Analysis Of The Encaustic Painting Techniques And Artistic Style In Ancient Egypt

Encaustic painting is an ancient technique,dating back to the Greeks,who used wax to caulk ship hulls.Perhaps the best known of all encaustic work are the Fayum funeral portraits painted in the 1st through 4rd centuries A.D.in Egypt.Mummy portraits or Fayum mummy portraits is the modern term given to a type of naturalistic painted portrait attached to Egyptian mummies.The ancient Egyptians maintained an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death.These customs involved preserving the body by mummification.While painted cartonnage mummy cases date back to pharaonic times,the Fayum mummy portraits were an innovation dating to the Coptic period at the time of the Roman occupation of Egypt.The portraits covered the faces of bodies that were mummified for burial.In this article,I use Fayum mummy portraits as an example to discuss the development of Encaustic Painting in ancient Egypt.From the angle of encaustic painting techniques and artistic style,it allows the reader to have a more thorough understanding on the style and characteristic of encaustic painting in ancient Egypt.