Akhenaten & the early Amarna period - Egyptian relief sculpture - Piece of the Week - episode 9

I've got something to show you, even though I don't know you well, what will it be? Is it a painting or a sculpture, or some kind of culture that I've never ever seen? Maybe our heaven's just become part of my dreams. Hello ancient wild people, and welcome back to piece of the week. Which has had a brief hiatus, but I've been rummaging around the collection and I've been finding some pieces that I think are worth having a look at. Tonight I'm going to be sharing with you some pieces from Akhenaten's reign. In particular the early years, and how it softened over the course of the reign into one of the most beautiful styles of all. The relief sculptures I'm particularly passionate about because that was my very first relief carving I ever did was of Akhenaten in sandstone. I learned a lot from that piece. A lot of the relief sculptures from Akhenaten's reign were done in sunken relief, or relief en croix, which is far less time consuming than bas-relief. Which is where the figure is carved around, you raise the figure up by carving away the background. It takes so long, but it is a beautiful style. Sunken relief is also very beautiful, but the difference being it is far less time consuming because the background is left intact. All the modelling occurs below the surface plane of the rock. More or less the sunken relief was used for exteriors of temples prior to that. So it could catch the sun and create the striking shadows on the temple walls as you walked up to them. It animated whatever was carved, the hieroglyphs would jump to life, the shadow play across the course of the day made these temples sing. This is the largest sunken relief carving that I've done in this lifetime. It's about the height of a small door, and certainly it's wider than a door, and it weighs probably as much as a small cow. It's available to order if you'd like one, but only freight can handle a piece of this size. It was inspired by an earlier carving of Akhenaten worshipping the Aten, and it was modified for a client originally. But it's now also in the collection. Yippee-ki-yay! By the time Akhenaten came into power, he changed things very much so that smaller scale sculptures were done in sunken relief as well, on these blocks called talatats. They were able to be carried by a regular person, rather than the giant great blocks that had built Karnak. The talatat that were used to build the gempa-aten, which rivaled Karnak in size, was made of these smaller blocks and absolutely festooned with daily life and the comings and goings of the royal court. In this new, extravagant style, the proportions were nothing like had ever been seen before. Figures were generally stretched, and as it progressed, the way the body was shown, particularly the feet, left and right feet were shown for the first time. The toes delineated, so you could see the big to the small toe. This hadn't been done before. It was always either or, just a foot with a toe, it was either two left feet or two right feet, and that was quite a change. Even the joints were shown, and the hands, I'll have to show you the one I've got of the hand, I call it the finger of God. It's an elegant hand, it reminds me of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, that famous image of Adam and the God. Touching, like that. And thanks to Jeremy this week for showing me the hand of God that was washed up on the beach near his place. Oh my goodness, it was burnt to a cinder, but yeah, God was there. Oh, which God? The Buddha? Shiva? Freddie Mercury? So let's have a look at some of the pieces, they're exquisite examples. Some of them are sculpted as models, so if the style was being developed under artistic direction by Akhenaten himself, that's fascinating in itself, isn't it? Whatever tickles your pickle. But a king would have such an active role in completely turning around the style that had governed Egypt for over a thousand years. And here is this upstart king saying, I want it done this way. Well, I understood it. His theory was living in mart, after the goddess Mart, so living in truth. So more of reality was being shown, more nature, more plants, more animals jumping around in the marshes. And this was how the palace was decorated. His palace in Amarna was absolutely beautifully painted, the floors and the walls, and probably the ceilings too. We will never know that for sure. Oh my goodness, I hadn't even thought of that. Imagine what the ceilings looked like. Probably a starry night sky. Yeah, or maybe it was the sun at either end. Well, this is a hypothetical, I can't go into dreamland now, but that excites me. The palace of Akhenaten in Amarna was the place I would love to go back in time and visit. Cross that bridge across the road, the main central road, into the palace and have a look. The lotus pools, the columns holding the roof. The paintings, just oh, so terrible what happened to it too, when Flinders Petrie found it. Well, they built a special shelter around it to protect it, because it was tempura more or less. It was like a water-based paint. Now you just wait a goddamn minute. It's not tempura. It's tempura. Tempura is used to coat various Asian dishes such as prawns and worms like these ones. Not tempura. Tempura is an egg yolk and pigment paint used in the Middle Ages and earlier. That's what you're trying to say, isn't it, Petal? When you paint it into the plaster, it sticks into it and it goes into the top layer and holds fast. So that's why it was able to last for so long. Of course, it was also covered in sand by the time Flinders Petrie had found it, quite deep actually. But he built this, he had built this great shelter over it. And people came from everywhere to come and see this, from other countries. And unfortunately, it annoyed the locals that lived near it. So much so that they went in one night and smashed it up. Because they were sick and tired of the tourists coming and trampling all over their crops. So there goes three and a half thousand years of history with a few blows of a sledgehammer. Some of those fragments are in the Kairi Museum as you walk in. They're in a glass case now. The painted pavement as it's known. That is pretty much the majority of what's left. Some of the other bits are on the walls. I'm not sure if other museums have a piece. I think they do. I'll have to check that one. I think it's the Metropolitan has a piece of it. But anyway, we're not talking about the painted pavement tonight. We're talking about the early relief sculpture. So getting back on the camel in the right direction, yes. This piece, this one, is one of the most famous of all images of Akanan. It's so well publicised. You see it in many, many books. To describe this early period, I'll put a picture up so you can see it properly. I remember where I was when I first saw this image in a book. I was facing, I was facing west. I know exactly where I was when I saw this piece. It was unlike anything I'd seen before in relation to ancient Egypt. It was so striking. The big chin, the facial lines, the massive lips, the huge hole in the ear. I mean, the earrings they did wear in this period were large. So I understood that, but it seemed a bit exaggerated. And nonetheless, everything seemed exaggerated. The neck so long. Wow. I thought it was hideous at first, but I grew to see its beauty. It's wild. Then I saw the balustrade piece, which I'll show you as well. In this book, this book here. I turned the page and I saw this image alone. This was the image that really, it was love at first sight. I just thought how crisp the details. Just look at these angles and the way the body is shown. This is unreal. Almost grotesque, but beautiful at the same time. And here's the king worshipping this sun disk. I mean, I only knew Ra really at that point. So here's Aten, the actual embodiment of the new religion. The disk itself, also known as the solar orb in some publications. So they describe it as an orb. I mean, it does have quite a lot of modelling in this image. It is semi-globular. And behind him is Nefertiti and their first daughter, Meritaten. Oops. Akenaten down. So a lot of the artwork that survives from the Amarna period are reliefs. Because there was just so many. And it's like a massive photo library, but in stone. And you can pick through and see when things changed. It's linear. So this balustrade piece can be linked to this piece here, which I'll show you. I'll give you a good shot of that one. I have in the store at the moment. It's the same again. It's Akenaten and Nefertiti and the young daughter, Meritaten. Firstborn. So the very early years of the reign when they first moved to Amarna, perhaps. Which was followed by six other daughters they had. So you can see that this one is even more famous. Five daughters extra. Six in total. Another Beryl Whittaker fact check there. The next piece I'm going to show you is one of many sculptor's trial pieces. Sculptor's models. When the style was being thought out. The artists had to be trained into this new style. And that's why we've got so many of these. And they were done in all manner of styles and shapes. And the best ones are usually squared off. And they were done by the master sculptors. But you see a lot of fragments with half carved faces and attempts at ears. Yeah, it shows how things progressed. And this one. Oh my god. My nephew is here today. And I think he's left me a little prize. It's not a prize. It's a surprise. It's definitely not Amarna period. It's not even Egyptian. Jackson, please don't leave Cookie Monster in the Egyptian collection. It's not on. It's very jarring. And it just doesn't look right. Hello boys and girls. I'm the Cookie Monster. Yummy, yummy. Okay. You have been warned. Alright. There will be no Christmas presents now. Now I don't even know what I was going to talk about. I've completely lost my train of... Oh, there it is. That's right. The carving. Anyway. Alright. Yes, you can have a bag of dirt for Christmas. With some seeds in it or something. Well, as long as they're magic seeds like beanstalk, they should be no problem. Isn't it beautiful? See the angle on the face. It tapers down. Now there are no stripes on the neck, which usually indicate these little fat rolls. It's quite synonymous with Amarna art. It's not here in this one. It's wearing the Afnek crown. The bag headdress, the Afnek crown. And that was also known as the cut headdress or kat. And you can see that it's a relative of the Neme's headdress. The famous striped headdress that radiates down each side of the king's face in two matching lappets. Stripes of blue and gold. Symbolizing the refraction of the sun in the sky. The Afnek crown was far less spectacular than the Neme's, but it was favoured by Akhenaten. He wore it in forms of a sphinx. He wore them in worshipping poses. His mother loved it. She wore it all the time. This next piece is a real gem. It's part of a temple column. And you wouldn't think so looking at it. But it is. If you have a look at it. It curls. It curves. It curves around so it shows you that this was once part of a mighty column. It's just wonderful. The fragment probably originates from the main temple at Amarna. One of the first structures to be made at the site. So it's only logical to assume that it would have been decorated in the earliest style. Of which this fragment is a prime example. And just enough of the face survives to show that early style. It's a great piece. Unavailable as yet, but. Maybe for Christmas. If you're into that. If not. Anytime. Anytime is Akhenaten time. Once the exuberant and expressive early years had come to pass. A more mature softening of the style came into being. Look at the difference between these statues of Akhenaten early in his reign. And a little surviving Shabti towards the end. A complete turnaround in style. The harsh characteristics of king, queen and commoner. Gave way to a more sublime, softened countenance. The lips and chins receded to a more natural proportion. Yet the fluidity of the bodily form and its many articulated details remained. By the time young Tutankhamen came to the throne. The exaggeration was totally gone. But the influence of the Amana intensity. Meshed beautifully with the post-Amana reformation style. So that ends this week's piece of the week. If you like the video, please hit the subscribe bell. Note the subscribe button. And hit the notification bell. You will receive a notification of when the next video will come about. It's not just going to be piece of the weeks. There'll be other things as well. And there has been as well already. But we'll see what comes. We'll see what comes in the future. I hope that you have a better tomorrow than you had today. And if you had a great day today. Then you're in for a bumper tomorrow. Don't you think? Duh! Bye for now.