in the prominent yellow-green halo surrounding the woman’s head. Working with soft pastels containing this pigment was particularly hazardous, because of the likelihood of inhaling their dust. At least today we have effective respiratory protection available.

During the twentieth century, genuine emerald green was withdrawn from use as a pigment, although it wasn’t completely discontinued until the 1960s. Since then, paints sold as being emerald green have contained alternatives that are far less toxic.

Emerald green has been found in mixtures used by Paul Cézanne in the patches of vegetation in his huge The Large Bathers (1906). Alongside lead white, vermilion and ultramarine blue, this pigment appears to have been among his most frequently used.

Childe Hassam’s watercolour of White Mountains from Poland Springs from 1917 is one of the last major paintings that appears to have relied on emerald green. Its use in the meadow in the foreground is perhaps the pigment’s last brash farewell.

Reference

Inge Fiedler and Michael Bayard (1997) Artists’ Pigments, vol 3, ed Elisabeth West Fitzhugh, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 76 0.

This is the last of four articles providing brief summaries and contents for this series of paintings telling myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and covers parts 55-74, from the foundation of Troy to the age of Augustus.

The foundation of Troy by Laomedon who failed to repay Apollo and Neptune for their help, so Neptune floods the city. Peleus marries the Nereid Thetis, with their wedding banquet on Mount Pelion, attended by the gods. Eris, goddess of discord, throws a golden apple into the group as a reward for the fairest, setting up the Judgement of Paris and leading to the war against Troy. Thetis gives birth to Achilles.

55 The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis

Chione boasts she is fairer than Diana, so the goddess shoots an arrow through her tongue, and she bleeds to death. Her father is turned into a hawk. Ceyx and Halcyone are turned into kingfishers. Aesacus is turned into a seabird after the death of Hesperia from a snake bite.

56 The hawk, kingfishers and a diver

After his judgement, Paris abducts Helen and triggers the war against Troy. The thousand ships of the Greeks gather at Aulis, where they’re delayed by storms. Their leader Agamemnon had offended Diana, so has to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to propitiate the goddess. At the last moment, Diana may have substituted a deer.

57 The sacrifice of Iphigenia

The Greek fleet sets sail against Troy, and when it arrives Protesilaus, the first to land, is killed by Hector. Achilles kills Cycnus, who is transformed into a swan. Caeneus was born a woman and raped by Neptune, for which she was turned into a male warrior. Nestor tells of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodame.

58 A wedding ruined by centaurs

Neptune’s hatred for Achilles leads to the warrior’s death from an arrow shot by Paris.

59 The death of Achilles

Ajax and Ulysses contest for the armour of Achilles, but Ajax loses and falls on his sword. His blood is turned into the purple hyacinth flower. Troy falls, Priam is killed, Hector’s son Astyanax is thrown from a tower, and Troy is sacked by the Greeks.

60 The sack of Troy

Queen Hecuba’s youngest son is murdered, and her daughter Polyxena is sacrificed to gain fair winds for the departing Greek fleet. Hecuba blinds Polymestor and is transformed into a dog. Aurora laments the death of her son Memnon.

61 Sacrifice of Polyxena

Aeneas flees Troy with his father Anchises and son Ascanius, but his wife Creusa dies before she can escape. They sail with a fleet of Trojan survivors to Delos, then on to Crete.

62 Aeneas flees Troy

Aeneas sails on to land on Sicily. Galatea tells the story of her love for Acis, and the jealousy of Polyphemus the Cyclops, who killed Acis, whose blood was turned into a stream.

63 The tragedy of Galatea

Glaucus pursues Scylla, and is refused, so he visits Circe, who turns the lower part of Scylla’s body into a pack of dogs, then finally into a rock in the Straits of Messina. Together with Charybdis the whirlpool, they pose a threat to Odysseus’ ship.

64 Scylla meets Glaucus

Aeneas is rowed through the straits only to be blown south to Carthage, where he has an affair with Queen Dido. When he departs she falls on a sword he gave her and dies on her funeral pyre. Aeneas returns north to land at Cumae to visit its Sibyl. The pair visit the underworld, where they meet the ghost of Anchises.

65 The Cumaean Sibyl

A survivor left from Ulysses’ crew tells of their encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, who had held them captive. Ulysses got him drunk and blinded his single eye. The crew escaped tied under a flock of sheep. As they fled in their ship, the Cyclops threw a huge rock at them.

66 The tale of Polyphemus

A second of Ulysses’ crew tells of their time on Circe’s island. She turned them into pigs, but they were transformed back after Ulysses and Circe married.

67 Circe and her swine

Circe transforms Picus, King of Latium, into a woodpecker. Aeneas arrives at Latium, where he has to fight Turnus for the throne. Aeneas’ ships are burned and transformed into sea nymphs. As the end of Aeneas’ life draws near, he undergoes apotheosis to become Indiges.

68 Apotheosis of Aeneas

Pomona, a dedicated gardener who shuns men, is courted unsuccessfully by Vertumnus, god of the seasons. He assumes the guise of an old woman to try to persuade her, and tells her the tragic story of Iphis and Anaxarete, who was transformed into a statue. Vertumnus finally succeeds.

69 Vertumnus and Pomona

Rome is founded by Romulus. Its war with the Sabines, the death of the Sabine King Tatius, and Romulus becomes ruler of both peoples. Romulus is transformed into the god Quirinus, with his wife Hersilia as the goddess Hora.

70 Romulus and the founding of Rome

Myscelus is saved from death and goes on to found Crotona, where Pythagoras lived in exile. Pythagoras expounds change and transformation underlying everything in nature, and the central theme of Metamorphoses. The virtues of vegetarianism. King Numa returns to Rome and establishes its laws.

71 Pythagoras and Numa

Plague strikes Rome. The oracle at Delphi tells the Romans to bring the god Aesculapius to the city. He is taken as a snake from Epidaurus to his temple on Tiber Island, and the Romans are saved from plague.

72 Plague and Aesculapius

The assassination of Julius Caesar, who then undergoes apotheosis.

73 Julius Caesar

Jupiter foretells the accomplishments of Augustus, including success in battle, the fall of Cleopatra, and growth of the empire. The fate of Ovid in banishment to Tomis on the Black Sea.

74 The Age of Augustus