Georges Seurat, Embroidery (1882-3), Conté crayon on Michallet paper, 31.2 x 24.1 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. However, at a time when mark-making was becoming popular, the wide range of effects available from sticks of pigment was an attraction: not only could the artist place bold strokes of colour over stumped-smooth areas, but they could also paint on textured grounds to great effect. Specialised papers with roughened surfaces were marketed to improve their adhesion, but they share similar problems of longevity.
Millet’s most famous painting in pastel and Conté crayon is this 1865-66 version of The Sower, a motif which was to recur in the hands of other artists for the rest of the century, and works perfectly in what were still relatively unconventional media.Ĭonté crayons, like pencil, charcoal and pastels, rely on mechanical adhesion rather than any polymerising binder. Jean-François Millet (1814–1875), The Sower (1865-66), pastel and crayon on beige wove paper mounted on board (Conté crayon, wood-pulp board), 47.1 × 37.5 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Because of their hardness, Conté crayons were more amenable to sharpening, so could make finer lines and richer marks. By the middle of the nineteenth century, artists such as Jean-François Millet extended their use into pastel paintings such as his enchanting and mysterious The Cat at the Window from about 1857-58. Paul Getty Museum.Īs with charcoal and graphite sticks and pencils, Conté crayons were first used for sketching in preparation for formal painting. Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), The Cat at the Window (c 1857-58), conté crayon and pastel with stumping and blending, fixed on wove paper, 49.8 × 39.4 cm, The J. In 1795, Nicolas-Jacques Conté used a mixture of clay, graphite and other pigments to form sticks similar to pastels but significantly harder, referred to as hard pastels or Conté crayons. Graphite was a strategic product, as it was used as a refractory in the manufacture of cannonballs, and supplies to France all but dried up. The first changes in practice occurred as a result of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.
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In the sixteenth century, large deposits of graphite were discovered in Cumbria, England, following which graphite sticks and sheathed pencils became enormously popular among both amateurs and professionals.Īlthough it’s impossible to make any clear distinction between drawing and painting, those stick-based media are simple compared with oil paints, for instance, and seldom used in works comparable in their aims or sophistication to professional oil or watercolour painting. Charcoal was widely used at first, with metal wire in silverpoint an alternative.
Professional painters have long used brushes to apply paint for their finished work, but many used hand-held sticks of pigment only when sketching in preparation.
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