ENCAUSTIC PAINTING

a kind of painting practised by the ancients, for the perfecting of which heating or burning-in was required. Pliny distinguishes three species, in all of which wax was used with colours, and applied either with bronze instruments (cauter i a), a sharp-pointed tool (cestrum), or brushes. The art has been revived in modern times, but has not been greatly employed. As the chief aim in encaustic painting was the securing of permanence and durability by the application of heat, the word encaustic has been applied to other and widely different proce es. Thus it has been used for painting on earthen ve els, for painting on porcelain and work in enamel; and in the same way it was given to the painting on gla of the Middle Ages.—Cf. A. P. Laurie, Greek and Roman Methods of Painting.