Although I have not yet created any works in encaustic, I am fascinated by the medium. In speaking with my tutor, they agreed that I can pursue this medium for my essay despite my lack of personal experience with it.
Joanne Mattera (2002, p. 9) quotes Jasper Johns describing encaustic as “It is an archaic medium, and few people use it.” At its most basic, like all painting mediums, encaustic consists of both a binder and a pigment; unlike other mediums, encaustic uses beeswax, which requires heat to make the paint workable. This use of heat provides the name for the medium: the Greek word encausticos, which means “To burn in” (Lissa Rankin, 2010, p. 10). As a practice, encaustic likely evolved from the Ancient Greek use of pigmented wax in shipbuilding(Joanne Mattera, 2001, p. 15).
Ancient artists likely used large ovens, providing heat to melt the encaustic wax. In contrast, the modern encaustic studio includes hotplates, heat guns, and irons to melt and manipulate the wax onto the chosen surface. Where earlier artists had to experiment and discover the recipes needed to create encaustic paint, suppliers such as R&F have offered commercial encaustic mediums since the mid-nineties (Rankin, 2010, p. 24). This availability and flexibility have enabled a proliferation of works in the modern era.
Mattera (2001, p. 15) writes that the Greeks used encaustic techniques for flat works on wood and applying polychrome on statuary. Some of the best examples of encaustic art come from 5th-century Greek and Roman Egypt, where the medium was used to capture funerary portraits. This funerary tradition evolved from an earlier Egyptian sculpted death mask tradition (Cartwright et al., 2020, p. 2). These encaustic portraits are known for their naturalistic rendering and cultural symbolism.
Although the Byzantines continued and transformed the tradition of icon painting, the practice eventually was replaced by easier-to-work-with mediums (Mattera, 2001, p. 18).
In 20th-century art, the medium is mainly linked with Jasper Johns, though other artists had already been creating works in wax. Diego Rivera, Karl Zerbe, and David Aronson were working with encaustic, with both Zerbe and Aronson appearing in a 1949 book on the topic by Pratt and Fizel (Joanne Mattera, 2001, p. 21).
Jasper Johns’ bombshell works were his target and flag paintings, which were layers of wax and newsprint on canvas. These would have been impossible with earlier techniques requiring ovens and open flames.
However, these changes in methods have brought a host of new challenges. Where the ancient portraits survived in part due to their rigid supports, many modern artists (Johns included) have painted on less stable forms. Where stretched canvas allows for large, comparatively lightweight works, the flexibility of the textile results in cracks in the wax binder of encaustic. Johns reportedly leveraged honey-combed panels to support the canvas (Mattera, 2001, p23).
Beyond their iconic and revolutionary subject matter, Johns’ paintings are intriguing because of their complexity of texture and depth of layering, which is achieved through the use of wax. Saltz (Saltz, 2021) writes, “In Johns’s surfaces, you glean every mark, touch, over- and underpainting, decision, and erasure.” It is a far cry from the ancient, naturalistic portraits whose smooth surfaces, lifelike depiction of their subjects, and almost living eyes look out at us from history.
Bibliography
- Margell, J. (2014) Encaustic art. New York: Parkstone International.
- Müntz, J. H. (1760) Encaustic: or, Count Caylus’s method of painting in the manner of the ancients. To which is added a sure and easy method for fixing of crayons. By J. H. Müntz. London: printed for the author; and A. Webley, at the Bible and Crown near Chancery Lane, Holborn.
- Tondo of the Two Brothers – Egyptian Museum Cairo (s.d.) At: https://egyptianmuseumcairo.eg/artefacts/portrait-of-two-brothers/ (Accessed 05/10/2024).
- Cartwright, C., Cartwright, C. and Svoboda, M. (2020) Mummy Portraits of Roman Egypt Emerging Research from the APPEAR Project. (First edition.) Los Angeles: Getty Publications.
- Joanne Mattera (2001) The Art of Encaustic Painting; Contemporary Expression in Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
- Lissa Rankin (2010) Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art with Wax. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
- Chatzidakis, M. (1967) ‘An Encaustic Icon of Christ at Sinai’ In: The Art bulletin (New York, N.Y.) 49 (3) pp.197–208.
- Saltz, J. (2021) Jasper Johns and Me. At: https://www.vulture.com/2021/09/jasper-johns-mind-mirror-whitney-museum-nyc.html (Accessed 06/10/2024).
- Anne E. Haeckl (2001) ‘Brothers or Lovers? A New Reading of the ‘Tondo of the Two Brothers’’ In: The bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 38 (1–4) pp.63–78.