Recently on the Pastel Society of America (PSA) Facebook page, a conversation was initiated by someone who had had work rejected from an exhibit because as a pastel, it was considered a drawing by the organizers and the show only accepted paintings. You can imagine the furor that started in this pastel group!
So is a picture created in pastels a drawing or painting?
Let’s have a look at some Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definitions:
‘Draw’ – produce (a picture) by tracing lines and marks, represent (a thing) by this means
‘Drawing’ – 1 a the art of representing by line. b delineation without colour or with a single colour. c the art of representing with pencils, pens, crayons, etc., rather than paint. 2 a picture produced in this way
‘Pastel’ – 1 a crayon consisting of powdered pigments bound with a gum solution. 2 a work of art in pastel
‘Paint’ – n. 1a colouring matter, esp. in liquid form for imparting colour to a surface. b this as a dried film or coating.
‘Painting’ – 1 the process or art of using paint. 2 a painted picture
Hmmmm….rather vague I’d say but because of that, I think we can certainly fit pastels into the painting category going by the OED. The most pertinent part is in the definition of ‘Paint’ (italicized) which suggests that any colouring agent that imparts colour to a surface can be recognized as paint. Consider that pastels are one of the purest forms of pigment (ie colouring matter) available!
Would you consider this a drawing or a painting?
I’d say Paula Rego’s pastels are always paintings!
What about this one?
With pastel painting, you can have the same layering effect as you might see in oil paintings. As Adrian Frankel Giuliani said in the PSA thread, “You can build up color just like you can do with oils .” Pastellists think about values, colours, edges, composition, texture the same way as any painter. The one difference is that one medium is applied wet, the other dry (typically).
I think of drawings as a way to understand what you are looking at, to explore ideas, to capture fleeting gestures and moments. It can be a quick and direct method to record thoughts, sensations, and inner visions. It’s a way to find the essence of a thing. I also think of drawings as being typically smaller than paintings, usually on paper.
Casey Klahn thinks that “drawing is concerned with problem solving, and often emphasizes line.” Daggi Wallace suggested that drawings tend to be “sketchy, [with] lots of line markings, lots of paper showing through.” Ellen Eagle added that she considers “pastel works in which much paper is left untouched to be drawings. When the entire surface is covered in pastel, I consider the work to be a painting.”
While researching this post, I came across a definition of drawing I rather liked (unfortunately I misplaced the source): “A small amount of material is released onto the two dimensional surface, leaving a visible mark.”
As Bill Creevy pointed out in the PSA discussion (and I agree with him), “one can draw with paint too”.
Take a look at this oil – is it more a drawing or a painting? I think drawing:
And what about the wonderful work of Cy Twombly – drawing or painting?
And what of Wolf Kahn? Look at this oil painting, so full of mark and line making that it makes me think of a drawing:
Compare it to this pastel which to me certainly looks like a painting:
One thing about dry media, generally they need to be protected by some sort of glazing, primarily glass. This includes pastel of course.
It’s interesting how I find myself wanting my pastel work to be called paintings. I think it’s because drawings have traditionally been thought of as ‘less than’ and thus not as important as paintings (especially oils). And dammit, I want my work to be considered important! Maybe that’s why this issue is so important to most pastellists.
Sometimes it’s difficult to tell an oil from a pastel at a glance. Just look at the work of Albert Handell and Richard McKinley (and Wolf Kahn above).
Richard McKinley’s work is also a great example:
I’d love to know your opinion. Where do you stand on this debate? Please let me know by adding a comment below.
Needless to say, I think of my pastel work as paintings!
Until next time,
~ Gail
PS. Many thanks to everyone who participated in the Facebook conversation 🙂 And a big thank you to Anita Gladstone for initiating the whole thing!
PPS. Mark Norseth reminded us that this debate is not new, “This is not a new issue…William Merrit Chase, Robert Blum, and J. Caroll Beckwith and the Society of Painters in Pastel went over this ground in the 1880’s when selecting a name for their organization. They went with ‘painters’.” click here to read a bit more.
PPPS. I sort of think of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings as drawings. Crazy idea?
15 thoughts on “Is it a Painting or a Drawing? The debate over the status of pastels”
I’d say the above works would be … paintings, paintings, and paintings …. the oil painting could perhaps be both a painting and drawing. Now how cool is that!
Yaaayyyyyyyy. Mucho coolo!
Great conversation! For a reason that I cannot fathom, in our culture the term “Painting” is given more artistic merit than that of “drawing”. However, I love to look at drawings, and especially sketches, because they reveal the lines — and sometimes the thought process — of the artist, creating a uniqueness not found in many paintings. I love pastel drawings.
Jeff, I am totally with you on the delight of drawings!! They show the hand of the artist much more so than paintings. As you say, thought processes may be revealed, hesitations and changes, decisions and preferences. Such fascination almost led me to a doctorate. Ah yes, I love drawings!!!
Really enjoyed this one Gail.
Stay well!
Ralph
Thanks Ralph! Wonder why you enjoyed this particular blog so much??
Just found your blog and your work. I have become a great admirer.
I have just begun to learn pastel painting, and i agree as the purest form of pigment it is a painting.
I have been a colored pencil artist for about 15 years, and the same arguments arise about colored pencil. Some
Works in colored pencil can rival any “painting” and there are many great colored pencil artists.
I agree wholeheartedly pastel is painting, the purest form of painting as the artist hand
Becomes the brush.
I use your videos as my private class. Please continue to make them.
How lovely to hear from you Sam and thank you for your compliments and enthusiasm!
I can sure see how coloured pencil work could buck up against the drawing/painting bias, I would think even more so than pastels. And you are right – some coloured pencil pieces are ‘paintings’!
I love what you said about the hand becoming the brush with pastels.
I am so glad you are enjoying the videos! And yes, I plan to continue making them. Is there any question or suggestion you have around the videos?
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I do appreciate it!
PAINTINGS! PAINTINGS!
I had just finished a very large pastel painting (which was just juried into the IAPS competition) when a friend, who was upset with me about something totally unrelated to painting, decided to tell me that I wasn’t a real painter. What I did were just drawings. I was shocked. I don’t think I’d ever even thought about the issue “paintings vs drawings” and always looked at my work as paintings. Then I got upset. Then I decided I didn’t care, thinking this person was either a moron, uneducated or just looking for a way to get to me.
Diane thanks for coming over from Facebook to respond!! And with such clarity!
Wow – I can hardly believe what your friend said. And the words ‘just drawings’ are also hurtful in the sense that drawings themselves are so belittled. It’s darn hard this art thing and certainly, drawings deserve a huge amount of respect.
Congratulations on being juried into the IAPS show!!!!
I think you win the argument hands down colour is the deciding factor you can be justly proud of all of your work in pastel We need more and more.
Thanks Sandy! I’m on it!!!!
Years ago when I asked the same question to Flora Giffuni, she answered to me:
When the surface is not completely covered by pigments it can be considered like a drawing and when it is completely covered by pigments it is a pastel painting.
It appeared to me as a good definition when we need to make things understandable at first hand.
Even now, for too many people the first question is what is pastel, the second question you may expect is, is it drawing or painting?
So a clear and simple answer is allowing you to continue the debate to enlarge the view on pastel itself.
If we take an example: do you think that Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings are less interesting than his paintings?
I have to admit that a lot of his simple drawings could be considered like master pieces, and in that case that kind of drawings are more interesting and powerful than some common oil paintings even from well known signatures.
There is what we can call a general rule but the ‘exceptions’ or when we go more deep inside of a subject we find different possible way of thinking.
Some questions can’t be answered by yes or no.
It is like one of the most common question, are you for or against fixative. Personally I do not need it the way I work but I am not against, it just depends on the way you work with the pigments and on which surface you work.
If you work with impressionist touches with a lot of pigments with a board which is too fragile to accept too much pigments you will have to or you couldn’t technically construct the way you want to paint.
It is not far the same for ‘ drawing or painting’.
We could wonder about composition, if you have one subject on the painting is it drawing or painting. A canvas must or not be covered by different subjects to be considered as a painting or not?
When you are in front of a master piece, even if there is very few on the canvas it is like the subject was going out of the board, you just see it, no mater the way it is done.
Sometime you are also in front of another master piece and it is so many details but suddenly you are entering inside the canvas, all your senses are awaking, you’re catch by the intensity of the work whatever it is a drawing or painting!
So in that case some pastel drawings can be probably considered like paintings, because of their outstanding
Painting is nothing to do with wet or dry to me, but as more to do with an achieved work.
Could we do oil painting without pigments, and which one is close to 100% pigments if not Pastel?
In Art what I love the most is diversity of point of views and diversity of way of doing it because by the differences we enrich ourselves and open our minds.
Sylvie Cabal
Founder Art du Pastel en France
A good question. If pigment means paint, then yes, a pastel is a painting. That said, is colored pencil or oil pastel then considered a painting? Neither seem to be considered paintings by myself or anyone else.
Taking it a step further, I actually don’t think that the measurement (standard, if you will) has to always be a painting, eg, an oil painting. What I’m saying is why do we feel the need to call our pastel works paintings.
I’m flattered and sometimes not when someone tells me that one of my pieces look like a painting (they mean an oil). I’d love
in my lifetime to see oil painters told that their painting is wonderful, ‘it looks like a pastel’.
Cy, I also would love to see the work of oil painters compared to pastels!!
I know that some artists who work in coloured pencil consider their work paintings (and sometimes it is difficult to tell what the medium is and boy do they look like ‘paintings’!) and I am sure the same is true of oil pastellists.
I do think we pastellists generally want our work to be considered paintings as the traditional way of viewing the hierarchy of artwork is paintings first, drawings second. We want to be in the number one category!
Thanks for commenting!!