Encaustic - Preserved in Wax

Derived from the Greek word "enkaustikos" the term means to burn or fuse. Encaustic paints are nothing more than pigment suspended in beeswax and a little damar varnish. Historians believe that the paint was first used by the Greeks in the 5th century BC, making beeswax one of the oldest known pigment binders. It is the properties of beeswax, especially it being impervious to moisture, that spurred on the use of encaustics. It is believed that the Greeks applied the wax to the hulls of ships to aid in waterproofing. Homer tells us that pigments were added allowing for decoration with icons in a single stroke. (You caught what I did there, right?).


Greeks eventually settled in Egypt practicing the same art form, but, due to the moisture resistant properties of beeswax began using the medium to honor the dead with funerial portraits, known to us as the Fayum portraits. Fayum portraits were created between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, some 3,500 years ago. Pliny wrote of the art form and the slow difficult process of encaustic painting. Pliny also spoke of Roman aristocrats having in their possession ancient works of art created in encaustics. Encaustic led to terra cotta work in Roman interiors painted with encaustics. These eventually led to mosaic borders in the Roman interiors.

After Rome fell, like many arts, encaustic processes fell into obscurity. Egg tempera became heir in the art community. Knowledge of encaustic portraits remained with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo reportedly dabbled with encaustics, but the medium never caught hold. The art form languished until the 20th century.