The oldest modernist painting

From 1887 to 1889, the British archaeologist W.M. flinders-Petrie turned his attention to Fayoum, a vast oasis area located 150 miles south of Alexandria. While excavating a huge cemetery when the Roman Empire ruled Egypt in the 1 century and the 2nd century, he found dozens of beautiful portraits made by anonymous artists on wooden boards, each of which was related to a mummy. Petrie finally found 150 pictures from this story.

, mainly in Fayoum, Egypt, before the end of the third century, was completed at close range.

Commemorative painting combines Roman and Greek portrait traditions with local mummification practice. About 180-2 1 1 year (presented by Edward S. Harkness, 19 18/ Metropolitan Museum of Art) is in the Lepter Museum in Copenhagen, where there are eight Ferm paintings protected by Rikke Therkildsen. (Carsten Sneijger) A boy, about 193-2 1 1 year old. A recent analysis by the trustee of the British Museum found that clothing contains a red pigment of plant origin and a mixture of lead white and Egyptian blue pigments, which helps to create the striking colors of these portraits. (Carsten Sneijger) a record of the appearance of the deceased in life. These portraits are usually painted on wooden boards and pasted on decorated coffins or linen mummy packages. (Trustee, British Museum/Art Resource Center, new york) Many paintings were painted before the owner's life, but scholars say others were painted after his death. (Rogers Foundation,191/New York Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resources) The Holy Grail and Anka-like objects in this portrait of about 193-235 may have religious significance to this theme. (Louvre, Paris/Guiradogang/Bridgman Art Library International) Yang Fa artists mainly use beeswax and pigments to make portraits, which the historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis calls "complex and highly completed works of art". (new york British Museum/Trustee of Art Resources) The priest wears the seven-pointed stars of Greek and Egyptian gods. (Trustee of the British Museum) This painting is in the Staatliche Museum in Berlin. (BPK, Berlin/Antiken Samron, Staatliche Museen/Ingrid Gaskell Hayden/new york Art Resources) Petrie excavated this portrait in 1888. (Trustee of new york British Museum/Art Resource Center) This blue tunic shows that he is an official or a soldier. By the end of the third century, the mummy portrait had almost disappeared. (Pushkin Museum/bridgman International Art Library) Mummy Portrait: A young officer wearing a golden crown. (Staatliche Museen Antikensammlung/Ingrid Gesekeheiden/new york Art Resources, Berlin) Funeral Portrait of Bearded Man. (French Dijon Art Museum/erich Lessing Photography/new york Art Resources) Portrait of a man with a thin face and a beard. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, new york, NY, USA/All rights reserved? Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art resources, new york) Portrait of a young man's funeral. (Pushkin Art Museum, Moscow, Scala/ Art Resources, new york) Funeral Portrait of Women. (Louvre/Eric Lessing/new york Art Resources) Photo Gallery

These images seem to allow us to look directly at the ancient world. "Fayan's portrait has an almost disturbing lifelike quality and intensity," said Eugene Doxiadis, an artist who lives in Athens and Paris and is the author of the mysterious Fayan's portrait. "Illusion, when they stand in front of them, is that people face to face must answer the truth of a person." So far, there are nearly 1000 paintings by Fayoum in Egypt and Louvre, British and Petrie Museum in London, Metropolitan Museum and Brooklyn Museum. Getty people in California and other places.

For decades, portraits have been on the edge of classification. Greek and Roman scholars think they belong to Egypt, while Egyptians think they belong to Greece and Rome. But scholars appreciate these amazing and incisive works more and more, and even study them with non-invasive high-tech tools. At the Carlsberg Lepter Museum in Copenhagen, scientists recently analyzed a woman's portrait with luminous digital imaging technology. They recorded the widespread use of Egyptian blue (a synthetic pigment containing copper) around the eyes, nose and mouth, perhaps to create shadows and mix them with red in other parts of the skin, perhaps to enhance the illusion of the body. "The influence of realism is very important," said Rikke Therkildsen of the museum. Stephen kyrk, an Egyptian scholar at the Patri Museum and a contributor to the living images in the museum's catalogue in 2007, said that Fayoum's paintings may be equivalent to those of an old master, with a history of only about 1500 years. A similar view holds that the artistic value of these works shows that "the great figures after the Renaissance, such as Titian and Rembrandt, had great predecessors in ancient times."