A Historical Analysis Of Ancient Egyptian Artistic Achievements In Amarna Period

Amarna art was a new art form which emerged in the period of Akenaten Reform. A study of the artworks at that time can help deepening the understanding of history then. This text starts from angles such as architecture, sculpture, drawing, and etc. The author has collected and arranged large amounts of Amarna artworks, comparing them with their content and form of expression around the Akhenaten Reform, in order to conclude the artistic characters at that time as well as striving to show the social idea and the unique historical role occupied by Amarna art. The whole text contains six parts including the preface and the text. Here is the summary as follows:In the preface, the author defines the concept of Amarna art and states the significance of the study, including the main research method, the current study situations as well as the existing problems both at home and abroad. And also, the author lists the main source of historical data.The first chapter has introduced the emergence of Amarna art. Seeking the origin of its emergence from the angle of reality and the cause in history, we will reach such a conclusion:It is the tradition of Egypt autarchy reign and the yearning for eternal life which made the Amarna art have the fixed law. At the same time, the Akhenaten Reform led to the formal emergence of Amarna art directly. This chapter includes two parts as follows:The first part is the formation of traditional style and the emergence of Aten adoring. Since it is the result of Akhenaten Reform, the formal emergence of Aten predicates the beginning of the Amarna art. The second part discussed the era background of the emergence of Amarna art. The challenge to kingship from Amon theocracy and Amenhotepâ…¢'s struggle against the Amon theocracy, as well as Akhenaten's personal support which promoted the emergence of the Religious Reform and Amarna art. Akhenaten encouraged the artists to depict reality opposing traditional style, and he also gave sufficient liberty to artists, allowing them to break up old convention and create new artworks according to the reality, which leading to the final emergence of Amarna art.The second chapter has listed the typical Amarna artworks and compared them with artworks before, analyzing the characters of Amarna art different from those in other time. This chapter consists of two parts. The first part introduced the achievements of Amarna art from the point of view on architecture, sculpture and painting. Compared with the same kind of artworks before, the Amarna artworks presented different characters. The second part has introduced the characters of Amarna art. As it was both the result of traditional heritage of ancient Egyptian art and the outcome of Akhenaten Reform, Amarna art has both characters of nation and era. This part also has two sections:The first part analyses the national characteristics of Amarna art. As the peculiar artistic style emerged with the Reform, Amarna art has not got rid of its national tradition completely. Great national style was obviously embodied in Amarna art work that became the essential part of Amarna style, which makes Amarna art be the outstanding delegate of ancient Egyptian art. The second part analyses the era characteristics in Amarna art from the angles of content and technism. The depiction on the high reality and lively painting style have made ancient Egyptian art achieve an unprecedented prosperous situation, which make the history at that time be truthfully reflected objectively.The third chapter discusses the social idea reflected by Amarna art. There came to new characters on the social idea in ancient Egypt at that time, which was mainly reflected on changes of religious idea and aesthetic standards.The first part discusses the religion idea in two perspectives mainly. First is the royal religion idea, which reflected in the special worship of Aten as the unique God as well as the abandoning of other Gods. It also reflected Akhenaten's wish to rebuild the Pharaoh's authority. Second is the noble religion idea. There was a trend leaning to two sides in the noble class at that time. Some new aristocracy followed Pharaoh who took the faith of Aten monotheistic, while the hereditary nobles tended to return to the traditional faith in order to safeguard their own interests. Third is the folk belief. There were still polytheistic among the people that period, reflecting in appearance of Bes images which were found in many places. On the other hand, people had no interest in the official religion of Aten.The second part discusses the aesthetics of in Amarna era. The formation of a new art form must be guided by a new aesthetic standard. There was a huge change in social aethestic standard during Amarna period. Different classes had different aethestic standard, which was the new aesthetic tendency of ancient Egypt. First, the official aesthetic shifted from the religious ritualism to realism, which reflected the Pharaoh's pursuit. Second, the folk aesthetics gave a slow response to the new religion relatively. The urban residents in Amarna might be more sensitive to this, but residents in other places continued to pursue ritualism generally.The final chapter has introduced the historical role of the Amarna art. The Amarna art was the symbol of the highly prosperous Egyptian art, which has an outstanding position on art history, as well as of high value in history studying. This chapter divides to two sections, they are as follows:The first part introduces the era significance of Amarna art. In political, Amarna art had propagated and expanded the effect of Akhenaten Reform, and it has delivered the spirit of the Reform to present time. In religion, the era significance of amarna art is embodied in the concept of Aten monotheism comprehensively and propagated by Amarna artworks. Meanwhile, the era significance of the Amarna art is also reflected in the promotion of diplomatic relations.The second section explains the position on art history. Amarna art has served as a link between past and future in the development of ancient Egyptian art. It has not only inherited the traditional regulation on Egyptian art fundamentally, but also broken the old principles while adding the new elements to them, which made the ancient Egyptian art achieve a great prosperity.The summary is the conclusion of the whole text. The innovation of this article is the method adopted to analysis theAmarna artworks in dual angles of art history and social history. The text put an emphasis on the emergence of Aten, summarized the features of the Amarna art and discussed the social views reflected by Amarna art. The analysis on amounts of materials proved that people from different class had different views on the worship of Aten and aesthetic concepts. The appearance of this condition above was decided by concept of supremacy of pragmatism in ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians liked to put their own interest above all other things, so that all kinds of view could be changed with it.