I did my first encaustic painting in the fall of 2005, after years of being fascinated with the medium, but never daring to paint figuratively in it. In the 1990’s, when I lived in France, I discovered a book called the Mysterious Fayum Portraits, by Euphrosyne Doxiadis. I was mesmerized by these ancient portraits, but could not imagine how to paint with heated wax in such a way. I began experimenting with the ancient tools, called “cauteria”, and the four-color palette of the ancient Greeks. I was hooked. The medium took some practice but I have developed a whole body of work in the technique, and as I have worked with it, more and more secrets are revealed. It is a medium of utter beauty, elasticity, and depth. Encaustic is a particularly challenging, yet beautiful medium, in which to paint. As encaustic is the technique of fused wax, it is one of the most permanent mediums known to us. The funerary portraits of Ancient Egypt are oftentimes better preserved than many works from three centuries ago. I have used the four-color palette of Apelles, which at first was daunting, but later revealed itself to be very suitable for rendering flesh tones. I have been inspired by the numerous encaustic funerary portraits which have turned up in the Fayum district in Egypt. They attest to the Greek training many of the local artists received, and are unprecedented in their psychological depth, realism, and evocation of that remote period in time. I have sought to create a number of portrait heads in the spirit of the Fayum works, of contemporary sitters.
EXCERPTS FROM LE SEXE ET L’EFFROI, PASCAL QUIGNARD
Ce qu’est le monde : les traces que laisse la vague quand la mer lentement se retire. Le nom de cette vague jaillissante, dit Lucrèce, est voluptas et elle résulte du fascinus que le plaisir de Vénus tranche lors de chaque coït. La peinture est la rive du regret de réalité. Mortibus vivimus (Nous vivons de la mort). C’est le mot de Musa l’affranchi : « Notre ventre est le tombeau des rivières et des forêts. » À quoi j’ajoute le mot de Terentius Varron : « Les cailloux et les fleurs sont comme les os et les ongles de Dieu. » Le monde n’est pas fini. Sans cesse les femelles des hommes le repeuplent au cours des étreintes. Sans cesse le Toujours-mûrissant du Monde lutte contre le Toujours-déchirant du temps. Sans cesse Vénus et Mars s’entretiennent, s’étreignent et se déchirent.
Toute peinture romaine est faite d’instants éthiques triviaux ou solennels. Pline a décrit un tableau d’Antiphilos où on admirait un jeune garçon soufflant sur le feu et illuminant sous son souffle son visage. C’est un illusionisme de l’instant. C’est un « instantané ».
Il n’y a jamais eu d’effrondrement du monde classique ou lettré... Le pessimisme rigide avait toujours été la pose romaine. Il fallait être sérieux jusqu’à l’austerité, solonnel jusque dans le désir luxurieux et sarcastique, calme jusqu’à la lenteur, grave jusqu’à la tristesse.
Pascal Quignard is a French philosopher and writer who has written extensively about the Ancients. Very few of his works, unfortunately, have been translated into English.
