Mysterious Fayum Portraits

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Description

In the first three centuries A.D., in a fertile district of Roman Egypt referred to as the Fayum, a diverse community of Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Syrians, Libyans, Nubians, and Jews flourished. These people, and many of their contemporaries all through the Nile Valley, embalmed the bodies of their dead and then placed over the faces portraits painted on wooden panels or linen. These paintings, today referred to as Fayum, or mummy, portraits, were created to preserve the memory of each individual.
The Fayum portraits are by far an important body of portraiture to have survived antiquity. Reproduced in this arresting book are some 180 of the finest of the more than 1,000 extant images – of men, women, and children, old and young, plain and beautiful – all of whom seem uncannily alive. A couple of of these faces have grow to be familiar to scholars and museum-goers, but as a whole they have got been neglected by art historians and will be new to most readers.
The Fayum, a flourishing metropolitan community in ancient Egypt, consisted of Greeks, Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, and others. Like many of their contemporaries all through the Nile Valley, these people embalmed their dead and then painted commemorative portraits of them, regularly on wood or linen, to be placed over the mummies. Taking a look into the well-preserved, startlingly lifelike faces collected in this beautiful volume, one can trace the earliest roots of portraiture as it began in these Greco-Roman Fayum, or mummy, portraits, and continued through the Renaissance to the present. Despite their ancient history, the stylized portraits appear strikingly modern and painterly, with echoes of Modigliani and Matisse. Having experimented with them herself, Euphrosyne Doxiadis describes in detail the painting techniques and materials. Also included are fascinating notes on the clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles of the period.

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