History

• Encaustic icon painting from the sixth-century, St. Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.
  
  Beeswax was used by ancient Egyptians and, later, Greeks and Romans to bind and stabilize pigments in their paints. It was also a feature of kut-kut, an art practiced by indigenous people of the Philippines in 1600 to 1800. The Egyptians perfected a technique still used today, known as "encaustic," in which wax and paint are heated together and applied to a surface while still hot. A heat source is then used to "burn in" and fix the image in place.
  
  

Properties

• Beeswax is commercially available in the form of "pastilles," or small cakes, usually bleached to a soft white color but sometimes available in its natural golden color. It melts at 145 to 150 degrees F in water, turpentine, mineral spirits or oil, then solidifies as it cools. Beeswax does not change color over time, and it is resistant to dirt and other impurities in the air. It is sensitive to temperature changes, however, softening in hot weather and becoming brittle in cold weather.
  
  

Uses

• In addition to its use for encaustic painting, beeswax can be combined with turpentine to create a varnish for a finished painting. Or, when combined with oil paints, beeswax can alter their natural shine and create a softer satin finish. The wax has no drying time and lends itself to creating a variety of rich textures on the canvas.
  
  

Famous Paintings Using Beeswax

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  The best-known encaustic paintings are the Fayum mummy portraits, amazingly lifelike funereal paintings by the Fayum community of Egypt, circa A.D. first through third centuries. Although medieval icons were created using beeswax, the technique largely fell out of use until the 18th century. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have experimented with the technique. Early 20th century artists Jasper Johns, Robert Delaunay, Antoine Pevsner and Diego Rivera all used encaustic techniques in their work.
  
  

Resurgence of a Lost Art

• Encaustic painting, which fell out of favor in part because the melting process posed difficulties, has enjoyed a comeback since the 1990s with the wide availability of stabler electric heating elements. The practice became less costly and more accessible, and thus popular. It is well adapted to abstract, portrait, still-life, landscape and narrative painting styles. Sculptors also have been known to use it.