Relief Depicting a God

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

One way Egyptian artists expressed the concept of immortality was by repeating artistic conventions that had been used for thousands of years. One of the oldest such traditions was the simplification of the human body, which was reduced to its fundamental, most recognizable shape. Here the face is in profile, but the eye and the chest are depicted frontally. While these formal conventions continued to be honored after the Greeks came to rule Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, the new kings also imposed their own taste. The soft flesh of the face and the small, rounded nose are drawn from naturalistic Greek sculpture and are reminiscent of artworks seen at the court of the Ptolemies in the new capital of Alexandria.

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