Monday, February 28

Egyptian art: tomb of Nakht

Time only made changes but we can see all Egyptian art that was done centuries ago.
Thomas Baker did a great reconstruction of the Three musicians, left picture, and this is part of his text:
A Concert for All Eternity
"In this painting from the 18th Dynasty tomb of Nakht, part of a banquet scene, a strolling lute player steps casually between two other musicians playing a double flute and a harp. This mural is remarkably naturalistic for a formal ancient Egyptian painting, when most such art was uniformly rigid and stylistic. By this period of human history, the realistic art of earlier millennia, such as the animals seen in prehistoric cave paintings and the humans in the Saharan rock art (that I also reproduced), had given way to stiff symbolism in the official art of dynastic Egypt. However, we can see in the figures of this particular mural some rudimentary shading and other characteristics that would eventually progress to truly natural representation of the human form in later Greek and Roman times and beyond. In this example of ancient Egyptian art we sense naturalism stirring, yearning to break free of symbolism. (keep reading here)"
The right picture is a Banquet scene at the same tomb.