The Oldest Modernist Paintings
Two thousand years before Picasso, artists in Egypt painted some of the most arresting portraits in the history of art
- By Smithsonian Magazine
- Smithsonian magazine, February 2012, Subscribe
Between 1887 and 1889, the British archaeologist W.M. Flinders Petrie turned his attention to the Fayum, a sprawling oasis region 150 miles south of Alexandria. Excavating a vast cemetery from the first and second centuries A.D., when imperial Rome ruled Egypt, he found scores of exquisite portraits executed on wood panels by anonymous artists, each one associated with a mummified body. Petrie eventually uncovered 150.
The images seem to allow us to gaze directly into the ancient world. “The Fayum portraits have an almost disturbing lifelike quality and intensity,” says Euphrosyne Doxiadis, an artist who lives in Athens and Paris and is the author of The Mysterious Fayum Portraits. “The illusion, when standing in front of them, is that of coming face to face with someone one has to answer to—someone real.”
By now, nearly 1,000 Fayum paintings exist in collections in Egypt and at the Louvre, the British and Petrie museums in London, the Metropolitan and Brooklyn museums, the Getty in California and elsewhere.
For decades, the portraits lingered in a sort of classification limbo, considered Egyptian by Greco-Roman scholars and Greco-Roman by Egyptians. But scholars increasingly appreciate the startlingly penetrating works, and are even studying them with noninvasive high-tech tools.
At the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen, scientists recently used luminescence digital imaging to analyze one portrait of a woman. They documented extensive use of Egyptian blue, a copper-containing synthetic pigment, around the eyes, nose and mouth, perhaps to create shading, and mixed with red elsewhere on the skin, perhaps to enhance the illusion of flesh. “The effect of realism is crucial,” says the museum’s Rikke Therkildsen.
Stephen Quirke, an Egyptologist at the Petrie museum and a contributor to the museum’s 2007 catalog Living Images, says the Fayum paintings may be equated with those of an old master—only they’re about 1,500 years older.
Doxiadis has a similar view, saying the works’ artistic merit suggests that “the greats of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance, such as Titian and Rembrandt, had great predecessors in the ancient world.”
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Comments (42)
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The other night I watched my husband while sleeping in bed next to the lamp and noticed how much the reflection of light and shades on his face resembled the portraits (or at least the most realistic ones). Maybe these portraits were painted postmortem with the person lying down and facing slightly towards the painter. The eyes and mouth are later stylized. Here is an example of the boy http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24473016/boy.jpg The cheeks are pulled back towards the ears perhaps due to gravity. I covered the eyes and the strong lines next to the mouth the remaining details almost look like a photograph. Remarkable artistic realism for such ancient paintings.
Posted by BB on November 16,2012 | 05:23 PM
its amazing to know that people look into things such as these paintings because they honestly are amazing works of art that should be appreciated for the talent that made them and i truly express how much i truly admire the men and women who take there time to inform people like me where when and what these paintings are it really makes them interesting and i really do want to learn about them because of the time these dedicated men and women have putt in making sure we have the correct information about these true works of art so THANK YOU!!!
Posted by Pate Schultz on October 24,2012 | 02:26 PM
these pictures are very very life like they have amazing features i admit they"re not perfect but i cant even paint like that with the new techniques we have these days so i cant imagine the talent you would have to have acquire to paint like that!!! what a talent God had given them, thank the lord for such beauty!!!
Posted by Pate Schultz on October 24,2012 | 02:19 PM
"The Oldest Modernist Paintings : Two thousand years before Picasso, artists in Egypt painted some of the most arresting portraits in the history of art" Why this title? These paintings have absolutely nothing in common with Picasso or Modernism, 0%. In fact those two subjects are not even mentioned in the article at all. Did someone with some art history knowledge write it and someone without get to pick the sensational and misleading title?
Posted by Herb on September 30,2012 | 04:03 PM
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
Posted by Cheap MBT Shoes on June 13,2012 | 03:12 AM
I bought Euphrosyne Doxiadis' Book "The Mysterious Faiyum Portraits", and some of them are so realistic that they seem to be watching you. They also remind me of some Greek icons.
Posted by angelosdaughter on May 26,2012 | 07:15 PM
The most crucial bit of information about these works are that many, if not all, were done in the encaustic technique. This involved mixing pigments in melted wax and applying the colors before the wax cooled and hardened. The wax resists moisture and other environmental challenges and that is why the colors seem so fresh and well preserved. The technique was forgotten for centuries, and was revived in America, and other places, in the Mid 20th Century. Wax paints, BTW, can naturally simulate the translucence of skin better than most paint mediums.
Posted by ladini on May 23,2012 | 10:28 PM
Aside from their artistic aspects, I am interested in what these portraits might tell in the way of history. Specifically, if dated to circa 245 C.E., that puts them in the Greco-Roman-Egyptian (Pagan)era. But there is also the possibility of Judaism or some form of Christianity. Thus, I am curious about the supposed priest and that supposed 7-pointed star on his forehead. I wonder if anyone has any more specific information. I could not find any instance of a 7-pointed star being associated with an Egyptian or Greek religion of the time (Sol Invictus?) Also, it looks to me that that is not a 7-pointed star at all, but is instead a 6-pointed star with a central point at an angle to the surrounding 6 points. In other words, it could be a representation of the 6+1=7 symbolism of Judaism (as echoed by the Temple menorah and star of David).
Posted by Alan Barber on May 13,2012 | 08:26 PM
These paintings are wonderful! I did not know they even existed. I feel as if the people could just wake up, arise and speak to us. Maybe we could have more in depth coverage of the era and lifestyles of those who were honored by mummy art??
Posted by Joanna on April 24,2012 | 12:06 AM
Two thing struck me about these paintings.
Firstly, although they probably painted by different artists over and extended period of time, they all show their subjects with very large eyes.
Secondly, considering that the subjects were almost certainly dead at the time of painting (consider the youth of some), the life-like quality of the images is astonishing. The paucity of materials available to the artists of the time makes these works a wonder of human achievement.
Posted by Bill Daley on March 29,2012 | 08:05 AM
It is fo fascinating to look at these portraits,imagine the people behind them, fantasize about the lives they led... They look so real, would have been be awesome to ask them about the era they lived in.
Posted by Irina Cuellar on March 25,2012 | 04:40 PM
In reference to David H's comments, he seems to have upped the Smithsonian's mummy portrait dates by a few hundred years (he states 500AD, which actually predates the Islamic era). The latest portrait Smithsonian dates is from 245AD, long before the Islamic invasion of 640AD. Egyptians then would have been ruled by Rome, not the Islamic Empire.
These Egyptian portraits in Graeco-Roman style are so elegant and modern. How fortunate we are to have them, as an insight both into the late Egyptian period, and as an illustration of how pervasive the Roman culture was in the Egypt of that era.
Posted by Toni E on March 11,2012 | 05:41 PM
I read the article in the Smithsonian Magazine and had to search for it on a web site, to share.
The rough dates are sooo important for these images - I wish there was an estimated date on each target image, so they could better tied back to specific time periods to help the viewer reconstruct events. The dead tell a story.
The closest date provided in the article was about 1,500 years ago. This is circa conquering of the Coptic (Egyptian) people (formerly under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire) to a militant Arab Islamic Invasion (from the Middle East.) Copts, initially passive to the invasion, were later forced to abandon modernist painting (modernist painting was illegal under Islamic Sharia Law), their language (the binding between Islam and Arabic language is nearly inseparable), art/history (with the burning of libraries in Alexandria), and many other aspects of their indigenous culture.
Without being able to build a context around the art, the value of this article and images diminish. Filling the historical gaps will be reasonably easy for my next class.
Posted by David H on March 3,2012 | 01:05 PM
I have always loved Ancient Egypt. To see these portraits of these people are amazing. In all of the portraits, I am immediately caught off guard on how the eyes are depicted. The artist gave the people emotions, which is very stunning. I feel that they have caught the essence of that persons character.
Posted by Raven Myst on March 1,2012 | 03:17 PM
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