An exhibition dedicated entirely to pastels is rare – partly because they are so difficult to preserve and so often stay hidden away in museum archives. But the Petit Palais is an exception, presenting 130 works from pastel’s second Golden Age, around the nineteenth century. Take a journey through symbolism, impressionism and realism and leave in awe of the depth and light of this difficult medium.
The selection of artists is impressive: Redon, Renoir, Degas, Gauguin, Morisot, to name but a few. It’s a feast for the senses – Degas (the undisputed king of pastel) juxtaposes colours and figures, but go up close and it’s an abstract wonder. Redon, another great, is proof that the less detail added, the more the viewer is free to embellish the image with their imagination. Each work is unmissable.
