Chardin's Portrait of a Man : "Pastel Crayons as Paintbrushes"

Jean-Siméon Chardin's idiosyncratic Portrait of a Man (1773) encapsulates his innovative pastel painting technique. Its vibrant colors, thickly layered surfaces, and bold gestural strokes thematize the praxis of painting, making the work itself a "repository of process" that reveals its creation. Although more formal in presentation, Portrait of a Man is in dialogue with Chardin's intimate self-portraits, featuring exotic head coverings and colorful madras scarves. The essay provides a sustained visual and critical analysis of this little-studied work and reconsiders how Chardin's lifelong experimentation with painting techniques and properties of color culminated in the late pastels in which crayons served as paintbrushes. Utilizing Portrait of a Man as a springboard, it offers a multipronged reading that elucidates and contextualizes the originality of Chardin's technique and assesses pastel's significance vis-à-vis his painted oeuvre and artistic development, and his modern legacy in pastel.