But the opposition of the Theban priesthood was too strong. Akhunaten
shook the dust of the capital off his feet and retired to the isolated
city of Akhet-aten, "the Glory of the Disk," at the modern Tell
el-Amarna, where he could philosophize in peace, while his kingdom was
left to take care of itself. He and his wife Nefret-iti, who seems to
have been a faithful sharer of his views, reigned over a select court
of Aten-worship-ping nobles, priests, and artists. The artists had under
Akhunaten an unrivalled opportunity for development, of which they had
already begun to take considerable advantage before the end of his reign
and the restoration of the old order of ideas. Their style takes on
itself an almost bizarre freedom, which reminds us strongly of the
similar characteristic in Mycenaean art. There is a strange little
relief in the Berlin Museum of the king standing cross-legged, leaning
on a staff, and languidly smelling a flower, while the queen stands
by with her garments blown about by the wind. The artistic monarch's
graceful attitude is probably a faithful transcript of a characteristic
pose.
We see from this what an Egyptian artist could do when his shackles were
removed, but unluckily Egypt never produced another king who was at the
same time an original genius, an artist, and a thinker.
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