DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0096
EGYPTIAN ART
evidently under the stimulus of his inspiration, there grew up an art
unlike any art that had been seen before, and unlike any that was to be
seen again for about 3000 years. This statue (58) is an official portrait
of the king. As you see, this shows scarcely any deviation from the
traditional official art. There is perhaps an unusual tenderness and
subtlety in the modelling of the face, but otherwise everything is as
usual. There is the tight precise inexpressive surface, the decorative
and schematic treatment of the muscles and the folds of the drapery.
The head of the Karnak statue of Akhenaten, however (59), is quite
another matter. It is something unheard of thus to abandon the im-
passive expressionless formality of the royal statue. Indeed the exagger-
ation and distortion are so violent that it is in the nature of a caricature,
but a serious caricature in which everything is done to give to the face a
strange enigmatic and disquieting power. Here, born out of all due
time, is a piece of modern expressionism such as M. Bourdelle might
have perpetrated. Perhaps the comparison is hardly fair to this very
striking work, but it will give you a hint of what I find in it myself. For
I cannot find in it the quality of true vitality nor the finer aspects of a
true plastic sensibility. It is expressionistic, and by that I have suggested
that we mean an art which tries to arrive at the effect of vitality by
conscious and deliberate emphasis and not by a penetrating and imagi-
native grasp of vital rhythms. Had the reign of Akhenaten produced
only this it would be startling enough, since this stands out in strange
isolation from the endless series of Egyptian portraits, but fortunately
there is far more and far better.
This head (60) for instance is the king’s portrait by his own special
artist, Thutmosis, who claims in an inscription to have been the pupil of
the king, whatever the exact significance of that phrase may be. And
here you see we get something altogether new and different. Here at
least is intense vitality—forms which betray the inner life. And we get
a sensibility in the surface modelling of incredible delicacy and finesse
and yet the rhythmic harmony is all-pervading and unbroken. And,
once more, how little Egyptian this is. Nothing else in ancient art is
< 60 >
evidently under the stimulus of his inspiration, there grew up an art
unlike any art that had been seen before, and unlike any that was to be
seen again for about 3000 years. This statue (58) is an official portrait
of the king. As you see, this shows scarcely any deviation from the
traditional official art. There is perhaps an unusual tenderness and
subtlety in the modelling of the face, but otherwise everything is as
usual. There is the tight precise inexpressive surface, the decorative
and schematic treatment of the muscles and the folds of the drapery.
The head of the Karnak statue of Akhenaten, however (59), is quite
another matter. It is something unheard of thus to abandon the im-
passive expressionless formality of the royal statue. Indeed the exagger-
ation and distortion are so violent that it is in the nature of a caricature,
but a serious caricature in which everything is done to give to the face a
strange enigmatic and disquieting power. Here, born out of all due
time, is a piece of modern expressionism such as M. Bourdelle might
have perpetrated. Perhaps the comparison is hardly fair to this very
striking work, but it will give you a hint of what I find in it myself. For
I cannot find in it the quality of true vitality nor the finer aspects of a
true plastic sensibility. It is expressionistic, and by that I have suggested
that we mean an art which tries to arrive at the effect of vitality by
conscious and deliberate emphasis and not by a penetrating and imagi-
native grasp of vital rhythms. Had the reign of Akhenaten produced
only this it would be startling enough, since this stands out in strange
isolation from the endless series of Egyptian portraits, but fortunately
there is far more and far better.
This head (60) for instance is the king’s portrait by his own special
artist, Thutmosis, who claims in an inscription to have been the pupil of
the king, whatever the exact significance of that phrase may be. And
here you see we get something altogether new and different. Here at
least is intense vitality—forms which betray the inner life. And we get
a sensibility in the surface modelling of incredible delicacy and finesse
and yet the rhythmic harmony is all-pervading and unbroken. And,
once more, how little Egyptian this is. Nothing else in ancient art is
< 60 >