Chapter 2: What? The Paintings Themselves
Section: Hunting in the Marshes
Overview
In this section we will look at the fragment 'Hunting in the marshes'.
Following a brief introduction, you will have the chance to explore the fragment in detail.
Introduction
This painting has achieved iconic status. It is likely to be illustrated in any survey of the history of Egyptian art, or indeed to illustrate Ancient Egypt in any survey of 'world art'.
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Hunting in the marshes (EA 37977).
©Trustees of the British Museum
Answer
I would say that the painting is very attractive to modern eyes. It is quite brightly coloured, the forms are clear, there is a lot of incident for the eye to fix on, and it now has an air of the exotic that will appeal to someone's sense of being adventurous and open-minded about art. It contains recognisable figures, yet manages to be wholly un-academic, provides a bit of a puzzle about what exactly is going on, yet doesn't suffer from the obscurity many people associate with contemporary 'conceptual art'.
This set of responses is closely bound up with what the work appears to be about. For it seems at first sight as if it shows the good life; a handsome man with a beautiful wife and a child, engaged in sporting activity in a warm climate, almost as if they were on a family holiday. There is something very powerful about this conjunction of the manifestly ancient with the apparently modern, as if time and space can be collapsed, and everyone, everywhere, has always been a bit like 'us'.
Exploration
Let us look more closely. What do you notice about the figure of Nebamun himself?
He is in the prime of life. He has shining skin and a well-proportioned, muscular body. Yet we must remember both that this is elite art and that it is a memorial. This is, at the very least, an idealised image of what Nebamun might once have been, before he became rich and old.
More than that, however, the way the body is represented is not quite what it seems at first glance. As in all Egyptian representations of the human body, the apparent whole is the sum of several surprisingly independent parts.
Explore the fragment on next page and begin by looking closely at the arms.
The figure of Nebamun from the hunting fragment (EA 37977).
©Trustees of the British Museum
Hunting in the marshes 