It is
peculiarly difficult for persons
living in the twenty first century A.D. to acquire a sense of the personal
reality of those
who walked & earth in the twenty seventh century
B.C.The social background, and the physical and psychological environment of
the Egyptians who lived when the
pyramids were new are so
foreign that it
is hard for us
to think of them as living
individuals with distinct personalities,
very much like ourselves. Perhaps the best way in which a modern man can learn
to appreciate them as real people
is by examining the portraits which they
made, a few of which have survived
and are preserved in museums.
And it is in the study of the work of the pyramid age that we can best grasp
the fundamental character of Egyptian portrait sculpture, for in this period it
remained direct and relatively unaffected
by external influences and by the sophistication and conscious striving for
the effect
which later overlaid its essential character.
The use of the
term “portraiture” to describe the Egyptian’s representation of an individual is not entirely
satisfactory, for it carries connotations to the modern mind
which were not felt by the ancients. To us a
portrait is a likeness of the physical appearance of the individual, and at
its best a study of his character as
well. It is intended to remind the ob-
server of the
person portrayed; to be an interpretation of
him to his fellow-men,
whether contemporaries or posterity;
its essential function is to help others to see
and understand him.
Ancient Egyptian portraits are
quite different in purpose. They were
not made primarily to remind others of the individual represented, but rather to furnish his own
spirit with an artificial shell
in which to
be embodied after death: they were addressed by the artist
exclusively to the
subject of the portrait, not
to other men.
There can
be no doubt that the best
of the portraits which have
survived from ancient
Egypt are real physical
likenesses of particular persons. On the other hand, the great mass of stereotyped statuettes of minor
officials, which lack all
evidence of individualization,
were also portraits in the Egyptian sense-that is, they represented an individual. How may we explain these differences?
The
element of physical likeness came about when the skill of the sculptor, seeking after perfection
in his
craft, led him subconsciously to individualize his subject,
and when the more intellectual and when the more intellectual and sensitive
members of the aristocracy had developed an appreciation for the subtler qualities
in art which induced them
to demand a true likeness. Yet
the essential requirement for the Egyptian of untrained perception was to have a
figure in his tomb which had the
semblance of a man - a figure which, by
means of the
name inscribed upon it, or by the magic formulae recited by the priests in
its presence, became identified
with the spirit whom it was supposed to
represent-and which had that spirit infused into it by these mysterious means. W e
have to realise that the business
of providing funerary equipment was an industry like
any other. The purveyors of sculpture
produced
their wares according to
the taste and pocketbooks of
their patrons. The great
work of art was
custom-built, to use a
modern commercial term. The highest officials, the princes, and above
all the kings commanded the services of
the relatively few master-sculptors, and their portraits were commissions representing
both the refined taste
of the
patron and the superlative skill and sensibility
of the artist.
The man of modest means
could neither afford to employ a
great artist to make his funerary figure, nor had he the fineness
of perception which would make him
dissatisfied with a reasonably attractive generalization to which
his personality would become attached by
the magic ritual of the priests and the addition of the inscribed name. One has the
impression that a goodly proportion of
routine funerary sculpture was made
in advance of the
specific demand, and was given the necessary identity by later inscribing the purchaser's name
upon it. It is the misfortune of most people today that their impression of
Egyptian art is based in no small degree on objects which, whatever their
archaeological and historic importance, are
distinctly mediocre as works of art, and they
are disappointed with their stiffness and
lack of vitality.
Source: DUNHAM Dows, Portraiture in Ancient Egypt
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