Monday, September 29, 2008

Art of Ancient Egypt.


The portrait of Nefertiti from Akhetaten Dynasty is the picture that caught my interest in this chapter. The attention to detail and the beauty that is emitted through this portrait is amazing. The bright colors used show that she was of importance, by making her stand out even more than the beauty of this portraits structure. Almost makes me wonder is she really did have makeup in that time. Her appearance is flawless. Not only is her beauty displayed in this picture, but her confidence, and composure. A couple of things most women and men in today's society are somewhat lacking.

3 comments:

Jon Lorente said...

I definitely agree with you in what men and woman of today are lacking! I am not so sure if this portrait of nefertiti was as confident as she looked as I think history repeats itself. An artist can sculpt a piece to look any way they desire or how they are told to make it. Could it have been that Nefertiti had a poor self image, or had a poor appearance and had the sculpture made to boost her ego? This would not be to different from today in the way we wear clothes, apply make-up, or delete pictures of ourselves that we do not like. She may have been important as the bright colors imply, but I wonder what her self image truly was? We will never actually know.

Erin Lindsay said...

I loved this sculpture too. Her beauty, her confidence and her poise are all extremely striking, but she seems too perfect. She reminds me in many ways of runway models, and women who pose in beauty product ads. So perfectly flawless, so ideal, so dramatic, almost unrealistic. I liked how Jon posed the question about Nefertiti's self confidence in real life. I actually wondered the same thing about her, and again, in this case, I likened her to a model. We see models today, and how gorgeous they are, but are they really confident? Are they really happy? We don't know. There is no way we can really know and in the case of a public figure, that's how they want it. In looking so dignified, the viewer is placed at a distance (emotionally) from the subject, leaving nothing but the image of the person to connect with. As Queen, I'm sure Nefertiti simply wanted people to view her a certain way, without gaining any insight into her real self.

Ahmed said...
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