Reaching for Wax: Ruminations on an Elusive Thing, an Object Lesson
One of the folk etymologies of the word “sincerity” tells us that the term originated from the Latin sine cera, or, “without wax.” The story behind this etymon is fascinating: When a sculptor came upon a flaw or chink in the marble, he or she would blend wax into the surface of the sculpture, fooling their audience into believing they were looking at an honest and pure work of art. We might now point to Madame Tussaud’s famous wax effigies as an example of the substance’s ability to deceive; it is the perfect simulacrum for human flesh.
A history of wax reveals that it has long aided, mystified, and perplexed humans. Indeed, was it not the elusive essence of wax that lead Descartes to conclude that his senses were deceiving him? The anxiety that wax’s profundity caused in the 16th century philosopher provided an entry point for modern science and its ensuing skepticism of the sensible world – all that surrounds us insincere. But wax’s ontological uncertainty is not necessarily the ruse of some deceiving God, as Descartes might have argued; it has also signified the warmth of a loving God in the form of a lit candle. Wax as a substance has therefore found itself curiously caught between signifying purity and malice, divinity and deception.
An attempt to understanding wax’s multifarious associations might profitably begin with the question, from where does the substance derive? The most common types of wax include: beeswax, which is secreted from the glans on the underside of a bee’s abdomen; plant wax, such as Carnauba and Candelilla; animal wax, most commonly as the spermaceti obtained by crystallizing sperm whale oil; and petroleum, which includes the cost-effective paraffin and microcrystalline wax. No matter the source of the substance, wax has always been vital to the survival of humans because of its lubricating and anti-bacterial properties. Beyond home remedies and medicinal uses, it was the development of the wax candle that brought to the substance its mystical aura.
Until the Middle Ages, candles in Western cultures were made of tallow (animal fat). Beeswax grew in popularity because, contrary to tallow, it burned without a smoky flame and emitted a pleasant smell. The Roman Catholic Church also contributed to the growing popularity of beeswax candles. Because the honey worker bee that produces the beeswax is a virgin, the Church looked upon the beeswax that she produced as a symbol of the flesh of baby Jesus. The oldest surviving beeswax candles were found in Germany, and date to 6th or beginning 7th century A.D. However, the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, which centers on the lighting of candles, dates to 165 B.C.
If candles established wax as an ethereal and divine substance, then the advent of wax death masks in the 17th century returned it to the physical and mortal world of which it came. Instead of guarding the deceased’s spirit as the death masks of stone or gold once did for the Egyptians, death masks made of wax were kept in communal places to preserve the collective memory of certain historical figures. While wax was not as durable as stone or gold, it could more accurately represent the details of human flesh, and was thus valued for its fidelity to the dead. These masks functioned as an intimate, if not surreal, form of portraiture for political figures, poets, artists, and philosophers such as Blaise Pascal and Voltaire.
In the mid 18th century, artist Marie Tussaud turned away from producing death masks and began making full human effigies, for they more accurately reproduced their subjects and fostered a more potent sense of realism. Tussaud’s work adds an interesting layer to our understanding of wax as presented in the etymon of sincerity. If the sincere statue is one “without wax,” what then are we to think of the statue that is made wholly out of wax?
Wax’s ability to replicate the look and texture of a human being in exquisite detail allows Tussaud to faithfully represent her subjects. But this uncanny ability also evokes a lifeless ferocity in them; wax effigies conjure an eerie, corporal presence. One cannot help but think that at any moment the wax statue can act as a vessel for the soul of its subject should it be granted a return to life. Albert Einstein need not haunt the halls of the Institute of Advanced Study as a mere ghost because there is a wax structure made in his image that he can embody.
The 1953 film House of Wax locates the strange appeal of wax effigies in its attempt to turn the movie theatre itself into a “chamber of horrors” through the use of 3D photography. Both the film’s theatrical trailer and the promoter of the House of Wax use such hyperbolic quips as: “It is like nothing that has ever happened to you before!” “It is a new wonder of the entertainment world!” Despite Warner Brothers’ attempt, the film fails to translate the macabre experience of encountering a wax effigy to the viewing of a three-dimensional film. While the film’s images may jump out from the screen toward the spectator, the wax effigy’s ability to draw the spectator in with its boundless aura and haunting realism produces a more chilling, otherworldly effect.
Wax sculptures are still more often found in places of thrills and amusement than of fine art—Tussaud’s “House of Wax” is typically advertised alongside Ripley’s “Believe it or Not Museum,” which also integrates wax sculptures into its exhibitions. Through foregrounding the medium’s haptic properties, Italian artist Medardo Rosso’s wax sculptures foster contemplation rather than shock.
In her essay on Rosso’s work, Sharan Hecker observes that we do not know whether the infant in Rosso’s Behold the Child is fading into or emerging from the background material. Stone, marble, or ivory’s weighty materiality reflect a desire for durability and infinitude, whereas wax’s constantly shifting identity reflects ambiguity, mortality, and a heightened sense of fragility—it is more human and ephemeral. Instead of valuing permanence, Rosso accepts continual change. If Tussaud popularized wax as a deceiving substance through its likeness to purely transient phenomenon, then Rosso demonstrated how wax can reveal pathological truths through its likeness to the process of life: birth, transformation, and eventual disintegration.
But wax’s connotation with life is not only a product of its fragile physical properties; it is also a product of the way that the artist interacts with it. The sculptor who works with wax does not attack matter as he would with stone, but instead presses gently and transmogrifies the substance with the warmth of their own hands. According to the philosopher Gaston Bachelard, through intimate relations with matter, “one becomes aware of oneself as human becoming rather than as human being;” it is “an experience of positive change within the self.” Indeed, to wax means to grow or to become. One waxes philosophical to become a philosopher; the gibbous moon waxes to become more visible in the night sky. Shakespeare’s Romeo is described as “a man of wax” because he is proper and fully-grown. In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “waxing” could mean to be changeable or manipulable, as Theseus says to Hermia, “To whom you are but as a form in wax.” Perhaps the sincere statue is not without wax; rather, it is the statue that highlights its waxness, that is, its ambiguity, fragility, and incompleteness.
In his essay “The Cult of Sincerity,” Herbert Read wisely affirms, “To ask ‘What is sincerity?’ is in effect to ask ‘What is man?” I propose a reconfiguration: to ask “What is wax?” is in effect to ask “What is an object?” So that we might not suffer the same fate as curious Icarus, let us not neglect the substance out of which our wings are made. In thinking about wax, we are not only reminded of the warmth of our hands but also the fallibility of our eyes.
