Amarna Art, Research Paper Example

Characteristics of Amarna Art

Amarna art refers to the style of art adopted during the Amarna period in Ancient Egypt (Robins 138). This was a period in the late eighteenth dynasty when the Akhenaten was the king in Egypt. The Amarna art style was rather very different from the rest of ancient Egyptian art since it was characterized by the depiction of movement as well as activity in the images. Most of the images made hade raised heads with most of the figures overlapping each other. In addition, most of the scenes were depicted as busy and crowded. Human figures were different from those made in previous art periods as males were given feminine attributes such as prominent breasts in addition to large hips and thighs in contrast to earlier images that had perfectly chiseled bodies.

The hands were thought to be very important and therefore were depicted very distinctively with long, slender fingers. Both male and female figures were dark brown in color which was different from previous art that had male bodies as dark brown while female bodies were light brown (Manley 84). The figures were also shown as having a right and left foot, a deviation from previous depictions of either two right or left feet only. Sculptures that were made during this period had certain features accentuated such as a prominent chin, large hips and thighs, spindle like arms, and long, narrow necks. (Robins 152).

Works Cited

Manley, Bill. The Penguin historical atlas of ancient Egypt . New York: Penguin, 1996.

Robins, Gay. The art of ancient Egypt. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008