Thisstatue from Akhenaten's temple at Karnak is the three-dimensional equivalentof the relief above. (Picture from Akhenaten: The Heretic King, by Dr. It could be that he believed that his peculiarphysical appearance had divine significance, and somehow linked himto the Aten.
![pharaoh akhenaten pharaoh akhenaten](https://www.worldhistory.org/uploads/images/11109.jpg)
He called himself Wa-en-Re,or "The Unique One of Re," thus emphasizing the fact that he was not likeanyone else, and he also placed a lot of emphasis on the unique natureof his god, Aten. Since such a depiction of Akhenatencould only have been created with his approval, it might be that his physicalappearance figured prominently into his religion. Whether this means that Akhenatenactually taught him his trade or merely told him what he wanted the artto look like Bek does not clarify, but the latter is probably more likely. It would seem that the artists were attemptingto portray people (Akhenaten in particular) with brutal honesty, to theextent that the images became caricatures.The master sculptor, Bek, claimedto have been taught by Akhenaten himself. The style he used hasbeen called both naturalistic and expressionistic, among other things,but how one classifies it really depends on what part of his reign youare looking at.ĭuringthe early part of Akhenaten's reign, the artistic style made a sudden transitionfrom the traditional Egyptian style of portraying people with ideal, perfectphysiques, to a new and rather jarring style, illustrated here in an extremeexample in the image at right. Warning: This page is graphics intense, and may take awhile to load.ĭuring Akhenaten's reign, Akhenaten led a remarkable artisticrevolution to go along with his religious turnover. (All of the photographs in this page, except where otherwisenoted, come from TheRoyal Women of Amarna, by Dorothea Arnold.)
![pharaoh akhenaten pharaoh akhenaten](https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.765884623.6882/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750x1000,f8f8f8.u4.jpg)
The Art of Pharaoh Akhenaten's Reign The Art of the Amarna Period by Megaera Lorenz