Encaustic

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. a method of artistic creation involving the application and heating of pigmented wax onto a prepared base to produce a durable and vibrant finished work
2. an art form employing molten wax combined with color pigments that are permanently affixed to a substrate through heat treatment
3. Pertaining to a painting method where colored wax is applied and then fused with warmth to create vivid, lasting images

Etymology: The ancient Greeks had a word for this technique, and it meant "burning in." Encaustic painting, which fixes pigment in melted wax, takes its name from "enkaustikós," a derivative of "kaíō," "to burn." The technique was famous in antiquity, most vividly in the Fayum mummy portraits of Roman-era Egypt, where painters used hot wax to lay down colour that has survived for nearly two thousand years. The English word follows the Greek closely. It came into the language through Latin "encaustum," the term used for the process, and it has kept the sense of heat at its core: the wax must be melted and worked while warm. The adjective and noun forms both derive from the same root, so a painting made this way is encaustic, and the medium itself is also called encaustic.

Synonyms: waxed, painted