Objective

– The first exhibition by the Pola Art Museum to investigate paintings from “materials”!

What kind of colors and lines are used to create a shape? – Painters are always facing such concern and are creating using the characteristics of each material. This exhibition introduces the works through the point of view from the painting materials such as oil paints, watercolors and pastels to the support materials such as canvas. By looking at the paintings from different angles, we treat the paintings as the “material” to grasp the intentions each painter had when selecting each material.

– Key points

1. Exhibiting abundant collections of various materials by Degas, Matisse, Chagall and many more!

Pastel paintings are weaker to environmental changes compared to watercolor and oil paintings, thus we only exhibit for a short period of time usually. This exhibition exhibits the Japan’s largest Degas collection of nine works, Chagall’s six works and all twenty works of Matisse’s “Jazz”, the full collection of our “works painted on papers”.

2. Re-introducing painting materials… pastel, oil paints, gouache and many more!

Exhibiting the actual samples to explain what each material is made of and how they are used.

3. “Visual guidebook” to facilitate your time at the exhibition!

A free of charge leaflet that summarize each material’s characteristic in an easy-to-understand manner is available at the museum. (number of prints are limited)

Exhibition structure

– 1. Color lines: pastel

Paints are made of powdery “pigments” that determines the color and “medium” to knead the pigments. Pastel uses only small amount of medium, so it reflects the color of the pigments accurately. Although acting together with impressionist painters who favored bright colors, Degas valued classical sketch and considered himself as “a color painter utilizing lines”. For him, pastels that enable depicting pigments’ colors accurately were the ideal material.

A Degas’ work depicting the dancer’s flexible posing. Instead of using a brush, he used his hands and fingers with pastels to freely express contour lines’ thickness and density.