The rules you have learned held for three thousand years, with one striking break. Under Akhenaten, whose religious changes you met in Akhenaten and Amarna, art changed too. It built on the kinds of statues but gave them a new look.
Key idea
Under Akhenaten, art changed: long faces, rounded bodies, family scenes, and the Aten’s rays ending in hands. What the style meant is debated.
- Faces are long, with a long chin, narrow eyes and full lips.
- Bodies have narrow shoulders, a rounded belly, wide hips and thin limbs.
- The royal family is shown kissing, holding and playing with their daughters.
- The Aten, the sun disk, sends down rays that end in hands, often holding the ankh to the noses of the king and queen.
- Nature scenes on palace floors are lively and full of movement.
Why it works
Why did art change? Akhenaten put the Aten above all gods and built a new capital, Akhetaten (Amarna). A new religion needed new images: the god was the visible disk, and the royal family was shown as the link between the Aten and everyone else. Scholars offer several readings of the strange bodies: a religious statement (the king as unique, perhaps as both father and mother of his people), a deliberate court fashion, or a mix. A medical explanation has been suggested, but it has not been confirmed. There is no agreement.
The most famous Amarna work is the painted bust of Queen Nefertiti, found in 1912 in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose and now in Berlin. Its calm beauty shows that the style softened over time. After Akhenaten, under Tutankhamun and later kings, art returned to the older rules, keeping some of the softness.
Worked example: Which era?
A relief shows a king and queen kissing their daughters under a sun disk whose rays end in hands. When is it from?
- Rays ending in hands: the Aten.
- Intimate family scenes were new at Amarna.
- So it is from Akhenaten’s reign.
Answer: The Amarna age.
Worked example: Evidence of illness?
A website says Akhenaten’s statues prove he had a disease. How should you answer?
- The statues follow a new artistic style.
- A medical cause has not been confirmed.
- Scholars debate what the style meant.
Answer: They show a style, whose meaning is debated, not proof of illness.
Common mistake
Taking Amarna portraits as medical evidence of illness. They reflect a new artistic style; what it meant is debated. Quick check: other members of the court are shown the same way.