Encaustic painting involves using heated beeswax to which coloured pigments are added. The wax is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. The simplest encaustic mixture can be made from adding pigments to beeswax, but there are several other recipes that can be used — some containing other types of wax, damar resin, or other ingredients.


This technique was used in the Fayum mummy portraits from Egypt around 100-300 AD, in the Blachenitissa and other early icons. Over six hundred Fayum portraits painted on thin wooden panels have survived the passage of time. Pliny the Elder, The Roman historian writing in the first century AD mentions Apelles, Praxiteles, Pausias and other artists from the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. as practitioners of encaustic.  According to Pliny, encaustic had a variety of applications: for the painting of portraits and scenes of mythology on panels, for the colouring of marble and terra cotta, and for work on ivory.


Encaustic painting was revived briefly in the 18th century, initially by amateurs in an effort to rediscover the techniques of the ancient painters. It was further explored in the 19th century to solve the problem of dampness faced by mural painters in northern climates. The success of these efforts was limited, and encaustic remained an obscure art form. 


In the 20th century, the availability of portable electric heating implements and the variety of tools has made encaustic a more accessible technique.  This has encouraged a revival of encaustic painting, and it is once again taking its place as a major artists' medium.  Diego Rivera, Antoine Pevsner, Rifka Angel, Karl Zerbe, and Victor Brauner were early exponents of the revived technique. Alfonso Ossorio, Jasper Johns, Lynda Benglis, Robert Morris, and Nancy Graves are prominent among the many artists who turned encaustic into a modernist and cross-disciplinary medium.