Encaustic painting
Experimentation by Michele Paternuosto

 

 

“Beauty triumphs with colored wax and obliges the painter to love his work, wax acquiring a voice and paint the gift of speech”. (SEVERUS ALEXANDER, Roman Emperor, 222-235 AD).   Encaustic (which derives from the Latin word encaustica, meaning “painting with heat”) is a painting technique which was already widespread among anciet Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. It consists in mixing colors with wax and then fixing the resulting medium to a support with heat using special metal tools, the Cauterii. Many portraits of the early centuries AD found in Egypt, in the Fayun region,  were painted in encaustic.   Not much is known about this technique, and very little can be drawn from ancient sources  - Pliny deals with it in his Naturalis Historia: “cera punica fit hoc modo ventilatur sub die saepius cera fulva…”. Today it is a mystery to most people, since the rules and procedures have been lost over the centuries, despite the efforts of many researchers, experts and painters - including the great Leonardo, Mantegna, etc. - to revive it or make it known. After decades of research, I, Michele Paternuosto, can show that I achieved a high-level technique, painting on the following supports:

(click thumbs to enlarge)

 

Pompeian fresco (see  Pompeian decorations)

 

Encaustic on wood  (see  Fayyum portraits)

 

Encaustic on marble (see marble paintings, 4th century BC.
Knucklebone players, Theseus and the centaur – Museo Archeologico di Napoli)

 

Encaustic on slate (see Muse Polyhymnia – Cortona, Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca)
I also did encaustic paintings on dry plaster, gesso and terracotta,
obtaining the same chromatic effect on different supports
Michele Paternuosto