The Development of Amarna Art
The most violent break with the older convention came in the early years of Akhenaton’s reign. Before the move to Akhetaton, the Theban hillside was dotted with tombs decorated with the newer art forms and bearing inscriptions praising the Pharaoh. With the move to Amarna, the art conventions matured. Artists developed their own distinctive tastes and at times modified the prevailing tendencies.
The painted stucco pavement which Petrie discovered in 1891 expresses the love of nature which the Aton cult encouraged. It depicts a pool surrounded by clumps of flowers in which birds are sporting and calves playing. Frescoes from the Green Room of the North Palace, excavated by Francis Newton in 1924, represent the luxuriance of a papyrus thicket full of beautiful birds, brightened up here and there by blue lotuses.
Some of the finest specimens of ancient Egyptian art have come from the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, discovered by Ludwig Borchard during the German expedition at Amarna prior to World War I. In preparing a series of heads of members of the royal family, Thutmose chose to refine rather than to stress their physical peculiarities. Thutmose based his work on keen observation, augmented by casts taken from life when he wanted to record the characteristic features of his subject. Among his masterpieces are the famous painted limestone bust of Nofretete—perhaps the best known piece of Egyptian art; and an unfinished portrait of the queen now in the Cairo Museum.
IX
THE END OF AN ERA
The high hopes of Akhenaton’s early years met an untimely end. The Asiatic provinces of Egypt fell away to the Hittites or to local Canaanite princes who had little sympathy with the Empire. Although there is no evidence of revolt in Egypt itself, Akhenaton’s alienation from the older priesthood must have resulted in dislocations of the economy, and difficulties in the smooth running of government.