AMARNA STYLE

also called Tell el-Amarna Style revolutionary style of Egyptian art created by Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaton during his reign (135336 BC) in the 18th dynasty. Often referred to as the Amarna heresy, Akhenaton's alteration of the artistic and religious life of Egypt was drastic. He laid the greatest stress on his own divinity as the manifestation of the god whom he designated the supreme and only deity, Aton, the sun disk. This sun cult, which revived ancient usages, was practiced to the exclusion of worship of the entire Egyptian pantheon, including Amon-Re, formerly considered king of the gods and patronized liberally by Akhenaton's father. Not content to erect temples to Aton merely in Thebes, the capital, Akhenaton moved to the edge of the desert, near the present Tell el-Amarna, and named his new capital Akhetaton (Horizon of Aton). After the banishment of all Egyptian gods except Aton, Akhenaton limited artistic subject matter mainly to depictions of himself and his family, both in casual domestic scenes, which were his favourite, and in concert with Aton, who was shown as a golden orb radiating beams of light that ended in little hands proffering the sign of life, the ankh, to Akhenaton and his queen, Nefertiti. It was in the method of portraying the Pharaoh and his family that the most remarkable aspect of Amarna art lies, for the old stiff canon was abandoned in favour of a naturalistic depiction, which showed them more as actual human beings. Essentially it was a secularization of art that took place; the royal family was now shown in the same casual poses and settings as servants and commoners had been depicted in the past. Some experts see the depictions of Akhenaton himselfwith an elongated head, slender neck and limbs, and protruding bellyas artistic overstatements of basically real physical attributes, possibly the result of a rare disease that deformed his head and hips. Whatever the reason, the expressionistic physical type eventually became canonized and was used to some degree in most depictions of human form throughout the Amarna period. Painted wall reliefs found in the tombs of Akhetaton officials reveal much about everyday life there, as opposed to the life-after-death scenes usually found in tombs. Painted scenes spread from wall to wall, ignoring the traditional practice of dividing pictorial space into registers, or horizontal bands. A love of natural form developed, and pure landscape came into its own as subject matter. Portraits, in the form of busts and masks, were done for their own sake. Neither the artistic revolution nor the worship of Aton survived Akhenaton. The great temple was razed to the ground by opponents of the Aton cult, and Akhenaton's name was deleted from official king lists, being referred to thereafter as that criminal of Akhetaton. His successor, the young Tutankhamen, attempted to return to more traditional artistic ideas, but Amarna influence is still evident in the art of this period. Throughout the remainder of the 18th dynasty, a steady purge of unorthodox artistic elements continued, and, by the reign of Horemheb, rigid formality had returned.