CHAP. 41.—ENCAUSTIC PAINTING.

In ancient times there were but two methods of encaustic[1] painting, in wax and on ivory,[2] with the cestrum or pointed graver. When, however, this art came to be applied to the painting of ships of war, a third method was adopted, that of melting the wax colours and laying them on with a brush, while hot.[3] Painting of this nature,[4] applied to vessels, will never spoil from the action of the sun, winds, or salt water.

1. See Chapter 39 of this Book. Pausias painted in wax with the cestrum.

2. Wornum is of opinion that this must have been a species of drawing with a heated point, upon ivory, without the use of wax. Smith's Dict. Antiq. Art. Painting.

3. This method, as Wornum remarks, though first employed on ships, was not necessarily confined to ship-painting; and it must have been a very different style of painting from the ship-colouring of Homer, since it was of a later date even than the preceding methods.

4. Though he says nothing here of the use of the "cauterium," or process of burning in, its employment may certainly be inferred from what he has said in Chapter 39. Wornum is of opinion that the definition at the beginning of this Chapter, of two methods apparently, "in wax and on ivory," is in reality an explanation of one method only, and that the ancient modes of painting in encaustic were not only three, but several.