The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax
According to Roman historian Pliny the Elder, encaustic was used  as early as the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. It is made by  melting beeswax with a small amount of resin and then adding  pigment while the mixture is still molten. The artist works  quickly out of the pot, for the wax begins to harden as soon as  it leaves the heat source. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s,  Jasper Johns was virtually the sole practitioner of encaustic.  Today, thousands of artists have caught on to this ancient,  luminous medium, yet most art lovers are still unaware of it.  Mattera provides a fascinating history of the art and several  excellent technical chapters on waxes, pigments, papers,  brushes, etc. Studio safety takes high priority since, unlike  quiet media like watercolor, this one brings with it the  possibility of studio fires and wax burns. Though no book can  capture the mutable incandescence of encaustic, this one  provides enough inspiration and solid technical advice to kindle  the interest of any artist. For a good history of the medium in  America, see Gail Stavitsky's Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in  America (Rutgers Univ., 2000).Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.