Greec Egyptian Painting

The remarkable series of portraita fouud in Egypt are described iu The Mouthly Illustrator and the methods of the old artists employed. The methods of these aucient days were totally different frorn those of the present day and were evideutly vastly inore durable. Panels of wood were used to paint on - sycaniore and cypress - also panels of papier mache, and occasionally they were formed by gluing three thicknesses of canvas together. These panels were usually about 14 inches long by 7 inches vvide. Theartist used liquid wax iustead of oil to mix the oolors, whieh were made not from vegetable, but from mineral substances and were of ruarvelous brillianoy and permauence - blue powdered lapis lazuli, green malachite, red oxide of iron, etc. The colcrs were laid on in patches, sornewhat after the fashiou of a rnosaic, and afterward blended with au instrnrnent called the cestrum, whiob appears to have been a lancet shaped spatula, long bandled, with at oue end a curved poiut, at the other a finely dentated edge. With the toothed edge the wax could be equalized and snioothed. while the poiut was used for placing high lights, markiug lipa, eyebrows, etc. The final process, which gives the name encaustic to tbiskindof paintiug, was the burning in of the colors. This was done by the application of a heated surface to the panel, though George Eber3 believes that in Egypt the heat of the snn was probably all that was needed to complete the artist's work