scribbles, notes, dispatches
Roman Period, 130-161 C.E.
Encaustic on wood panel with gilt stucco
This portrait of an unknown woman… was meant to be placed over the face of a mummy. (An earlier mummy mask, of Meret-it-es, is in the first gallery.)…
From Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins museum.
The artist painted it using the encaustic technique. Mixing organic colors in hot beeswax, he applied the hot paint to a specially prepared wooden board.
Said earlier mummy mask, roughly 400 years older:
The hatred of which I have found myself to be the target is exactly the attitude that is embodied in those featureless high-rise blocks in which the working classes were to be imprisoned. It is present too—dare I say it—in those polished aquariums where the superrich blow bubbles against the glass for a year or two like exotic fish, before suing the architect who designed their costly prison. Both templates are deeply hostile to what matters in human life…
Lernings 