ENCAUSTIC and Encaustum, the same with enamelling and enamel.

Encaustic Painting, a method of painting made use of by the ancients, in which wax was employed to give a gloss to their colours, and to preserve them from injury by air or moisture.

This ancient art, after having been long lost, was restored by Count Caylus, a member of the Academy of Inscriptions in France; and the method of painting in wax was announced to the Academy of Painting and Belles-Lettres in the year 1753; but Μ. Bachelier, the author of a treatise De l’ Histoire et du Secret de la Peinture en Cire, had actually painted a picture in wax in 1749; and he was the first who communicated to the public the method of performing the operation of inustion, which is the principal characteristic of the encaustic painting. The count kept his method a secret for some time, contenting himself with exhibiting a picture at the Louvre in 1754, representing the head of Minerva, painted in the manner of the ancients, which excited the curiosity of the public, and was very much admired. In the interval of [7:8:695] suspense, several attempts were made to recover the ancient method of painting. The first scheme adopted was that of melting wax and oil of turpentine together, and using this composition as a vehicle for mixing and laying on the colours. But this method did not explain Pliny’s meaning, as in this way of managing it the wax is not burnt. In another attempt, which was much more agreeable to the historian’s description of encaustic painting, the wax was melted with strong lixivium of salt of tartar, and with this the colours were ground. When the picture was finished, it was gradually presented to the fire, so as to melt the wax, which was thus diffused through all the particles of the colours, so that they were fixed to the ground, and secured from the access of air or moisture. But the method of Count Caylus is much more simple. The cloth or wood which he designed as the basis of his picture is waxed over by only rubbing it simply with a piece of bees-wax; the wood or cloth, stretched on a frame, being held horizontally over, or perpendicularly before a fire, at such a distance that the wax might gradually melt whilst it is rubbed on, diffuse itself, penetrate the body, and fill the interstices of the texture of the cloth, which when cool is fit to be painted upon; but as water colours, or those which are mixed up with common water, will not adhere to the wax, the whole picture is to be first rubbed over with Spanish chalk or white, and then applied to it. When the picture is dry, it is put near the fire, by means of which the wax melts, and absorbs all the colours.

Mr J. H. Muntz, in a treatise on this subject, has proposed several improvements in the art of encaustic painting. When the painting is on cloth, he directs it to be prepared by stretching it on a frame, and rubbing one side several times over with a piece of bees-wax, or virgin wax, till it be covered with a coat of wax of considerable thickness. In fine linen this is the only operation necessary previous to painting; but coarse cloth must be rubbed gently on the unwaxed side with a pumice-stone, to take off all those knots which would prevent the free and accurate working of the pencil. Then the subject is to be painted on the unwaxed side with colours prepared and tempered with water; and when the picture is finished, it must be brought near the fire, that the wax may melt and fix the colours. This method, however, can only be applied to cloth or paper, through the substance of which the wax may pass; but in wood, stone, metals, or plaster, the former method of Count Caylus must be observed.

Mr Muntz has also discovered a method of forming grounds for painting with crayons, and fixing these, as well as water-colours employed with the pencil. On the unwaxed side of a linen cloth, stretched and waxed as before, Jay an even and thick coat of the colour proper for the ground; having prepared this colour by mixing some proper pigment with an equal quantity of chalk, and tempering them with water. When the colour is dry, bring the picture to the fire, in order that the wax may melt, pass through the cloth, and fix the ground. An additional quantity of wax may be applied to the back of the picture, if that which was first rubbed on should not be sufficient for the body of colour; but as this must be laid on without heat, the wax should be dissolved in oil of turpentine, and applied with a brush, and the canvass should be again exposed to the fire, that the fresh supply of wax may pass through the cloth, and be absorbed by the colour; and thus a firm and good body will be formed for working on with the crayons. If cloth and paper are joined together, the cloth must be first fixed to the straining frame, and then the paper must be pasted to it with a composition of paste made with wheaten flour, or starch and water, and about a tjyelfth part of its weight of common turpentine. The turpentine must be added to the paste when it is almost sufficiently boiled, and the composition well stirred, and left to simmer over the fire for five or six minutes. Let wax be dissolved in oil of turpentine to the consistence of a thin paste; and when the cloth and paper are dry, let them be held near a fire, and with a brush lay a coat of the wax and turpentine on both sides of the joined cloth and paper, in such a degree of thickness that both surfaces may shine throughout without any appearance of dull spots. Then expose the cloth to the fire, or to the sun, by which means the oil will evaporate, and the wax become solid, and be fit to receive any composition of colour for a ground, which is to be laid on as above directed in the case of cloth without paper.

Almost all the colours which are used in oil painting may also be applied in the encaustic method. Mr Muntz objects, indeed, to brown, light pink, and unburnt terra di Sienna, because these, on account of their gummy or stony texture, will not admit such a cohesion with the wax as will properly fix them; but other colours which cannot be admitted in oil painting, as red lead, red orpiment, crystals of verdigris, and red precipitate of mercury, may be used here. The crayons used in encaustic painting are the same with those used in the common way of crayon painting, excepting those which in their composition have too great tenacity; and the method of using them is the same in both cases.

The encaustic painting has many peculiar advantages: though the colours have not the natural varnish or shining which they acquire with oil, they have all the strength of paintings in oil, and all the airiness of water-colours, without partaking of the apparent character or defects of either. They may be looked at in any light and in any situation, without any false glare; the colours are firm, and will bear washing; and a picture, after having been smoked, and then exposed to the dew, becomes as clean as if it had been but just painted. It may also be retouched at pleasure without any detriment to the colours; for the new colours will unite with the old ones, without spots, as is the case in common size painting: nor is it necessary to rub the places to be touched with oil, as in oil pictures; it is not liable to crack, and is easily repaired if it should chance to suffer any injury. The duration of this painting is also a very material advantage; the colours are not liable to fade and change; no damp can affect them, nor any corrosive substance injure them; nor can the colours fall off in shivers from the canvass. However, notwithstanding all these and other advantages enumerated by the Abbé Mazeas and Mr Muntz, this art has not yet been much practised. Many of these properties belong to a much higher species of encaustic painting afterwards discovered in England, the colours of which are fixed by a very intense heat; nor are the colours or grounds on which they are laid liable to be dissolved or corroded by any chemical menstruum, nor, like the glassy colours of enamel, to run out of the drawing on the fire. What this method consists in will appear from the following account communicated in a letter from Josiah Colebrook to the Earl of Macclesfield, president of the Royal Society in 1756.

“The art of painting with burnt wax,” says he, “has long been lost to the world. The use of it to painters in the infancy of the art of painting was of the utmost consequence. Drying oil being unknown, they had nothing to preserve their colours entire from the injury of damps and the heat of the sun. A varnish of some sort was therefore necessary; but they being unacquainted with distilled spirits, could not, as we now do, dissolve gums to make a transparent coat for their pictures. This invention therefore of burnt wax supplied that defect to them; and with this manner of painting the chambers and other [7:8:696]rooms in the houses were furnished. This Pliny calls encaustum, and we encaustic painting.

“The following experiments, which I have the honour to lay before your lordship and the society, were occasioned by the extract of a letter from the Abbé Mazeas, translated by Dr Parsons, and published in the second part of the forty-ninth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, No. 100, concerning the ancient method of painting with burnt wax revived by Count Caylus.

“The count’s method was, 1. To rub the cloth or board designed for the picture simply over with bees-wax: 2. To lay on the colours mixed with common water; but as the colours will not adhere to the wax, the whole picture was first rubbed over with Spanish chalk, and then the colours are used: 3. When the picture is dry it is put near the fire, whereby the wax melts, and absorbs all the colours.

“ Exp. 1. A piece of oak board was rubbed over with bees-wax, first against the grain of the wood, and then with the grain, to fill up all the pores that remained after it had been planed, and afterwards was rubbed over with as much dry Spanish white as could be made to stick on it. This, on being painted (the colours mixed with water only), so clogged the pencil, and mixed so unequally with the ground, that it was impossible to make an even outline, but was so much thicker in one part than another, that it would not bear so much as the name of painting; neither had it any appearance of a picture. However, to pursue the experiment, this was put at a distance from the fire, on the hearth, and the wax melted by slow degrees; but the Spanish white, though laid as smooth as so soft a body would admit before the colour was laid on, on melting the wax into it, was not sufficient to hide the grain of the wood, nor show the colours by a proper whiteness of the ground; the wax, in rubbing on the board, was unavoidably thicker in some parts than in others, and the Spanish white the same.

“To obviate the inequality of the ground in the first experiment, “ Exp. 2. A piece of old wainscot (oak board) one fourth of an inch thick, which, having been part of an old drawer, was not likely to shrink on being brought near the fire. This was smoothed with a fish skin, made quite warm before the fire, and then, with a brush dipped in white wax melted in an earthen pipkin, smeared all over, and applied to the fire again. That the wax might be equally thick in all parts of the board, a ground was laid (on the waxed board) with levigated chalk mixed with gum-water (viz. gum-arabic dissolved in water). When it was dry, I painted it with a kind of landscape; and pursuing the method laid down by Count Caylus, brought it gradually to the fire. I fixed the picture on a fire screen, which would preserve the heat, and communicate it to the back part of the board. This was placed first at the distance of three feet from the fire, and brought forwards by slow degrees till it came within one foot of the fire, which made the wax swell and bloat up the picture; but as the chalk did not absorb the wax, the picture fell from the board, and left it quite bare.

“ Exp. 3. I mixed three parts white wax, and one part white resin, hoping the tenacity of the resin might preserve the picture. This was laid on a board heated with a brush, as in the former; and the ground was chalk prepared as before. This was placed horizontally on an iron box charged with a hot heater, shifting it from time to time, that the wax and resin might penetrate the chalk, and hoping from this position that the ground, bloated by melting the wax, would subside into its proper place; but this, like the other, came from the board, and would not at all adhere.

“ Exp. 4. Prepared chalk four drams, white wax, white resin, of each a dram, burnt alabaster half a dram, were all powdered together and sifted, mixed with spirit of molasses instead of water, and put for a ground on a board smeared with wax and resin, as in Exp. 3. This was also placed horizontally on a box-iron, as the former. The picture blistered, and was cracked all over; and though removed from the box-iron to an oven moderately heated, in the same horizontal position, it would not subside nor become smooth. When it was cold, I took an iron spatula made warm, and moved it gently over the surface of the picture, as if I were to spread a plaster. (This thought occurred from the board being prepared with wax and resin, and the ground having the same materials in its composition, the force of the spatula might make them unite). This succeeded so well as to reduce the surface to a tolerable degree of smoothness; but as the ground was broke off in many places, I repaired it with flake white, mixed up with the yolk of an egg and milk, and repainted it with molasses spirit, instead of water, and then put it into an oven with a moderate degree of heat. In this I found the colours fixed, but darker than when it was at first painted; and it would bear being washed with water, not rubbed with a wet cloth.

“ Exp. 5. A board, that had been used in a former experiment, was smeared with wax and resin, of each equal parts; was wetted with molasses spirit to make whitening or Spanish white, mixed with gum water, adhere. This when dry was scraped with a knife to make it equall; r thick in all places. It was put into a warm oven to make the varnish incorporate partly with the whitening before it was painted, and it had only a small degree of heat; water was only used to mix the colours. This was again put into an oven with a greater degree of heat; but it flaked off’ from the board: whether it might be owing to the board’s having had a second coat of varnish, the first having been scraped and melted of, and that the unctuous parts of the wax had so entered its pores that it would not retain a second varnish, I cannot tell.

“ Exp. 6. Having miscarried in these trials, I took a new board, planed smooth, but not polished either with a fish skin or rushes. I warmed it, and smeared it with wax only; then took cimolia (tobacco-pipe clay) divested of its sand, by being dissolved in water and poured off, leaving the coarse heavy parts behind. After this was dried and powdered, I mixed it with a small quantity of the yolk of an egg and cow’s milk, and made a ground with this on the waxed board. This I was induced to try, by knowing that the yolk of an egg will dissolve almost all unctuous substances, and make them incorporate with water; and I apprehended that a ground thus prepared would adhere so much the more firmly to the board than the former had done as to prevent its flaking off. The milk, I thought, might answer two purposes; first, by uniting the ground with the w∙ax; and, secondly, by answering the end of size or gum-water, and prevent the colours from sinking too deep into the ground, or running one into another. When the ground was near dry, I smoothed it with a pallet knife, and washed it with milk and egg where I had occasion to make it smooth and even. When dry, I painted it, mixing the colours with common water. This, on being placed horizontally in an oven only warm enough to melt the wax, flaked from the board; but held so much better together than any of the former that I pasted part of it on paper.

“ Exp. 7. Flake-white, or the purest sort of white-lead, mixed with cgg and milk crumbled to pieces in the oven, put on the waxed board, as in the last experiment.

“The bad success which had attended all the former experiments led me to consider of what use the wax was [7:8:697]in this kind of painting, and it occurred to me that it was only as a varnish, to preserve the colours from fading.

“In order to try this, “ Exp. 8. I took what the bricklayers call fine stuff or putty ; to this I added a small quantity of burnt alabaster, to make it dry; this it soon did in the open air; but before I put on any colours, I dried it gently by the fire, lest the colours should run. When it was painted, I warmed it gradually by the fire, to prevent the ground from cracking, till it was very hot. I then took white wax three parts, white resin one part; melted them in an earthen pipkin, and with a brush spread them all over the painted board, and kept it close to the fire in a perpendicular situation, that what wax and resin the plaster would not absorb might drop off. When it was cold, I found the colours were not altered, either from the heat of the fire, or passing the brush over them. I then rubbed it with a soft linen cloth, and thereby procured a kind of gloss, which I afterwards increased by rubbing it with a hard brush; which was so far from scratching or leaving any marks on the picture, that it became more smooth and polished by it.

“After I had made all the foregoing experiments, in conversation with my honoured and learned friend Dr Kidby, a fellow of this society, I said I had been trying to find out what the encaustic painting of the ancients was; upon which he told me, that there was a passage in Vitruvius De Architectura relative to that kind of painting, and was so good as to transcribe it for me from the 7th book, chap. 9, De minii temperatura. Vitruvius’s words are: At si quis subtilior fuerit, et voluerit expolitionem miniaceam suum colorem retincre, cum paries expolitus et aridus fuerit, tunc ceram Punicam liquefactam igni, paulo oleo temperatam, seta inducat, deinde postea carbonibus in ferreo vase compositis, eam ceram apprime cum pariete, calefaciendo sudore cogat, fiatque ut peraequetur, deinde cum candela linteisque puris subigat, uti signa marmorea nuda curantur. Haec autem καυσ∕ς Graece dicitur. Ita obstans ceree Punicae lorica non patitur, nec lunae splendorem, nec solis radios lambendo cripere ex his politionibus colorem.

“Which I thus translate: ‘ But if any one is more wary, and would have the polishing [painting] with vermilion hold its colour, when the wall is painted and dry, let him take Carthaginian [Barbary] wax, melted with a little oil, and rub it on the wall with a hair pencil; and afterwards let him put live coals into an iron vessel [chafing-dish], and hold it close to the wax, when the wall, by being heated, begins to sweat; then let it be made smooth; afterwards let him rub it with a candle and clean linen rags, in the same manner as they do the naked marble statues. This the Greeks called xauŵ¢. The coat of Carthaginian wax thus put on is so strong, that it neither suffers the moon by night, nor the sun-beams by day, to destroy the colour.’

“Being satisfied, from this passage in Vitruvius, that the manner of using wax in Exp. 8 was right, I was now to find if the wax-varnish, thus burnt into the picture, would bear washing. But here I was a little disappointed; for rubbing one corner with a wet linen cloth, some of the colour came off; but washing it with a soft hair-pencil dipped in water, and letting it dry without wiping, the colour stood very well.

“A board painted as in Exp. 8 was hung in the most smoky part of a chimney for a day, and exposed to the open air in a very foggy night. In the morning the board was seemingly wet through, and the water ran off the picture. This was suffered to dry without wiping: and the picture had not suffered at all from the smoke or the dew, either in the ground or the colours; but when dry, by rubbing it, first with a soft cloth, and afterwards with a brush, it recovered its former gloss.

“Suspecting that some tallow might have been mixed with the white wax I had used, which might cause the colours to come off on being rubbed with a wet cloth, I took yellow wax which had been melted from the honeycomb in a private family, and consequently not at all adulterated: to three parts of this I added one part resin, and melted them together.

“ Exp. 9. Spanish white, mixed with fish glue, was put for a ground on a board, and painted with water-colours only. The board was made warm; and then the wax and resin were put on with a brush, and kept close to the fire till the picture had imbibed all the varnish, and looked dry. When it was cold, I rubbed it first with a linen cloth, and then polished it with a hard brush.

“In these experiments I found great difficulties with regard to colours. Many water-colours being made from the juices of plants, have some degree of an acid in them; and these, when painted on an alkaline ground, as chalk, whitening, cimolia, and plaster, arc totally changed in their colours, and from green become brown; which contributes much to make the experiments tedious. I would therefore advise the use of mineral or metallic colours for this sort of painting, as most likely to preserve their colour: for although I neutralized Spanish white, by fermenting it with vinegar, and afterwards washed it very well with water, it did not succeed to my wish.

“These experiments, and this passage from Vitruvius, will in some measure explain the obscurity of part of that passage in Pliny which Dr Parsons, in his learned comment on the encaustic painting with wax, seems to despair of.

“ Ceris pingere was one species of encaustic painting. Evκαυo ’ rov, inustum, may be translated, “forced in by the means of fire; burnt in for whatever is forced in by the help of fire can be rendered into Latin by no other significant word that I know of but inustum. If this is allowed me, and I think I have the authority of Vitruvius (a writer in the Augustan age) for it, who seems to have wrote from his own knowledge, and not Lke Pliny, who copied from others much more than he knew himself, the difficulty with regard to this kind of painting is solved, and the encaustic with burnt wax recovered to the public.

“What he means by the next kind he mentions, in ebore cestro, id est viriculo, I will not attempt to explain at present.

“The ship-painting is more easily accounted for, the practice being in part continued to this time; and is what is corruptly called breaming, for brenning or burning.

“This is done by reeds set on fire, and held under the side of a ship till it is quite hot; then resin, tallow, tar, and brimstone, melted together, and put on with a hair-brush while the planks remain hot, make such a kind of paint as Pliny describes; which, he says, nec sole, nec sale ventisque corrumpitur. As they were ignorant of the use of oil painting, they mixed that colour with the wax, &c. which they intended for each particular part of the ship, and put it on in the manner above described.

“In the pictures painted for these experiments, and now laid before your lordship and the society, I hope neither the design of the landscape, nor the execution of it, will be so much taken into consideration as the varnish, which was the thing wanted in this inquiry: and I think that will evince that the encaustic painting with burnt wax is fully restored by these experiments; and, though not a new invention, yet having been lost for so many ages, and now applied further, and to other purposes, than it was by Vitruvius, who confined it to vermilion only, may also amount to a new discovery, the use of which may be a means of preserving many curious drawings to posterity; for this kind of painting may be on paper, cloth, or any [7:8:698]other substance that will admit a ground to be laid on it. The process is very simple, and is not attended with the disagreeable smell unavoidable in oil-painting, nor with some inconveniences inseparable from that art; and as there is no substance we know more durable than wax, it hath the greatest probability of being lasting.”

Still, however, there seem to have been some defects or inconveniences attending these and other subsequent attempts; for we find the ancient or some similar method of painting in wax remaining a desideratum upwards of twenty-five years after the publication of the preceding experiments; when in 1787 a method was communicated to the Society of Arts by Miss Greenland, for which she was rewarded with a prize. The ground of her information she had received at Florence, through the acquaintance of an amateur of painting, who procured her the satisfaction of seeing some paintings in the -ancient Grecian style, executed by Signora Parenti, a professor at that place, who had been instructed by a Jesuit at Pavia, the person who had made the greatest discoveries in that art. Miss Greenland’s friend knowing she was fond of painting, informed her what were the materials the paintress used, but could not tell her the proportions of the composition; however, from her anxiety to succeed in such an acquisition, she made various experiments, and at last obtained such a knowledge of the quantities of the different ingredients as to begin and finish a picture, which she afterwards presented to the society for their inspection.

Her method is as follows: “Take an ounce of white wax, and the same weight of gum mastich powdered. Put the wax in a glazed earthen vessel over a very slow fire; and when it is quite dissolved, strew in the mastich, a little at a time, stirring the wax continually until the whole quantity of gum is perfectly melted and incorporated: then throw the paste into cold water, and when it is hard, take it out of the water, wipe it dry, and beat it in one of Mr Wedgwood’s mortars, observing to pound it at first in a linen cloth, to absorb some drops of water that will remain in the paste, and would prevent the possibility of reducing it to a powder, which must be so fine as to pass through a thick gauze. It should be pounded in a cold place, and but a little while at a time, as after long beating the friction will in a degree soften the wax and gum, and, instead of their becoming a powder, they will return to a paste.

“Make some strong gum-arabic water; and when you paint, take a little of the powder, some colour, and mix them together with the gum water. Light colours require but a small quantity of the powder, but more of it must be put in proportion to the body and darkness of the colours; and to black there should be almost as much of the powder as colour.

“Having mixed the colours, and no more than can be used before they grow dry, paint with fair water, as is practised in painting with water colours, a ground on the wood being first painted of some proper colour, prepared in the same manner as is described for the picture; walnut tree and oak are the sorts of wood commonly made use of in Italy for this purpose. The painting should be very highly finished, otherwise, when varnished, the tints will not appear united.

“When the painting is quite dry, with rather a hard brush, passing it one way, varnish it with white wax, which is put into an earthen vessel, and kept melted over a very slow fire till the picture is varnished, taking great care the wax does not boil. Afterwards hold the picture before a fire, near enough to melt the wax, but not make it run; and when the varnish is entirely cold and hard, rub it gently with a linen cloth. Should the varnish blister, warnrthe picture again very slowly, and the bubbles will subside. When the picture is dirty, it need omy be washed with cold water.”

The opinion given by the society upon the above is, “The method made use of by Miss Greenland provides against all inconveniences; and the brilliancy of the colours in the picture painted by her, and exhibited to the society, fully justifies the opinion, that the art of painting in wax, as above described, highly merited the reward of a gold pallet voted to her on this occasion.”