After nearly a century of neglect, theFaiyûm portraits have at long lastfound the audience and attention theydeserve. Not only can we currentlyfind numerous books devoted to theseworks of art, but several museumshave also made the decision to high-light them. After the MetropolitanMuseum of Art of New York, it wasthe turn of the Paris Louvre to bringout of its back rooms the most beauti-ful pieces of its collection. In creatingits temporary exhibit, the Louvreunited its collection with works heldby the British Museum of London, aswell as numerous museums fromDijon, Colmar and elsewhere.

We can only welcome these initia-tives, for they have at last permittedthe public to appreciate these paint-ings for their true worth. Indeed, longvictims of the ultra-classification of historicepochs into “periods” (for they are neitherGreek, nor Roman, nor Egyptian), theseportraits had been lost in the far corners ofmuseums. But at last, the Faiyûm portraitshave been granted their “museum rights.”

An additional selection of portraits fromFaiyûm is presented on the inside frontcover of this issue.

At the end of the 1880’s, grave rob-bers brought to light some

remarkable portraits in the Faiyûm, aregion of Egypt situated to the west ofthe Nile. In 1887, the Viennese antiquedealer Theodor Ritter von Graf pur-chased a large number of these portraitsand showed them to the world at expo-sitions that he organized in Berlin,Munich, Paris, Brussels, London, andNew York. Polemics began almostimmediately: disputes spread over thedating of these paintings, others evencried fraud. Finally, it was the British

archeologist Flinders Petrie, author ofimportant works on the Hawaranecropolis, who determined that theydated back to the period of the Romanoccupation of Egypt, i.e., the first cen-turies of our era.

To date, about one thousand of theseFaiyûm portraits have been discovered.Faiyûm is the region where most havebeen found, although some have beenlocated in Saqqâra, Memphis, Anti-noopolis, Akhmîm and Thebes [SEE

Figure 1]. The dry climate in the areaswhere they have been found—neigh-boring the luxuriant depression ofFaiyûm—explains how they have beenso well preserved. The warm sands ofEgypt have also protected thousands ofvery precious papyri. These documents,in Greek and Demotic as well as Latin

and Hebrew, demonstrate that the pop-ulation of that period had a high level ofliteracy. What’s more, they reveal anextraordinary convergence with the tra-dition of Plato, Homer, and the Greekdramatic authors. This is thanks to theimportant Greek population establishedin Egypt beginning the time of Alexan-der the Great [SEE Box, page 86], as wellas the influence of Jewish thought of theOld Testament and the writings con-temporary with Philo of Alexandria,early Christianity and, finally, classicalEgyptian culture. It is only by keepingin mind this cultural well-spring thatone can penetrate the secrets of theFaiyûm portraits.

The Near Afar

The first thing that strikes us when welook at these portraits, is their familiar-ity: the realism of the features com-bined with the depth of expressionerases the many years that separate us.As opposed to the automata dictated bycourt painting or the mannerist aesthet-ic, the Faiyûm portraits stress theunique character of each human being.The Faiyûm portrait artist makes noeffort to idealize forms, or to even outphysical flaws, as is clearly the casewith certain Greek or Roman statues. Itwould indeed be in vain to search forbeauty in this manner, in a perfect bodywith no soul or life. What the artistwishes to make apparent is the internalbeauty of the individual, that which cannever be affected by corporal imperfec-tions. Nonetheless, it should not be theartist’s concern to create a perfect,hyper-realistic, replica. If this were thecase, the artist would be satisfied withmaking a molded mask. The mask,despite its great faithfulness to the fea-tures of the face, remains fixed, “dead,”and paradoxically, bears little resem-blance to the real face.

On the contrary, it is this concern forthe particularity of individuals whichmakes these portraits universal. In thissense, they belong entirely to the schoolof “Classical painting” as it will again befound, among others, in Brueghel or

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A Gaze from the BeyondThe Extraordinary Faiyûm Portaits

Portrait of a woman from a collectivevault, middle of the reign of the Antonins, c. 161-180 A.D., Thebes site.

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Rembrandt. The term “Classical” asused here does not refer to either a for-mal aesthetic code, or to a particularhistoric period. Classical art is in factthe science which, utilizing a sensualexperience (principally sight and hear-ing), allows the awakening of ideas,sentiments, and principles which are atthe same time universal and incorpore-al. Whereas folklore would have usbelieve that this science was the privi-leged possession of one community orethnic group, Classical art expresses thatwhich is common to all men but specificto humanity: in other words, his cre-ativity.

Therefore, we must consider thepanoply of technical advances evident inthese paintings not as an end in itself—afeat of prowess—but as a reflection ofthe will of the painter to most faithfullyreflect the beauty of the living and thedivine character of man. In this regard,Classical painting is not merely describ-ing the visible object, but the idea it rep-resents. So true is this idea, that theseartists were often designated by the termzoographoi, that is, literally, “painters oflife.”

However, what reinforces even morethis feeling of familiarity, is the gazethat comes to rest on us. We are notmerely observing, in a distant manner, ascene belonging to another epoch, but

we are exchanging glances with anotherhuman being. In keeping with his role,the artist has immortalized the being hehas painted.

And this immortalization is whatpainting it is really all about. We are notdealing here with portraits drawn mere-ly for the world of man, as in some ofthe frescoes of Pompeii, but with soulswhose gaze is coming from the world ofthe dead—from Hades—to the world ofthe living. Indeed, the Faiyûm portraitswere intended to be affixed to the sar-cophagus of the deceased. They werepainted either directly on the shroudssurrounding the sarcophagus, or on thinwooden tablets that were later insertedwith bands of linen.

Of course, this tradition was not anew one. We have interesting testimonyon the subject in the commentary ofPliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), even if,ignoring what was common knowledgein Egypt at his time, he was convincedthat this art had disappeared: “In anycase, the painting of portraits, whichallowed perfect representations to betransmitted across the ages, has com-pletely fallen into disuse. . . . Yes, it isquite true: laxity has caused a loss of thearts and, since one cannot make por-traits of souls, the physical portrait hasalso been neglected. It was altogetherdifferent among our ancestors: in the

atriums, a kind of effigy destinedto be contemplated was exposed:not statues made by foreignartists, neither of bronze nor ofmarble, but molded wax maskswhich were arranged each in aniche: these portraits were tomake an escort for the familyconvoys, and, when someonedied, there was always presentthe entire multitude of his van-ished parents; and the branchesof the genealogical tree ran in alldirections, with their linealbranchings leading to wherethese portraits were painted.”[Natural History, Book XXXV,On Painting, Verse 6]

Petrie discovered these framesand even certain framed paintingsintended for display on a wall. It

should also be noted that most of theportraits had been cut out, in order to becorrectly affixed to the sarcophagus.This would indicate that most of theportraits were of live models, exceptwhen it involved the premature death ofa child. The Faiyûm portraits in generalrepresented men or women twenty-fiveto thirty years old, in full bloom. Inaddition, research has revealed that cer-tain sarcophagi that were decoratedwith portraits of adults contained themummies of old people, confirming thatsome of the portraits had been madewell before the death of the person.

According to Petrie, the sarcophagiwere not buried right away, but kept inan upright position, leaning against awall in a room of the family home, inkeeping with the Egyptian traditionreported by Diodorus Siculus in the

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The inscription reads, “Artemidoros, havecourage!” This illustration shows how theportraits were inserted in the sarcophagus,as well as the coexistence of Egyptiansymbolism and the realism of the portraits.

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FIGURE 1. Egypt’s Faiyûm region.

First century B.C.: “[M]any Egyptianskeep the bodies of their ancestors inmagnificent rooms, and so have beforetheir eyes those who died many genera-tions before their birth, and thus . . .derive a particular satisfaction, asthough the deceased had lived withthem.”

The sarcophagi, themselves coveredwith Egyptian symbolic representationswhich contrasted with the realism ofthese portraits, sometimes includedinscriptions, often in Greek, or labels onwhich the name or other characteristicsof the deceased would be imprinted, forexample: “Hermione the teacher” or“Sabinus, painter, 26 years of age. Havecourage!” Petrie also discovered beneaththe head of the mummy of a youngwoman the second book of the Iliad, inthe form of a papyrus roll, demonstrat-ing a great attachment to this great Cculture.

What is astonishing, is that this prac-tice does not seem connected to just oneparticular segment of the population.Indeed, their ethnic, social, and evenreligious origins are quire diverse:priests from the religion of Serapis,Jews, and Christians (the Christians ofEgypt embalmed their dead until theSeventh century A.D., despite theprotests of some); high functionaries ofRome as well as freed slaves, athletesand military heroes; Ethiopians andSomalians, etc. Nonetheless, it would bewrong to conclude that there was somesort of “conversion” of these people tothe Egyptian religion. Instead, this rep-resented more of an ecumenicismaround certain ideas that transcend theEgyptian funeral rites.

Relationship with Death

It seems clear that these paintings bringtogether all these men and women fromsuch diverse origins around one funda-mental idea: that the soul is immortal.The encounter with the painter, who ishimself mortal, is concentrated around areflection on the eternal, and the modelreflects on the ephemeral character ofhis or her existence.

All of these portraits are character-ized by wide-open eyes expressing a

tranquil astonishment, a controlledanguish in front of death. The accep-tance of the inescapable character ofdeath is transcended into a love of life,by the tranquil affirmation that eachhuman being carries a singular part ofeternity.

The fact is, that we are on earth forjust a few decades, and this time mustnot be wasted if we wish to leave some-thing behind us after our death. AsDiodorus Siculus described it: “The peo-ple of the country understand as quitenegligible the time spent living, and theymake the most about the time which,

through virtue, shall remain in memoryafter death; they call the habitations ofthe living, ‘inns,’ since we merely spendbut a brief moment there, and calltombs, the habitations of the living, sincethe dead lead in Hades an unlimitedexistence.” [Emphasis added]

But, what was the content of theseEgyptian funeral rites? First of all, wemust understand that Egyptian beliefshave gone through tremendous evolu-tion, and that behind the names “Osiris”and “Isis” there are religions whosenatures are totally different, according tothe specific times and traditions. Inaddition, it is quite likely that the influ-ence of the first Christians and Jews,

brought out aspects of Egyptian beliefswhich were most compatible with theirown religion. Finally, it must be noted,as Jean Vercoutter, writing in the Ency-clopedia Universalis correctly pointedout, the Egyptian religion, which ispolytheistic in form, nonetheless tendstowards a fundamental monotheism(Pharaoh Amenophis IV-Akhenateneven tried to formalize it). So much sothat the first Christians in Egypt had noproblem translating the term “God” bythe Egyptian term “neter,” designatingnon-representable divinity.

For the Egyptians, faced with

death, it is important to act in confor-mity with Maât, goddess of truth andjustice, but especially of the universalorder as it was established at themoment of the creation of the world.Hence, the concern of every man mustbe to “place Maât in his heart.” Thedeceased is brought by Anubis, abenevolent divinity with a canine head,carrying a key, before the divine Tri-bunal. That is where his heart, the seatof conscience, shall be weighed. Onone of the arms of the divine balance,we find an image of the goddess Maât,and on the other, the heart. If the twoare in equilibrium, the deceased isdeclared “just,” and himself achieves

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The weighing of the heart. If the deceased has behaved with virtue, then his heart will be inequilibrium with the goddess Maât, symbol of the universal order as it was established at themoment of the world’s creation.

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the state of “Osiris”; Horus will accom-pany him to Osiris’s side. Rememberthat the Egyptians practiced mummifi-cation to preserve the unity of the indi-vidual, body and soul together. It wasthis lost unity which brought about thedownfall of the King Osiris (when hewas assassinated and cut into severalpieces), and it was that new-foundunity (when Isis reconstituted his body)which permitted his resurrection.*

As a Christian theologian of theThirteenth century put it: “unity is theform of being, we respond in truththat all that is, is because it is one. . . .In fact, unity is the preservation andform of being, whereas division is the

cause of annihilation.”It is true, nevertheless, that we have

no writings from this period concerningthese portraits and their exact signifi-cance, but the preceding indicationsenlighten us on the general spirit of theirmeaning.

Much later, this spirit would bebrought to a higher level, once rid of itspagan forms. The gaze in painting laterbecomes, explicitly, the mirror of thehuman soul. In the Fifteenth century,Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa would goeven further in his work “The Vision ofGod,” in which he uses a self-portrait byRogier van der Weyden as the basis forhis reflection—a portrait whose gazerests on the observer no matter wherethe latter places himself. Nicolaus ofCusa will compare this gaze to thevision of God, and note the similaritybetween the Greek terms “God”(“theos”) and “to see” (“theorein”). Atfirst, Cusanus poses a paradox: “Yet,your gaze brings me to consider why the

image of your face is painted in a sensi-tive manner: it is because we cannotpaint a face without color, and that colordoes not exist without quantity. But it isnot with eyes of flesh that I see thispainting, but with eyes of thought andintelligence that I see the invisible truthof your face, which signifies itself herein a reduced shadow.” Then, he insistson the fact that it is not only the gaze ofthe picture that is important, but alsothat of the observer. “[Y]our face willbear what the gaze that looks upon youshall bring to it,” stressing that, “wherethere is an eye, there is love.” And so,the gaze that falls upon the otherbecomes an act of love:

“I see now in a mirror, in a painting,in an enigma, the eternal life which isnone other than the Beatific Vision, and itis in this vision that you never cease tosee me with the greatest love to thedepths of my soul. And for you, to see isnothing more than to give life, to forev-er inspire in me the gentlest love, . . . to

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Conquered by Alexander the Greatin 332 B.C., the rich agricultural

lands of the Nile and the Faiyûm weregiven to the former Greek-Macedoniansoldiers as a reward for their services.Egypt had already built an impressiveirrigation system, permitting the captureof millions of gallons of water for use inthe growth of its agriculture. Hereditaryland-owners, the Greek-Macedoniansimmigrants, but also Jews, Asians, Syri-ans, Libyans, Ethiopians, and othersproduced wheat, wine, olives, linen, andpapyrus.

As Plutarch notes, Alexander “didnot do as Aristotle, his preceptor,advised him, to act towards the Greeksas father, and towards the barbarians aslord.” Aristotle’s precept was to treat“the former as friends and family, andto use the latter as one would use ani-mals or plants,” considering them bar-barians and slaves “by nature.” Thetragedian Euripides, like many otherchauvinist Greeks, eloquently affirmedthat, “the barbarian is born for slavery

Alexander the Great in Egypt

Alexander at the Battle of Issos at Arbela (331 B.C.). This mosaic, which was found inPompeii, is in fact a copy of a work painted by a member of the School of Sycion, wherethe painter Apelles was trained. It is from this pictorial tradition that the Faiyûmportraits flowed, and not from the Roman tradition.

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* We refer here to the original religious con-ception, of which it is obvious the Faiyûmportraits are a reflection. This conceptioncan in no way be confused with its latersuperstitious degeneration: the cult of ani-mals, and the cult of the obscure forces ofIsis, turned into a castrating and bloodygoddess.

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give me the fountain of life, and by thisgift augment and perpetuate my being,to communicate to me your immortality.”[Emphasis added]

Now, look again at the Faiyûm por-traits. Are we not in the presence of aneternal life which is none other than theBeatific Vision?

The Tradition of Apelles

The Faiyûm paintings not only memori-alize the memory of individuals whomwe have never known, they also immor-talize the anonymous painter who,thanks to his art, continues to move usto this day.

Contrary to what has often been said,these were not “Roman paintings.”Euphrosyne Doxiadis, basing himself onthe impassioned research of the modernGreek painter Yannis Tsarouchis,affirms that they “were a contribution ofthe Greeks to the Egyptians’ struggleagainst death.” This pictorial traditioncan be dated back to the era of the exclu-

sive portrait-maker of Alexander, therealist painter Apelles (c.360-300 B.C.).

There are two indications that revealthe probable influence of this traditionon the Faiyûm portraits.

Pliny the Elder gives us the first indi-cation when he describes the paintingsof Apelles: “The point on which this artmanifested its superiority was grace,even though there had been at the timesome very great painters; but, evenwhile admiring their works and cover-ing them with praise, he [Apelles] saidthat they were lacking some of thatfamous charm that was his own, whichthe Greeks called charis; that they hadattained all manner of perfection, exceptthat, on this one point, he had no equal.He also claimed another title to glory:even while he admired a work by Proto-genes, the result of tremendous effortand finished to meticulous excess, hesaid that on all other points they wereequals or even that Protogene was supe-rior, but that he alone had the advantage

of knowing when to remove his handfrom a painting—a precept worthy ofbeing noted, and according to which toomuch attention to detail can often beharmful.” [Natural History, BookXXXV, Verse 80]

Isn’t this precisely one of the stylisticcharacteristics of the Faiyûm portraits?

No picture or treatise by Apelles, orby his master Pamphilius (whose masterwas Eupompus, native of Sycion, ormodern Sikión), has survived. Accord-ing to the testimony of Pliny, Eupompuswould have been the originator of a rev-olution in painting, adding the school ofSycion to the Attic and Ionian genres—which, together, made up the Hellenicgenre. We can obtain some notion ofthis art thanks to certain mosaics, suchas the one at Pompeii representingAlexander at the Battle of Issos atArbela (Second century B.C.). Thismosaic is supposed to be a copy of awork by a painter from the school ofSycion. This tradition resurfaces onceagain in Alexandria in some of the mon-umental mosaics, or in portraits ofwomen also painted in the Second cen-tury B.C., both of which reflect anattachment to realism in the representa-tion. Add to this the important fact thatthe Greeks introduced into Egypt thethree-quarter profile and frontal pose ina country where, it would seem, all thefigures had until then been painted inprofile.

The second indication lies in tetra-chromism, i.e., the use of four colors.Incredible as it might seem, until theinvention in the 1950’s of acrylic paints(polymer resins obtained from petrole-um products), the basic ingredients ofpainting had practically not changedfrom the era of the Sycionian school thattrained Apelles, to the era of Rembrandtand Goya, with the portrait artists ofFaiyûm in-between! The ingredientswhich make up the media are, in vary-ing proportions, albumen from egg yel-low and white (prehistoric painters usedblood), glue (produced, for example,from pelts), aqueous resins, essences,oils, and beeswax.

The famous four-colored palette ofApelles, the “tetrachromie,” can be found

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and the Greek for liberty.” Alexan-der, however, did not conform to theprejudices of his time. He believedthat chance of birth and blood hadnothing to do with it, and that onebecame slave or free as a function ofculture.

There was, in Egypt, intermar-riage among immigrants, and a mix-ing between immigrants and thenative population, leading to thefounding of great cities: Alexandria,Naucratis, Ptolemaïs and Antinopolis.Constructed on a geometric model,these cities sheltered temples, gymna-siums, thermal baths, porticoes, andtheaters, where sometimes the greatGreek dramatists/playwrights wereperformed for days in a row. Homerand Plato were also read. It was inAlexandria that the Old Testamentwas translated into Greek and wherethe astronomer and poet Eratosthenesdirected the greatest library of antiq-uity, where Philo of Alexandriarubbed elbows with St. Peter, and the

Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus wasborn.

As far as religion was concerned,neither Alexander the Great nor hisgeneral and successor Ptolemy I Soter(r. 304-284 B.C.) were much concernedwith the forms of the rituals per se, butrather more with infusing new con-ceptions more in conformity with theuniversalist image which they held ofman. This was not some syncretic reli-gion, or a mixture of Greek, Egyptian,and other religions. Rather, Alexandersimply wanted to avoid entering into asterile debate concerning rites.

Inspired by Homer’s Odyssey,Alexander considered Zeus to be “thefather of men and the gods” and not tobe the exclusive and amoral protectorof the Greek cities alone. Through hisconception, he has become—or ratheronce again became—the commonfather of all men, thus encouraging ahuman fraternity that could live inconcord, and participate actively in theadministration of the empire.

in its entirety in the Faiyûm portraits:“melinum,” a white made up of a chalkyclay from the Isle of Melos (eventuallyreplaced by lead white); “attic sil” or“ochra”: yellow derived from the siltgathered from silver mines; “sinopis duPont”: red ochre soil from Sinope;“astramentum”: black made up in vari-ous ways, probably including black fromthe vine, containing blue highlights.Other pigments appear only in order toreplace some of the former, according tothe circumstances of availability, or toreflect the detail of a jewel (naturalgreen soil or malachite), or an article ofclothing (natural rose garancin, cycla-men rose, or the very expensive crimsonextracted from sea shells).

As far as the Faiyûm portraits wereconcerned, either a wax-based paint(“encaustic”) was applied onto wood, orelse the artists painted in distemper onlinen canvas (so early!). The wood wasmainly thin planks from the sycamorefig, which was easy to find during thisperiod in Egypt, or from the cypresstree (the oak typical of the northernpainters being extremely rare in theMediterranean). Whitened beeswax washeated and mixed with other sub-stances, such as the resins of the Chiosmastic type, and different pigments. Itcould also be prepared in order to beapplied cold (punic wax), after beingemulsified or saponified, which madefor clever possibilities of mixing witheggs or oil. Three main instrumentswere used to work the matter: thepaint-brush, the cautery (a hot metal),and the “cestre” (a little stiletto).

When working on a linen canvas, itwas customary to paint in distemper,after having laid a layer of glue mixedwith a fine layer of plaster (equivalentto the gesso). On wood, where first alayer of glue was applied in distemper,the complexion was sometimes applieddirectly to the honeyed brown of thebare wood or on a khaki-tinted sur-face, the “proplasmos,” the equivalent ofthe impression (ground-color) or impri-matura of the great European Classicalmasters.

As the modern Greek painterTsarouchis correctly observed, “the

good colorist sees a harmony of colorswhere others see objects.” So, againstthis background of khaki and workingfrom the dark towards the light, depthwas created by opposing cold and warmtints—rather than light and dark—inorder to bring distances closer or fartheraway.

Starting on a somber background is amethod found again later in the “Titus,”a work by the school of Rembrandt ondisplay in the Louvre, and in “TheYoung Girl in a Turban” by Vermeer atthe Mauritshuis in The Hague. Thus ispainting liberated from captive lines, tobecome a sculpture of light.

Renaissance of Transcendence

The Florentine painter and historianGiorgio Vasari (1511-1574) reportedwith shock in his Lives of the GreatPainters, Sculptors, and Architects, thatpainting, starting in the middle of theThirteenth century, had not only beenneglected, but had “practically disap-peared” in the West.

To bring it back to life, a team of

Greek painters was urgently invited bythe authorities of Florence, who wereconvinced that the former possessed thelost secrets of this art. A young manfrom a noble family, Cenni di Pepe(1240-1302?), better known by the nameof Cimabue, quit his studies in order tolearn from this team. Once initiated intothe secrets of their craft, he became theMaster of Giotto, a founding figure ofthe Renaissance who, with the impetusof some enlightened Franciscans, wouldbring about a renaissance (rebirth) ofClassical painting. “Re-birth” is indeedthe appropriate word, since this art waspractically non-existent during the 2,200years that separate the Fifteenth centuryfrom the Faiyûm portraits.

The thread of this pictorial/artistictradition had indeed been broken. Moreprosaically, this extremely rich region ofthe Nile, was looted successively by theRoman and Byzantine empires. First,Rome grabbed some thirty percent of Egypt’s grain production, and its entireinfrastructure connected with waterwas sacrificed on the altar of immediateprofit. Then, in A.D. 395, Egypt becamean integral part of the ByzantineEmpire, and continued to be run intothe ground. It was then that paintingentered a two-dimensional world forcenturies to come. The advent of theByzantine Empire, with its icons, insti-tutionalized a flat stylization, and asymbolism which led to the superstitionof “magical re-doubling”: the painting,which has become an object, is sup-posed to “magically” possess the divinequalities of that which it represents. It issupposed to capture forever a segmentof eternity, but represents only amoment of emptiness. From this stand-point, the Faiyûm portraits, despitesome technical similarities, are theopposite of the tradition of icons. Wecould say, that by losing the fourthdimension of transcendence, the thirddimension—that of the space created bythe unity between perspective andcolor—is lost along with it.

But whither this thread, last renewedduring the Renaissance, today?

—Karel Vereycken and Philippe Messer,translated by Dana Scanlon

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Older man, middle of the First century,unknown origin. Distemper on linen.

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