Like many art museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston holds a variety of art in its stored collection, but very infrequently do viewers actually get to see them on display. However, the MFA is currently presenting an assortment of these “treasures,” featuring works by Impressionist artists Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro in the exhibition, French Pastels: Treasures from the Vault.
While the featured artists exhibit a variety of skills and unique ways to distinguish their work from the others, the uniting factor is their shared delicate medium: pastel. Not quite a painting, not quite a drawing, pastel works have their own category in art. Pastels are delicate and sensitive to light, which is why the works are usually stored away for preservation.
Cliffs on the Edge of the Sea by Edgar Degas
Although Edgar Degas is most known for his large oil paintings of ballerinas in rehearsal or performance, he created a series of about 40 pastel landscapes and portraits in his lifetime. He experimented with different techniques to show texture. In the landscape, Cliffs on the Edge of the Sea (1869), he used the excess powder of a pastel stick to create a foggy scene, as the powder seems to add another dimension. The dreary coastal setting draws in the viewer to focus on the textured sky and find the little optimistic patches of blue behind the clouds.
Simone in a Plumed Hat by Mary Cassatt
American-born artist Mary Cassatt studied and lived in France, where she was the only American to showcase with the predominantly French Impressionists. She created many “counterproofs,” a technique where one runs a damp piece of paper atop a pastel drawing through a printing press together, thus transferring the image onto the blank paper. Since many of the colors are not as bold on the counterproof than on the original, she often added more pastel on the new piece. In the portrait, Simone in a Plumed Hat (1903), Cassatt portrays a young girl in a big, light blue bonnet in deep thought. Although the extra color makes the piece pop, the transfer of color through the printing press designs a dream-like quality.
Poultry Market at Gisor by Camille Pissarro
French artist Camille Pissarro, like his friend Degas, liked to explore new ways to portray a scene. He combined crushed pastel with tempera paint to make a dry, paintable medium. In Poultry Market at Gisor (1885), one of the largest pieces in the exhibition, Pissarro produces a crowded, outdoor market setting. Even though the people are the main subjects, it seems like the variety of colors is the most important part. He uses strokes of color to suggest the features of a face, leaving the colorful outfits of the women in the foreground and the brushstrokes/pencil lines (it’s not clear how Pissarro completed this work, since it’s kind of a combination) that made them to draw the attention of the viewer, instead.
Overall, the show is very enjoyable and a pleasant way to spend a day at the MFA. The space it occupies is big enough to have room to walk around without having to stick with the order of the pieces, but cozy enough to feel that each piece contributed to the cohesiveness of the exhibition. The art ranges in content from portraits to landscapes, studies to masterpieces, and includes a diverse group of artists.
This exhibit is unique in that these pastels may not be available for viewing for a long time in order to preserve them after the show. Be sure to see French Pastels: Treasures from the Vault at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston before it ends on Jan. 6, 2019. Free admission with a valid Simmons ID.
All photographs of the artwork are courtesy of Chloe Barber.