Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 21:26:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Enamelled in fire yet again


At 08:48 PM 2/5/98 EST, you wrote:
>> How good a translation is it? Well, not too bad, I guess: what the
>>  line in question actually says could be rendered "the vision of the lover
>>  retains the images of the loved one as if they were painted in encaustic
>>  and engraved by means of fire".
>>  
>>          Cheers, Mike.
>>  
>Well, maybe we should swear off this thread altogether, before everyone goes
>crazy. But in encaustic, pigments are dissolved in wax and applied to a
>surface. Wouldn't want to get an encaustic painting anywhere near a fire (the
>wax would melt).  Also, no variation of the engraving process (which is
>essentially a scratching process) uses fire in any way.  A design is scratched
>on a metal surface with a sharp tool. No heat, no fire.
>
>pat sloane
>


The term appears to have been used in somewhat different ways over the many
centuries during which it has been used, and sometimes has been employed (if
perhaps by people speaking more loosely, rather than more strictly) in ways
that overlap or are seen as synonymous with enamelling, painting on pottery,
and fixing by heat, etc.

Here is most of OED2 on "encaustic," which is the English descendant of the
wording used by Plutarch close to 2000 years ago, namely, "en egkaumasi" as
cited by Michael Chase. En = in. Egkaiein (also transcribable as enkaiein) en (in) + kaiein (to burn) = "to burn in," "burnt-in work." "En egkaumasi" "in encaustic-work."


encaustic:

A. adj.
1. Pertaining to, or produced by, the process of 'burning in':

a. with reference to the ancient method of painting with wax colours, and
fixing them by means of fire; also to modern processes of similar nature.

1756 Phil. Trans. XLIX. 654 The new encaustic painting, or painting in burnt
wax.
[and other citations]



b. in wider sense, with reference to any process by which pigments are
'burnt in', e.g. enamelling, painting on pottery, etc. encaustic brick,
tile: one decorated with patterns formed with different coloured clays,
inlaid in the brick or tile, and burnt with it.

1656 Blount Glossogr., Encaustick (encausticus), enameled, wrought with
fire, varnished.
[other citations]
1860 Smiles Self-Help ii. 45 The manufacture of encaustic tiles.
1879 Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 177 The splendid encaustic floor is still
perfect.


2. transf. and fig.

1822 De Quincey Confess. Wks. V. 232 Those encaustic records which in the
mighty furnaces of London life had been burned into the undying memory.
1872 H. Macmillan True Vine vi. 260 The encaustic lichen on the rock.


B. n.
1. The art or process of encaustic painting. Chiefly applied to the ancient
method of painting so called, or its mod. imitations (see A. 1 a);
occasionally to enamelling, painting on pottery, etc.

1601 Holland Pliny II. 546 The art of painting with fire (called Encaustice).
1708 Kersey, Encaustice or Encaustica, the Art of Enamelling with fire.
[some other citations deleted]
1848 Wornum Lect. Paint. by R.A's 221 note, Encaustic... practised by the
later Greeks... appears to have been nothing more than burning-in with a
heater (cauterium) the ordinary wax colours.

2. A pigment or glaze applied by 'burning in'.

1662 Evelyn Chalcogr. iv. Misc. Writ. (1805) 277 A certain encaustic or
black enamel.

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu



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