Lovely essay. One comment: you wrote, “from the changing of the kilt size and positioning, we can guess that Raemkai and Neferiretnes were wildly different-sized men.”
—reading ancient Egyptian art as if it conveys realism is a common misconception. Although some details (like birds) show impressive realism, the primary function ancient Egyptian art was symbolic and functional: it was intended to DO something. In particular, size of people indicated the relative importance of the individuals, not their actual physical sizes. Similarly, kilt sizes indicate changes in artistic convention or magico-religious functions but are not an indicator of differences in literal size. The function and purpose of ancient Egyptian art making was quite different than modern western approaches and challenges many of our basic assumptions when viewing art.
My half-baked thought here is that Academic art reflects a sort of Apollonian pole in art, and that its total defeat by the Dionysian gave us a good couple of generations, but left us stuck with mostly sterile exhaustion these days.
"...art is how the dead speak."
That's a thought worthy of further consideration.
Lovely essay. One comment: you wrote, “from the changing of the kilt size and positioning, we can guess that Raemkai and Neferiretnes were wildly different-sized men.”
—reading ancient Egyptian art as if it conveys realism is a common misconception. Although some details (like birds) show impressive realism, the primary function ancient Egyptian art was symbolic and functional: it was intended to DO something. In particular, size of people indicated the relative importance of the individuals, not their actual physical sizes. Similarly, kilt sizes indicate changes in artistic convention or magico-religious functions but are not an indicator of differences in literal size. The function and purpose of ancient Egyptian art making was quite different than modern western approaches and challenges many of our basic assumptions when viewing art.
My half-baked thought here is that Academic art reflects a sort of Apollonian pole in art, and that its total defeat by the Dionysian gave us a good couple of generations, but left us stuck with mostly sterile exhaustion these days.
You occasionally run into lesser pieces by Bouguereau at auction with a lot less kitsch to them, too: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/19th-century-european-paintings-sculpture/crucifixion ... and I'm still a little miffed at how far off the estimate was on this one, alas.