The dust of dreams: A journey into the heart of pastel and charcoal
Imagine a Parisian studio in 1745, where the golden morning light filters through dusty panes. On an easel, a young woman with fingers stained pink and blue brings to life, with a precise gesture, the portrait of a marquise. The pastel, that stick of pure colour, glides across the paper like a breat
By Artedusa
••8 min read
The dust of dreams: a journey into the heart of pastel and charcoal
Imagine a Parisian studio in 1745, where the golden morning light filters through dusty panes. On an easel, a young woman with fingers stained pink and blue brings to life, with a precise gesture, the portrait of a marquise. The pastel, that stick of pure colour, glides across the paper like a breath, leaving behind a trail of velvety light. A few streets away, in the smoky studio of a young Romantic painter, sheets of paper litter the floor, covered in black, tormented lines. The charcoal, that wood coal with bluish reflections, dances between the artist’s fingers, creating shadows so deep they seem to swallow the light.
These two mediums, as fragile as they are evocative, have traversed the centuries, carrying the dreams and torments of artists. Pastel, with its enchanting softness, seduced European courts before being relegated to the rank of a mere feminine technique. Charcoal, meanwhile, served as a preparatory tool before establishing itself as a language in its own right, capable of expressing the darkness of the human soul. Yet their very fragility—this dust that scatters at the slightest breath—makes them perfect metaphors for artistic creation: ephemeral, intense, and profoundly human.
The gold of kings and the ash of revolutionaries
Pastel was born under the sign of light. In the eighteenth century, Venice became its cradle, and Rosalba Carriera its high priestess. This Venetian artist, whose talent equalled that of the greatest masters, revolutionised portraiture by using sticks of pure colour, without oily binders. Her works, like that portrait of the young Louis XV where the pink cheeks still seem warm, captivated with their almost supernatural luminosity. European courts clamoured for her services, and for a few decades, pastel reigned supreme in the art of portraiture.
Yet this glory was short-lived. With the French Revolution, pastel became the hated symbol of a decadent aristocracy. Artists turned to more "serious" mediums—oil, charcoal—capable of bearing the new ideals. Charcoal, precisely, then had its moment of glory. In the studios of the École des Beaux-Arts, students learned to master this black, powdery stick to sketch the human figure. Théodore Géricault, in his preparatory studies for The Raft of the Medusa, used charcoal to capture the anguish and despair of his shipwrecked men. The black line, sometimes so light it barely grazes the paper, at other times so dense it becomes palpable, became the language of an emerging modernity.
The dance of fingers and pigments
One must imagine Degas in his studio, eyes narrowed to better distinguish the nuances of pink and blue in the dim light. His dancers, those creatures of light and movement, came to life under his fingers with an almost magical grace. For him, pastel was not merely a medium but a dance partner. He layered the colours, scratched the surface with improvised tools, sometimes mixing pastel with gouache or oil to achieve unprecedented effects. His works, like The Blue Dancers, are palimpsests where each layer reveals and conceals the previous ones.
At the same time, in a more modest studio, Mary Cassatt was also exploring the possibilities of pastel. Her scenes of motherhood, like Mother and Child, capture the intimacy of everyday gestures with a tenderness all her own. Unlike Degas, she refused to use fixatives, preferring to let the colours breathe freely. Today, her works, once so vibrant, have lost some of their brilliance. The blues have faded to grey, the pinks have softened. Yet this very fragility adds a poignant dimension to her paintings: they carry within them the passage of time, like those moments of happiness she sought to immortalise.
The breath that carries the work away
The fragility of pastel and charcoal is not just a metaphor. It is a tangible, almost physical reality. Take a pastel work in your hands: at the slightest touch, a fine coloured dust drifts away, carrying with it a part of the work. Museum conservators know this well, handling these pieces with gloves and masks, as if touching sacred relics.
Fixatives, those sprays meant to protect the works, have long been a source of dilemmas. In the eighteenth century, Rosalba Carriera experimented with solutions based on gum arabic, which yellowed over time. Degas, for his part, used mixtures of his own making, sometimes based on beer or milk, which attracted mould. Today, conservators have modern fixatives at their disposal, but the debate remains: should one sacrifice some of the colours’ luminosity to preserve the work? Some artists, like Cassatt, preferred to risk deterioration rather than alter their creations.
Charcoal, meanwhile, presents different problems. Its black dust, more tenacious than pastel’s, embeds itself in the paper’s fibres and resists fixatives. The works of Käthe Kollwitz, with their deep blacks and tormented lines, are particularly vulnerable. In Woman with Dead Child, the shadows seem ready to fade at the slightest breath. Yet it is precisely this fragility that gives the work its dramatic intensity: as if the pain it expresses were too great to be contained within the frame.
When light becomes dust
There is something deeply poetic in the fact that these mediums, which capture light so well, are themselves so sensitive to its destruction. Pastel pigments, especially reds and blues, are particularly vulnerable to UV rays. The works of Degas, displayed for decades without protection, have seen their colours fade like a sunset dissolving. Today, museums use special glass to filter harmful rays, but the damage is often already done.
Charcoal, less sensitive to light, is instead vulnerable to abrasion. Odilon Redon’s delicate lines in The Eye Like a Strange Balloon seem ready to vanish at the slightest draft. Conservators sometimes resort to advanced techniques, like multispectral imaging, to reveal details hidden beneath layers of dust or yellowed fixative.
This struggle against time is not unlike the artists’ own work. As if, by choosing these fragile mediums, they had accepted from the outset that their works might not outlive them. And yet, it is perhaps precisely this awareness of the ephemeral that gives their creations such intensity.
The studio as laboratory
In an artist’s studio, every technical choice is a statement of intent. Take pastel: the type of paper, the brand of sticks, the way they are applied—everything matters. Degas, for example, preferred to work on tinted papers, often blue or grey, which allowed him to play with contrasts of light. He also used unusual tools, like brushes or even his fingers, to blend the colours and create soft-focus effects.
Charcoal, too, offers a rich palette of possibilities. Some artists, like Géricault, used vine charcoal, softer and easier to blend. Others, like Kollwitz, preferred compressed charcoal, which allows for sharper, deeper lines. The way the stick is held, the pressure applied, the movement of the wrist—all influence the final result.
Fixatives, though controversial, are also part of this alchemy. Some artists use them between layers to rework their piece without destroying it. Others avoid them, preferring to leave their creation in a state of assumed fragility. In any case, the choice of fixative—its composition, its method of application—is an artistic decision in itself.
The memory of hands
There is, in pastel and charcoal works, something that goes beyond mere representation. As if, through these powdery lines, one could sense the physical presence of the artist. The fingers that blended the colours, the breath that scattered the dust, the pressure of hands on paper—all leave invisible but very real traces.
Take Schiele’s self-portraits. His black, angular lines seem to have been drawn in a fever, as if the artist sought to tear himself away. The way the charcoal clings to the paper, sometimes leaving fingerprints, gives his works an almost physical intensity. One can feel the tension in his hands, the speed of his gesture.
With Degas, it is another kind of presence that emerges. His dancers, with their diaphanous tutus and graceful poses, seem ready to come to life before our eyes. Yet if one looks closely, one sees the traces of his fingers, the places where he rubbed the pastel to create soft-focus effects. These imperfections, far from detracting from the work, give it a human, almost tactile dimension.
The eternal and the ephemeral
At heart, pastel and charcoal are mediums that play with the boundaries between the permanent and the ephemeral. They capture moments of light, fleeting emotions, movements that last but an instant. And yet they do so with an intensity that seems to defy time.
The works of these artists, despite their fragility, have crossed the centuries. They still speak to us with the same force as on the day they were created. Perhaps it is precisely because they carry within them this awareness of their own ephemerality. As if, by accepting that they would one day disappear, they had acquired a form of eternity.
In a world where everything seems made to last—concrete buildings, digital data, plastic objects—pastel and charcoal remind us that some things are worth creating, even if they last only a moment. Like a breath, like a dream, like the golden light of a Parisian morning.
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