Chalks and pastels are particularly appropriate materials for portraits because they appear effortlessly to convey the warm tones and soft, matte velvety surface of skin. Portraits and head studies therefore figure prominently in histories of pastel. The Invention of Pastel Painting describes the relatively sudden emergence in the later seventeenth century of sets of friable pastel sticks and a new artistic practice of painting in pastel. The author reconsiders the use of natural and fabricated drawing sticks as tools, firmly locating their use in the context of historical function. 'Artistic...

The origins of metalpoint (silverpoint, goldpoint, etc.) drawing are widely thought to lie in classical antiquity. The Luminous Trace investigates the artefactual and literary evidence for the use of metalpoint through the ages from earliest times up to its revival, particularly in the United States, in the later 20th and early 21st centuries, reviewing the history and historiography of metalpoint and its use for drawing and writing. Metalpoint drawings are the central objects of this study and their physical features are the prime consideration, juxtaposed with the written evidence which may...