Sandcastle on Balboa Island
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Pastel Aprons - $25.00
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Item # 533
Pastel History
Roughly pastel began 250 years ago, although colored chalks have been used for thousands of years. Prehistoric cave paintings in southern France, Spain and South Africa show that man's early colored paintings used red, white, and ochre earth pigments, and burnt bone. Italian Renaissance Masters used red chalk to do architectural end engineering drawings. A work survives by Guido Reni 1575-1642, who produced the earliest paintings in a variety of colored chalks.
Pastel history centers around France. Rosalba Carreira, born in Venice in 1675, became the first popular painter of the new medium. Recognized in Italy, she was the first to master the new medium, becoming the most fashionable pastelist in Paris. She used rubbing and blending, with a soft and delicate feeling. After Carreira died, pastels were still popular in Europe. Jean Etienne Liotard, originally from Switzerland, did remarkably textured society portraits.
