DON PSYCHOTE-Δ.Ψ. A Fine Art Image Gallery. A Fine Art Image Gallery. Art Project, powered by Google. ‘The Dawn of Egyptian Art’ at the Metropolitan Museum. Karsten Moran for The New York Times A detail of a sculpture of a bound captive that formed part of a temple threshold on display in the “Dawn of Egyptian Art” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum.
More Photos » This style’s consistency is, if you think about it, frightening. It bespeaks an authoritarian power that was consolidated under the first Pharaoh around 3100 B.C., and that, despite political ups and downs, maintained a firm grip on the country’s aesthetic program for nearly three millenniums. This is demonstrated by “The Dawn of Egyptian Art,” a sublime, view-shifting exhibition at the dominated foremost by small, startlingly personable sculptures and vessels from around 3900 to 2649 B.C.
One of the show’s most valuable lessons is that the art of dynastic Egypt was able to suspend nature in such perfect stasis in part because the art of early Egypt devised so many lively ways to distill and abbreviate it or to precisely depict it. ‘The Steins Collect,’ Matisse and Picasso, at the Met. Art Project, powered by Google. Art Project, powered by Google.