The Artist in his ContextNew Tendencies on the Research of Ancient Egyptian Art

Abstract

This article explores the role of the artist in ancient Egypt in his social and cultural context, analysing a diversity of sources, that could help understand how Egyptian artists worked and how they made their artworks, especially focusing on the New Kingdom. In the past years new investigations have analysed the paintings, the teamwork of the painters and the variety of techniques they used. Other researchers have tried to reproduce the conditions in which the artists worked in a tomb, following an experimental approach. The importance of studying the corpus of varied figurative ostraca is also remarked, as they could be highly useful to understand the painter’s work and his production. The answer to many questions regarding the ancient Egyptian artworks could be in the analysis of the creative process of the artists, conditioned by the strong artistic tradition but looking for originality, which reveals their individuality.