The Craze for Pastel

Nice exhibition at Tate Britain looking at the 18th century fashion for using pastel as an alternative to oil paint. The show marks the new acquisition of Ozias Humprehy’s “Baron Nagell’s Running Slave” a beautiful portrait of a black servant in exotic livery.

It was interesting to see how well known artists had used the medium with works by Constable, Gainsborough and Turner,  who used it for a lovely rapid sketch of the Belvedere Apollo.  My favourite though was the lovely portrait probably by Wright of Derby of a man with flowing hair.

It was also interesting to see how the genre grew with using pastel to imitate oil paint but then moved round for oil to try start to imitate the effect of pastel. The fashion partly died out due to the growth in neo-classicism which called for a more austere and defined style.

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