Myopic Tribute

One of the most cosmopolitan outposts of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 4th centuries A.D. was Egypt's Faiyum region, about 60 miles south of Cairo on the Nile. A fertile farming and business community, it was settled by many retired Roman legionnaires, along with emigrant Greeks, Jews and native Egyptians. It became, according to Egyptologist William Peck, 34, a "prosperous, highly civilized region with a well-developed bureaucratic system of local government, and an elaborate social structure, fairly comparable to Detroit." By a fluke of custom and climate, the residents of Faiyum are today among the best known--or at least most clearly visualized--citizens of classic times. On display last week at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Peck is associate curator of ancient and medie val art, were lifelike portraits of 23 of Faiyum's distinguished residents (see color page) gathered together from museums in the U.S. and Canada.

Despite their startlingly modern appearance and realistic technique, the portraits happen to be among the oldest painted likenesses in the Western world. Earlier Egyptians and Mesopotamian peoples depicted their kings and pharaohs with rigid stylization; Greeks in the age of Pericles idealized the human face and form. It was not until the era of Alexander the Great that realism of any kind became fashionable. From the many Hellenistic and Roman busts of marble that have survived we know how the ancients saw and depicted themselves. But the moist climates of Greece and Italy have long since sent most classical paintings (except those buried under the ashes and lava at Pompeii and Herculaneum) crumbling into dust.

Wrinkles & Chins. The bone-dry climate of North Africa, however, has preserved almost perfectly the portraits painted at Faiyum, especially those done on wood panels in encaustic (a mixture of beeswax and pigment, usually applied with a cauterium, or hot spatula). Today, these paintings tell historians most of what is known about portrait technique 1,100 years before the Renaissance. Modeling and shading were expertly done. Except that the anonymous workmen of Faiyum customarily enlarged eyes (large pupils being considered at the time a sign of beauty), classical realism was faithful in portraying hair styles, jewelry, wrinkles and occasionally double chins.

The portraits also pay myopic tribute to Egypt's power to assimilate its conquerors. All are mummy portraits, painted during the lifetime of the subject, which were hung in the home, then affixed to the graveclothes after death. Names and occupations, inscribed on a few of the portraits, show that they were of wealthy government officials, schoolteachers, matrons or businessmen from a variety of racial backgrounds. All, evidently, subscribed to the Egyptian religion, which required the preservation of the body so that it could be united with Osiris after death.

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