Pastel is a stick of pure pigment held together with minimal binder. Learn how Degas layered pastels with fixative, how La Tour built portraits in the 18th century, and why pastel blurs drawing and painting.
Edgar Degas spent decades trying to make pastel behave like oil paint. He layered colors on top of each other, fixed each layer with a secret formula developed by his friend Luigi Chialiva, and built up surfaces so dense with pigment that his pastels have the physical presence of paintings. A technical study by the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, published in 2024, used infrared reflectography, X-radiography, and macro photography to analyze Degas's At the Milliner's (1882). The study revealed that Degas superimposed layers of color without mixing them, letting the viewer's eye do the blending. He was not drawing with pastel. He was painting with it, one fixed layer at a time.
Pastel is a drawing and painting medium consisting of a stick of pure pigment held together with a minimal binder, usually gum tragacanth or methylcellulose. The proportion of pigment to binder is extraordinarily high compared to other art materials: a soft pastel may be 90 percent pigment or more. This is what gives pastel its characteristic color intensity. When a pastel stick is dragged across paper, it deposits a layer of nearly pure pigment on the surface. There is no liquid vehicle to evaporate, no oil to dry, no water to absorb. The color you see in the stick is the color you get on the paper, and it does not change as it dries because it never dries.
This entry covers what pastel is, how it works, its history from Leonardo da Vinci to Degas and beyond, which artists are known for it, and how to use it in practice.
Pastel is made by mixing dry pigment powder with a small amount of binder and enough water to form a paste. The paste is pressed into molds or extruded into sticks and dried. The resulting stick is mostly pigment, held together just enough to maintain its shape. When the stick touches paper, pigment particles transfer to the surface and lodge in the paper's texture. The minimal binder means the pigment sits on the surface rather than soaking in, which is why pastel colors are so vivid and why pastel drawings are so fragile.
The word "pastel" comes from the Italian "pastello," meaning a paste or dough, referring to the paste-like consistency of the pigment-binder mixture before it is dried. The term was in use by the 17th century, though the medium itself is older. Leonardo da Vinci is credited with one of the earliest pastel drawings, a portrait of Isabella d'Este (c. 1499-1500), though the medium was not widely adopted until the 18th century.
Pastel exists in several forms. Soft pastels have the highest pigment content and the least binder, producing the richest color and the most powdery, fragile surface. Hard pastels have more binder and less pigment, producing firmer sticks that hold a point for detail work. Pastel pencils encase hard pastel in wood, combining the precision of a pencil with the color of pastel. Oil pastels use a non-drying oil and wax binder instead of gum, producing a greasy, paint-like mark that does not smudge as easily as soft pastel. Pan pastels are compressed pastel in a pan format, applied with sponge tools, designed for broad coverage and layering.
The origins of pastel are intertwined with natural chalk. Renaissance artists used natural red, black, and white chalks for drawing. By the late 15th century, artists had begun fabricating crayons and pastels by grinding pigment into a paste bound with wax, gum arabic, or pipe clay. The Ars Pictoria guide to Renaissance drawing materials notes that Leonardo da Vinci used pastel for depictions of Christ and the Apostles, though these works are lost. The first documented pastel portrait is generally attributed to Jean Fouquet's preparatory drawing for the portrait of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins (c. 1455), which is also considered the first use of the trois crayons technique and the origin of the French pastel tradition.
Pastel flourished in the 18th century, particularly in France. The medium suited the Rococo taste for soft colors, rapid execution, and intimate portraiture. Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704-1788) was the most celebrated pastel portraitist of the period. His Self-Portrait Wearing a Jabot (c. 1751, Musee de Picardie) demonstrates pastel's capacity for both precise detail and luminous color. Jean-Simeon Chardin (1699-1779) also worked in pastel, producing still lifes and self-portraits that exploit the medium's matte surface and rich color. Jean-Baptiste Perronneau (1715-1783) was La Tour's rival, producing pastel portraits with a softer, more atmospheric quality.
After the French Revolution, pastel fell out of favor. Oil paint dominated the 19th century, and pastel was associated with the aristocratic portraiture that the Revolution had swept away. But Degas recovered the medium in the 1870s and 1880s, giving it a new life. The Museo Thyssen's technical study of At the Milliner's describes how Degas "explored pastel like no one before him, giving it a new life. He handled it in such a way that his works blur the boundaries between drawing and painting." Degas used pastel on its own and in mixed techniques, combining it with gouache, tempera, and even crushed pastel mixed with water to create watercolor effects. Read the full study at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
A 2025 study published in the International Journal of Arts and Social Science investigated how Degas's declining vision, likely due to age-related macular degeneration, influenced his late pastel technique. The study found that features consistent with central vision loss, including blurred contours, tonal modeling, and altered spatial composition, appeared in his late works. Spectral imaging identified recurrent pigments such as lead white, ultramarine blue, cadmium orange, and chrome yellow, applied in dense layers, often on tracing paper. Degas's vision loss did not inhibit his creativity. It fostered technical innovation, including the use of tracing paper as a support and increasingly broad applications of pastel. Read the study at IJASS.
Leonardo is credited with early pastel experiments, including the portrait of Isabella d'Este (c. 1499-1500, Louvre). The Ars Pictoria guide notes that Leonardo used pastel for "excellent and miraculous depictions of the heads of Christ and the Apostles," though these works are lost. Leonardo's use of pastel was part of his broader exploration of chalk and powdered pigment media.
La Tour was the supreme pastel portraitist of the 18th century. His Self-Portrait Wearing a Jabot (c. 1751) and Portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1755, Musee du Louvre) demonstrate pastel's capacity for both precise detail and brilliant color. La Tour worked entirely in pastel, never in oil, and his portraits were prized for their lifelike quality and the speed of their execution.
Degas is the artist who transformed pastel from a portrait medium into a vehicle for radical experimentation. His Ballet Scene (c. 1880-1900, National Gallery of Art) uses pastel on tracing paper, layered with fixative to build up complex color relationships. A 2018 study using visible-to-near-infrared reflectance imaging spectroscopy at the National Gallery of Art revealed underdrawing beneath multiple layers of pastel and fixative, showing how Degas refined his compositions during the working process. Read the study at Taylor & Francis.
Cassatt, an American who exhibited with the Impressionists, used pastel for her depictions of mothers and children. The Child's Bath (1893, Art Institute of Chicago) exists in a pastel version that demonstrates the medium's capacity for intimate, tender observation. Cassatt's pastels are notable for their loose, confident handling and their warm, luminous color.
Redon turned to pastel late in his career, abandoning the dark "noirs" of his early years for explosions of color. Pastels like The Cyclops (c. 1914, Musee d'Orsay) and Butterflies (c. 1910, private collection) use pastel's pure pigment to create luminous, dreamlike images. Redon's pastels are among the most color-saturated works of the early 20th century.
Pastel requires paper with sufficient tooth to hold the pigment. Pastel paper is manufactured with a textured surface, sometimes with a built-in abrasive coating, to grab and hold pigment particles. Smooth paper will not hold pastel adequately. Many artists use sanded paper, which has a coating of fine abrasive particles, for its ability to hold multiple layers of pastel.
Application techniques include linear strokes (using the edge of the stick), broad coverage (using the side), blending (with fingers, a stump, or a cloth), scumbling (dragging a light color over a darker one), and feathering (building up color through small, overlapping strokes). Pastel can also be scraped off, lifted with a kneaded eraser, or washed with water if using water-soluble pastel.
Fixative is the central problem of pastel. Pastel drawings are fragile because the pigment sits on the surface with minimal binder. Fixative, a resin in solvent, can be sprayed to bind the pigment to the paper. But fixative darkens colors and reduces the matte luminosity that makes pastel distinctive. Degas rejected commercial fixatives because they altered his colors, and he had Chialiva develop a formula that fixed without darkening. Most artists today use fixative sparingly, fixing between layers to allow continued work but avoiding heavy final coats that would flatten the surface.
Finished pastel drawings should be framed under glass with a mat to prevent the pastel from touching the glass. Pastel dust will transfer to glass that rests directly on the drawing surface.
Pastel is related to several other drawing materials. Natural chalks are the ancestors of pastel, consisting of earth pigments in stick form. Conte crayons are a harder, more controlled version of the same concept, with more binder and less pigment. Charcoal is a carbon-based drawing material that shares pastel's powdery, smudgeable quality. The blending stump is the primary tool for smoothing and blending pastel on paper.
For more on drawing and painting techniques, read our entries on chiaroscuro, broken color, and fixative, or explore our post on oil painting techniques.
The Musee d'Orsay holds the largest collection of Degas pastels, including the late bathers and dancers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has La Tour's Portrait of Abbe Huber and Cassatt pastels. The National Gallery of Art in Washington holds Degas's Ballet Scene and other pastels. The Musee du Louvre holds 18th-century French pastel portraits by La Tour, Perronneau, and Chardin. Pastels are extremely light-sensitive and are displayed in rotation with low light levels.
Pastel is the medium that refuses to sit still. It is drawing and painting at the same time, a stick of pure color that behaves like both. Degas showed what it could do when an artist stopped treating it as a secondary medium and pushed it as far as it would go. For more on the materials that connect to pastel, read our entries on chalk and Conte crayon, or explore our guide to how to read a painting.
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