Preamble
This is the fourteenth post in a new Art Resource series that specifically focuses on techniques used in creating artworks. For your convenience I have listed all the posts in this new series below:
Drawing Art
Painting Art - Part I
Painting Art - Part II
Painting Art - Part III
Painting Art - Part IV
Painting Art - Part V
Painting Art - Part VI
Home-Made Painting Art Materials
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part I
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part II
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part I
Historical Notes on Art - Part II
Historical Notes on Art - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part IV
Historical Notes on Art - Part V
Tempera Painting
Oil Painting - Part I
Oil Painting - Part II
Oil Painting - Part III
Oil Painting - Part IV
Oil Painting - Part V
Oil Painting - Part VI
Pigments
Classification of Pigments - Part I
Classification of Pigments - Part II
Classification of Pigments - Part III
Pigments for Oil Painting
Pigments for Water Color
Pigments for Tempera Painting
Pigments for Pastel
Japanese Pigments
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part I
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part II
Selected Fresco Palette for Permanent Frescoes
Properties of Pigments in Common Use
Blue Pigments - Part I
Blue Pigments - Part II
There have been another one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that have focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics;
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio;
(iii) Color theories and color schemes;
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials;
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V;
(vi) Protein fibers;
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers;
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers;
(ix) Fabric construction;
(x) Techniques and woven fibers;
(xi) Basic and figured weaves;
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics;
(xiii) Nainkage, durable press and wash-wear finishes;
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends;
(xv) The general theory of printing.
To access any of the above resources, please click on the following link - Units Used in Dyeing and Printing of Fabrics. This link will highlight all of the one hundred and thirteen posts in the previous a are eight data bases on this blogspot, namely, the Glossary of Cultural and Architectural Terms, Timelines of Fabrics, Dyes and Other Stuff, A Fashion Data Base, the Glossary of Colors, Dyes, Inks, Pigments and Resins, the Glossary of Fabrics, Fibers, Finishes, Garments and Yarns, Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements, Glossary of Paper, Photography, Printing, Prints and Publication Terms and the Glossary of Scientific Terms. All data bases in the future will be updated from time-to-time.
If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g. click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.
The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember - these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student and so undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and in other parts, it may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). The trade-off between these two extremes will mean that Art Resource posts will be hopefully useful in parts to most, but unfortunately may not be satisfying to all!
Historical Notes on Art - Part III [1]
Greece
The Monoan and other pre-Hellenic Greek civilizations developed a fresco process virtually identical with the buon fresco of Renaissance Italy. The two principal Greek methods of painting easel pictures - according to Pliny, Vitruvius and other writers - were encaustic and a mysteriously vague second process variously supposed by modern writers to have been oil, egg tempera, or dissolved emulsified wax.
Encaustic painting (from the Greek: "burnt in") was an ancient method of fixing pigments with heated wax. It was probably first practiced in Egypt about 3000 BC. Yet, perhaps the best known of all ancient encaustic works are the Fayum funeral portraits painted in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD by Greek painters living in Egypt after Alexander the Great's conquest of that region. These Greek artisans adopted many of the Egyptian customs, including mummifying their dead, and the painting of a portrait of the deceased which was placed over the person's mummy as a memorial.
A 6th-Century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's Monastery, Egypt.
Most of our knowledge of the early encaustic paintings comes from the Roman historian, Pliny. Writing in the 1st Century, Pliny described how encaustic was used for the painting of portraits, mythological scenes on panels, for coloring marble and terra cotta, and for work on ivory (probably the tinting of incised lines). Many of the pieces from this time survive today,and their color has remained as fresh as any recently completed work.
Pliny the Elder | Lapham's Quarterly.
The excellent condition of these ancient works is most likely due to the fact that wax is an excellent preservative of materials. The Greeks applied coatings of wax and resin to waterproof their ships. Pigmenting the wax gave rise to the decorating of warships. In the Iliad, Homer refers to the painted ships of the Greek warriors who fought at Troy.
Homer's painted ships in the Iliad.
Unfortunately, the process of producing encaustic art was costly and the medium fell into disuse after the decline of the Roman Empire. During the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and others attempted unsuccessfully to revive the technique. However, it was not until the 20th century that encaustic art experienced a true resurgence. Through the availability of portable electric heating implements and other tools, encaustic painting has once again taken its place as a major artist's medium.
A large amount of tradition and legend concerning the highly praised early greek painters is probably apocryphal and of small value in the study of their technqiues. No authentic Greek paintings of the classical period are known to exist; the Pompeian relics have in the past been considered typical of them, but more modern students find that they throw little light on the subject.
Columns from Pompeii.The Glass Mosaics (79 AD).
The Greeks seem to have had a complete disregard for any sort of recorded data and unlike the Egyptians, no regard for the preservation of works of art beyond their immediate functions; few statements about their mural or easel painting methods or materials are entirely free from conjecture. The principal source of our knowledge of the artistic as distinguished from the technical nature of Greek pictorial art is the study of the decorated pottery and a few other relics which happened to have survived because of their durability.
This fragment shows a black fingerprint on the bottom rim. Fragmentary skyphos, about 500 BC, attributed to the Theseus Painter (vase-painter) and the Heron Class (potter).
Terracotta, 6 1/4 × 4 3/4 × 5 1/2 in.
Courtesy: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 76.AE.127.a.
The Roman materials are somewhat better known to us through contemporary records.
Reference:
[1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer, (ed. E. Smith) 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).
This is the fourteenth post in a new Art Resource series that specifically focuses on techniques used in creating artworks. For your convenience I have listed all the posts in this new series below:
Drawing Art
Painting Art - Part I
Painting Art - Part II
Painting Art - Part III
Painting Art - Part IV
Painting Art - Part V
Painting Art - Part VI
Home-Made Painting Art Materials
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part I
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part II
Quality in Ready-Made Artists' Supplies - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part I
Historical Notes on Art - Part II
Historical Notes on Art - Part III
Historical Notes on Art - Part IV
Historical Notes on Art - Part V
Tempera Painting
Oil Painting - Part I
Oil Painting - Part II
Oil Painting - Part III
Oil Painting - Part IV
Oil Painting - Part V
Oil Painting - Part VI
Pigments
Classification of Pigments - Part I
Classification of Pigments - Part II
Classification of Pigments - Part III
Pigments for Oil Painting
Pigments for Water Color
Pigments for Tempera Painting
Pigments for Pastel
Japanese Pigments
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part I
Pigments for Fresco Painting - Part II
Selected Fresco Palette for Permanent Frescoes
Properties of Pigments in Common Use
Blue Pigments - Part I
Blue Pigments - Part II
There have been another one hundred and thirteen posts in a previous Art Resource series that have focused on the following topics:
(i) Units used in dyeing and printing of fabrics;
(ii) Occupational, health & safety issues in an art studio;
(iii) Color theories and color schemes;
(iv) Optical properties of fiber materials;
(v) General properties of fiber polymers and fibers - Part I to Part V;
(vi) Protein fibers;
(vii) Natural and man-made cellulosic fibers;
(viii) Fiber blends and melt spun fibers;
(ix) Fabric construction;
(x) Techniques and woven fibers;
(xi) Basic and figured weaves;
(xii) Pile, woven and knot pile fabrics;
(xiii) Nainkage, durable press and wash-wear finishes;
(xvi) Classification of dyes and dye blends;
(xv) The general theory of printing.
To access any of the above resources, please click on the following link - Units Used in Dyeing and Printing of Fabrics. This link will highlight all of the one hundred and thirteen posts in the previous a are eight data bases on this blogspot, namely, the Glossary of Cultural and Architectural Terms, Timelines of Fabrics, Dyes and Other Stuff, A Fashion Data Base, the Glossary of Colors, Dyes, Inks, Pigments and Resins, the Glossary of Fabrics, Fibers, Finishes, Garments and Yarns, Glossary of Art, Artists, Art Motifs and Art Movements, Glossary of Paper, Photography, Printing, Prints and Publication Terms and the Glossary of Scientific Terms. All data bases in the future will be updated from time-to-time.
If you find any post on this blog site useful, you can save it or copy and paste it into your own "Word" document for your future reference. For example, Safari allows you to save a post (e.g. click on "File", click on "Print" and release, click on "PDF" and then click on "Save As" and release - and a PDF should appear where you have stored it). Safari also allows you to mail a post to a friend (click on "File", and then point cursor to "Mail Contents On This Page" and release). Either way, this or other posts on this site may be a useful Art Resource for you.
The new Art Resource series will be the first post in each calendar month. Remember - these Art Resource posts span information that will be useful for a home hobbyist to that required by a final year University Fine-Art student and so undoubtedly, some parts of any Art Resource post may appear far too technical for your needs (skip those mind boggling parts) and in other parts, it may be too simplistic with respect to your level of knowledge (ditto the skip). The trade-off between these two extremes will mean that Art Resource posts will be hopefully useful in parts to most, but unfortunately may not be satisfying to all!
Historical Notes on Art - Part III [1]
Greece
The Monoan and other pre-Hellenic Greek civilizations developed a fresco process virtually identical with the buon fresco of Renaissance Italy. The two principal Greek methods of painting easel pictures - according to Pliny, Vitruvius and other writers - were encaustic and a mysteriously vague second process variously supposed by modern writers to have been oil, egg tempera, or dissolved emulsified wax.
Encaustic painting (from the Greek: "burnt in") was an ancient method of fixing pigments with heated wax. It was probably first practiced in Egypt about 3000 BC. Yet, perhaps the best known of all ancient encaustic works are the Fayum funeral portraits painted in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD by Greek painters living in Egypt after Alexander the Great's conquest of that region. These Greek artisans adopted many of the Egyptian customs, including mummifying their dead, and the painting of a portrait of the deceased which was placed over the person's mummy as a memorial.
Most of our knowledge of the early encaustic paintings comes from the Roman historian, Pliny. Writing in the 1st Century, Pliny described how encaustic was used for the painting of portraits, mythological scenes on panels, for coloring marble and terra cotta, and for work on ivory (probably the tinting of incised lines). Many of the pieces from this time survive today,and their color has remained as fresh as any recently completed work.
The excellent condition of these ancient works is most likely due to the fact that wax is an excellent preservative of materials. The Greeks applied coatings of wax and resin to waterproof their ships. Pigmenting the wax gave rise to the decorating of warships. In the Iliad, Homer refers to the painted ships of the Greek warriors who fought at Troy.
Unfortunately, the process of producing encaustic art was costly and the medium fell into disuse after the decline of the Roman Empire. During the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci and others attempted unsuccessfully to revive the technique. However, it was not until the 20th century that encaustic art experienced a true resurgence. Through the availability of portable electric heating implements and other tools, encaustic painting has once again taken its place as a major artist's medium.
A large amount of tradition and legend concerning the highly praised early greek painters is probably apocryphal and of small value in the study of their technqiues. No authentic Greek paintings of the classical period are known to exist; the Pompeian relics have in the past been considered typical of them, but more modern students find that they throw little light on the subject.
The Greeks seem to have had a complete disregard for any sort of recorded data and unlike the Egyptians, no regard for the preservation of works of art beyond their immediate functions; few statements about their mural or easel painting methods or materials are entirely free from conjecture. The principal source of our knowledge of the artistic as distinguished from the technical nature of Greek pictorial art is the study of the decorated pottery and a few other relics which happened to have survived because of their durability.
Terracotta, 6 1/4 × 4 3/4 × 5 1/2 in.
Courtesy: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 76.AE.127.a.
The Roman materials are somewhat better known to us through contemporary records.
Reference:
[1] The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques, R. Mayer, (ed. E. Smith) 4th Edition, Faber and Faber, London (1981).
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