Through the Eras

Visual Artsnamed, though he is only a “steward of the reckoningof the cattle.” The eyebrow ridge is carved without detailedcarving of the eyebrows themselves. Perhaps originallythe artist added them in paint. The eyes are placedsquarely in the face. The nose is flat with carefully modeledmuscles joining it to the cheeks. The mouth withits slight downturn at the ends greatly resembles SenwosretIII. The chin with its short, square beard rests onhis hands. The feet are much less carefully modeled, appearingthick and clumsy. The block shape of the statuecreates additional space for inscriptions. The fact thatthe funerary god Ptah-Sokar is named in the inscriptionsuggests that this statue came from Senwosret-Senbefy’stomb.CLOAKED FIGURES. Late in the Twelfth Dynastyartists started to represent officials in full-length cloaks.They could be seated on chairs or on the ground. “Statuetteof a Cloaked Official” is an example of a seatedmale figure in full-length cloak. The subject’s body isentirely draped. Only his hands, ankles, and feet emergefrom the cloak. Scholars have speculated about the meaningof this popular new way of portraying officials. Thecontrast between the carefully modeled face and the starkcloak might have had visual appeal for artists. The cloakmight also echo the mummy bandages that totally wrapthe god Osiris and thus help to equate the deceased officialwith the god. The cloak is also the garment associatedwith the king’s jubilee (heb-sed). When artistsportray a deceased official wearing such a cloak, it mightimply rejuvenation for the deceased.FEMALE FIGURES. Female figures in the MiddleKingdom resemble Old Kingdom models yet illustratethe Egyptian artist’s tendency to give all people the king’sfeatures. A female figure in the Brooklyn Museum depictsa woman in a tight, v-necked dress and a tri-partite hairstyle.Both of these features resemble Old Kingdomstyles. Yet her face reflects the conventions for portrayingthe king’s face and head in the Twelfth Dynasty. Shehas the same very large ears as the kings of this period.Her eyebrows are relatively straight over wide-open eyes.Her nose is broad and her lips are rounded at the end.SOURCESRichard A. Fazzini, Art for Eternity: Masterworks from AncientEgypt (New York: Scala Publishers, 1999).Jaques Vandier, Manuel d’archéologie égyptienne, iii, Les grandesepochs: La statuaire (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1958).SEE ALSO Architecture: Transition to the MiddleKingdom; Architecture: The Pyramids of theMiddle KingdomTHE NEW KINGDOMVARIETY. Egyptian art of the New Kingdom (1538–1075 B.C.E.) displays a wide variety of styles within theestablished artistic tradition, by this point nearly 2,000years old. The New Kingdom includes the classical imagesof the warrior pharaoh Thutmose III (1479–1425B.C.E.) but also the androgynous king, Akhenaten(1352–1336 B.C.E.). It includes relief based on OldKingdom (2675–2170 B.C.E.) models along with morefluid depictions of both people and places. The variationin size runs from the colossal to the minute. Impassiveroyal sculptures from the early Eighteenth Dynasty(1539–1425 B.C.E.) contrast with Amarna period(1352–1332 B.C.E.) scenes that seem to represent a lovingroyal family. Art of the New Kingdom reflects aserious change in Egyptian perceptions of the worldfrom the beginning to the end of the period.HYKSOS. The Hyksos, a Semitic-speaking ethnicgroup that ruled northern Egypt from approximately1630 to 1523 B.C.E., caused a radical change in the wayEgyptians thought about the world and Egypt’s place init. The first kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty drove theHyksos out of Egypt and chased them into the area nowknown as the Middle East as far as modern-day Iraq.Even after Egyptian victory, kings continued at first tofeel vulnerable to the outside world’s designs on theircountry. The kings created a professional army for thefirst time in Egypt’s history. This army was a responseto Egypt’s new view that broader organization and professionalismwas now necessary in public life in order tocombat the threat from outside. The civil service wasalso revived outside the old hereditary nobility, probablycopying a Middle Kingdom reform. The militaryvictories celebrated by Thutmose III (1479–1425 B.C.E.)brought to a close the first stage of New Kingdom historyand its associated art.COMFORT AND LUXURY. Beginning with the reignof Thutmose IV (1400–1390 B.C.E.) Egyptian art reflectsthe comfort and luxury that came with Egyptianvictory over its rivals both in both Asia and in Africa.Egyptian artists’ contact with the outside world yieldedan interest in the vitality of other cultures rather thanthe pure rejection the Egyptians offered to the Hyksos.A new optimism about their own place in the worldallowed Egyptians to appreciate their neighbors in away that had not been available when the Hyksos werethought to be a threat.EARLIEST NEW KINGDOM. The earliest art of theEighteenth Dynasty found inspiration in early modelsboth of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Clearly artistsArts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.) 293