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.

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!!!

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!!!

"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?

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.

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.

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.

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).

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??

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

These portraits are well detailed for being eighteen hundred years old.

These pictures have a meaning, a purpose. A purpose of time, place and whereabouts, trust and loyalty, wisdom and faith. We weren't in this era of time, but, we get how they feel, express themselves just by a simple,yet, elegant painting.
Thanks for sharing

These Fayum's look very preserved and very beautiful.

I'm surprised theses paintings lasted so long with the color, and the mummy pics look weird and cool!

These paintings are an interesting and amazing way to almost go back in time, and somehow imagine i glimpse of our own morality. The thousands and millions and billions of people who lived throughout time on earth are closer then ever with these chilling glimpses into the past.

the portraits of these people don't look so different than the people living now. i'm actually surprised these paintings lasted so long. Its a wonderful thing that they were found, and hopefully they will put them on display and save them for the future. They can also be used for educational uses.

Woah! These paintings are so amazing. It's as if these were painted yesterday.

I can't help but wonder; if these are paintings done for funerals, was the painting created after the subject was deceased? Or, did they take yearly portraits in case they died? and if they were done while they were living, was the subject allowed to see the portrait? Did they keep their portrait in their house, or did they keep them in a type of funeral home so they didn't have to look at it everyday? And what happened to the portraits that the subject outgrew if they did have 'yearly portraits'?

I really like the photo's, very gratifying! :)

these portraits show a fantastic use of the early 3d image

thought this was pretty interesting.

This reminds me of the pictures that I see in my history class. I they are ancient looking drawings.

This is pretty cool. Wish I could see the real deal. Why are their eyes so big?

Thanks, the portraits brought the people to life for me. I stared into their eyes and realized those ancient ones were real, breathing people. They lived with the same joys, hardships, love and then death as I will but they are remembered and will be as long as a Smithsonian exists.

Are the subjects on these paintings ethnic Egyptians or Greek/Roman?

I hope an exhibit of these paintings can be brought soon to my local museam, the Art Institute of Chicago.

I wonder if they have done any CT or other types of scans of the mummys to see how closely they resemble their portraits.

The man in the middle portrait looks identical to a very dear friend of mine from that region of Egypt. When I first looked at it, I literally thought it was a painting of him. How amazing that there is still such strong resemblence two millenia later. Wow.

Thanks for taking the time to bring these beautiful people renditions for viewing. As an egg tempera artist I have been familiar with these well painted portraits. They certainly have much depth to them as well as seeming very familiar. Anthony Suminski

They're just beautiful. It is as though the artist surveyed relations close to the individual represented to capture their essense of being, the aura that emminated from within them. The first, has the essence of leadership and the intellectual, the second innocence and optimism, the third infuential with her beauty and social graces. I recently purchashed a bound volume containing reproductions of the complete work's of VanGogh, and have added to my morning routine, opening to and surveying a picture that strikes my fancy, and then leaving it open to this page, and coming back to it throughout the day when I want to feel its story. Thank you for sharing these finds; they are truely treasures!

a wonderful example of realism and sentitiveness

what a wonderful, treat for me. I just recived,the feb mag. and canot wait, to start reading. feb has alot of things, for us ,in la. wet cold ect. thankyou for this mo.read BEVERLY SIGLER.

The ankh like object, in one of the paintings, looks suspiciously like an Egyptian rattle that has been wrapped in pink silk. If that image were on a 19th century monument, one would assume that it means "silenced music."

Time is irrelevant...it does not exist...the artists, the people, the persona of the intelligent and civilized human being was no different "then" than "now". Human culture has always and will always be the same. These beautiful portraits show this and thank you Smithsonian for presenting them to us. I want to see everyone that exists now!
As an artist I have already learned more about portrait painting from studying these portraits than any book on portrait painting I have ever read.

In the spring of my junior year in college, one of my roommates returned from break with several decoupaged icons. They were fascinating to me. That summer,while on a midshipman training cruise, one day I passed the chief engineer's stateroom. His family was Greek, and I spied what turned out to be a bank calendar with memorial portraits (which I initially thought to be some style of icons) on it sticking out of the trash can. I rescued the calendar, and tracked down the engineer and asked permission to keep the calendar, which I mailed home. About two years later, I finally got around to decoupaging several of those striking prints. Even the amateurish mounting job could not diminish their power. They have hung in several places of prominence as we have moved about the country. One of the portraits in our collection bears a striking resemblance to my boyhood best friend's son. About twenty years ago, Time carried a cover story on Freud. The article included a photo Freud's Vienna office, and there on the wall was that second century portrait of the same young man! It is very pleasing, even gratifying to see this fine ancient work featured in February's Smithsonian magazine. Wonder what those people were like?

When an Egyptian Exposition was here in Kansas City, my wife and I acted as aids to Museum staff. As members of the Kansas City Archaeological Society, We were offered the opportunity to assist the Museum. We saw two of the original paintings, and couldn't believe what we were seeing. Such perfection. When we visited Egypt a number of years ago we saw more. Thank You for the article.

Janson's History of Art had a Fayum portrait as a color plate, and my first reaction to it was that it must have been put too far back in the book. Thank you for making this remarkable era of art more accessible for laypeople. Wish you had more portraits, however.

These portraits are hauntingly familiar and arresting---it's as if the individuals were going to step out of the page (or off the monitor in this case) momentarily! The hairstyles are quite contemporary...A fascinating article; I had hoped to find many newer and more different portraits! (Actually, there were a few "newcomers", but so many were from the prior article.) Thanks, though, excellent job!