To avoid offending certain sensitivities, we warn that the site contains explicit content
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email: paolo@fotopaoloaldi.it
email: paolo@fotopaoloaldi.it
© 2021 by Paolo Aldi
© 2021 by Paolo Aldi
Bellum - The technique
The ten polyptychs of Bellum are photographs with encaustic on poplar wood.
Originally, the photographs were taken on black and white film and developed using traditional analog photography methods. Then the images were transformed into digital files, enlarged, and printed with pigments on a special film.
At this point, the individual poplar panels were prepared, and an alcohol-based glue was applied to them to facilitate the adhesion of the aforementioned film. After a few minutes, this is “torn away,” leaving all the pigments that make up the image on the wooden panel. Thus, the “image transfer” takes place. The uniqueness of this process also lies in the fact that, unlike a photograph on paper glued to wood, in this case, in the lighter areas, we can see the grain and tone of the wood, which in the case of poplar is particularly luminous. Subsequently, the panels were treated with several coats of plant-based varnishes to increase their brilliance. When these were well dried, the process continued with encaustic, which is done with beeswax and other plant waxes and resins to give further color and structure to the surface.
Encaustic is an ancient technique that was lost for centuries and is still relatively rarely practiced in art. In ancient Greece, ship hulls were waterproofed with beeswax and colored with pigments. Many funerary masks that adorned the deceased were painted with encaustic. In ancient Egypt, where the Nile floods subjected objects to vigorous alternations in humidity, wax, resistant to weather and salt, was used to give durability to artifacts. Pompeii, with its painted walls, is a true open-air museum of encaustic. In more recent times, there are some famous examples of artists who have also practiced this technique, such as De Chirico and Jasper Johns. The natural materials used in antiquity are very similar to those found in a modern encaustic workshop.
The "caustic" part of the term indicates that heat is used to melt and mix the layers of wax, and the tools used for this are called cauteries. The waxes, in addition to using their natural colors, can be melted together with various colors and applied in different ways.
In the case of Bellum, it was preferred to work only with the natural colors of the various waxes and resins used, without modifying them with added colors.
The process is followed by the polishing of the waxes, done by hand over several days. Finally, the twelve panels were assembled into a single polyptych.