Video on Nebamun at the British Museum
The British Museum’s much loved wall paintings from the tomb-chapel of Nebamun has become a permanent peice in the new gallery of ancient Egyptian art.
Visitors who came to pray or to make offerings would have admired the murals for qualities that would make any work of art from any historical period exceptional – the confident draughtsmanship, the wonderful sense of colour, the intensity of the observation, the ability to convey human foibles and, not least, the sense of fun. These scenes of everyday life in ancient Egypt show us how rich and poor dressed, moved, spoke, dined, made music, hunted, planted, and gardened.
They were executed by a team of no more than six anonymous painters belonging to the workshop overseen by a master. Scholars don’t know why Nebamun, who occupied a relatively modest place in the social hierarchy, rated so splendid a memorial, but their best guess is that the artist in charge of the project was a friend, relative, or neighbour who knew the deceased personally and – you’d like to think – remembered him with affection.
And so, in the scene where Nebamun is shown hunting wild fowl from a skiff in marshland along the Nile, the artist adheres to the conventions of Egyptian art by showing the accountant in profile and making him much bigger than the figures of his wife and young daughter who accompany him. But this artist goes further – he makes sure that Nebamun stands out by painting his flesh using impastoed white under paint covered with a layer of red. Seen within the dark interior of the chapel, the figure would have appeared to glow.
Room 61, the Michael Cohen Gallery devoted to the Nebamun tomb paintings, opens on Thursday. Information: 020 7323 8000.
Source: The Telegraph
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Nebamun, la Capilla Sixtina de Egipto (ING)…
Nebamun era un contable en el templo de Amón en Tebas (actual Karnak) del Egipto antiguo. La pintura mural que habÃÂa encargado para su tumba-capilla, terminada alrededor del año 1350 AC, es una obra maestra del arte egipcio que muestra su vida cotid…