Gabriel Almeida

Dr. Caroline Malloy

ARTHI 1001-003

October 11, 2015

Can we define Mummies as Art?

The idea of conceptualizing an object with a term that is strange to its nature and time

always proposes difficulties. The task complicates even further when the term is abstract in it

general consensus, and ever-changing in its relation with the individual and the society. As we

will deal with different notions of art in relation to mummies, we will analyze until what extend

the latter can be considered in the realm of the former as an object. The fundamental idea is that

mummies cannot be considered art in several aspects of our current understanding of the term,

such as exhibition, relation with the spectator; however, it can relate in other aspect, maybe more

profound but ambiguous, such as intentionality.

The notion of exhibition in art changed drastically from the Ancient Egypt civilizations;

from Predynastic Period, ca. 4500–3100 B.C to Macedonian and Ptolemaic Periods, ca. 332–30

B.C., (1) to our current understanding. To name a few historical landmarks; the humanism of the

Renaissance period; the creation of mechanical reproduction such as the printing press or later on

the camera arts; and the 18th century French saloon and its continuity in current museums; have

clearly shaped our understanding of art. Art is now understood as a public object; it is created in

historical terms as a product of consume for the contemporary society. Mummies belonged to

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society in which the notion of sacred involved every aspect of life. Mummies were not meant for

the eyes of the common. The labyrinthine structure of the mastabas and pyramids where most of

them were found should be considered sufficient proved of the conservative intentions of the

practice of mummification. From a more objective point of view, mummies are human corpses

that should not be objectified for human entertainment. Several current exhibitions treat them in

a more academic way, but the general public still see at them as “curiosities”, public objects.

Finally, it is of my opinion that this does not reject an artistic nature in Egyptian Mummies, but

undermines our current social treatment of art. Is art vain? Should it be treated as entertainment?

Is it public and historically by nature?

Another aspect of disparity between current art and mummies can be found in its relation

with a spectator. As we said before, common citizens of Egypt were not meant to see the

mummies of their pharaohs. Mummies can be considered objects created for the Gods, as

intentional spectators, as they were meant to keep the body until it has to face them in its

judgment. This is not an uncommon notion of art, for instance, late in the 11 th and 12th century a

polyphonic music was composed in the Christian France in which several melodies were song

simultaneously, with different text and languages and extremely complex preplanned rhythms

and motives. All the aspects of this music are hardly audible even for scholars that spend years

studying them today. The sacred aspect of the French society involved all the artistic aspect of

creation in a similar way than in the Egyptian times. Neither of these examples was meant for the

enjoyment of humanity.

However, Mummies also intersect in certain aspects with our notion of art. Ancient

Egypt, as all ancient civilizations, gives us account of their understanding of the world through

myths. The myth involving the practice of mummifications involves the body of the God Osiris,

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murdered by his brother Set and afterwards restored to life. (2) It is interesting to point out that

this also is considered the myth of creation, the most important on ancient civilizations. The idea

of afterlife is essential to our understanding of mummies, but more essential is the notion of an

ideological concern that impulses a society to objectify earthly materials. The Egyptian idea of

death and afterlife is the impulse for the mummification of corpses such a The Unknown man. (2)

This mummy was created in relation with their understanding of death as much as a modern

painting is created by the artist understanding of different aspects of its humanity. Cezanne’s

painting Mont Sainte-Victoire (1887) can be said to state the painter ideology about nature, light

and color (to some extend his life) with the same dimensionality and profundity than mummies.

Ideologies changes through time as humans relate differently with the geographical and internal

aspects of life; however, art seems at the end to be always the product of that relationship. As

Goethe said in his theory of color, “Art is what nature creates in the form of man” (4)

In conclusion, the relation between an idea such as art and an object such as mummies

can vary depending on the aspect we analyze on each other. The idea of art as a conglomeration

of public objects meant for humans is a contemporary notion with can be traced historically.

Certainly, aspects of this notion do not match with a humanistic vision of mummies as corpses of

individuals that should not be objectify. However, we can see how superficial these ideas relate

with each other. In a more profound way, it is visible how mummies and modern art respond to

the same inner necessity. A human being relates with an aspect of his own life, being it death or

nature, and produces something, has to produce something. However, the statements we can use

to support this are always more ambiguous and tend more to a poetical statement than to a

precise historical account. Finally, it can just be said that there is not precise statements about the

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nature of art; it is usually analyze after creation, in retrospective, which make impossible to any

statement to be more than the results of the dissection made on a death body.

References

1. "Egypt, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/?period=04®ion=afe (October 2000)

2. Taylor, John H. and Daniel Antoine, Ancient Lives, New Discoveries. ed. London: British Museum, 2014. pag 54

3. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1810). "2. Abteilung. Physische Farben". Zur Farbenlehre [Theory of Colours] (in German).

4. Griffiths, J. Gwyn, ed. (1970). Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride. University of Wales Press.5. 1Charter of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, State of New York, Laws of 1870, Chapter 197, passed April

13, 1870 and amended L.1898, ch. 34; L. 1908, ch. 219.

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Figures

Figure1. The inner of the two painted wooden coffins of Shepenmenhyt. From Thebes. 26th Dynasty,c600BC. H.177cm. British museum EA 22814.

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Me with the mummy, Field museum.

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