Amarna art

The artistic shift appears to be related to the king's religious reforms centering on the monotheistic or monolatric worship of the Aten, the disc of the Sun, as giver of life.

Shortly after taking the throne, Amenhotep IV adopted a policy of religious reform centering on the Aten.

However, it is clear that around the beginning of the reign of Tutankhamun, about four years after Akhenaten's death, conservative forces led by the temple priests reimposed the old religion.

The human body is portrayed differently; figures, always shown in profile on reliefs, are slender, swaying, with exaggerated extremities.

In particular, depictions of Akhenaten give him distinctly feminine qualities such as large hips, prominent breasts, and a larger stomach and thighs.

Other pieces, such as the most famous of all Amarna works, the Nefertiti Bust in Berlin, show much less pronounced features of the style.

Artists also showed subjects with elongated facial structures accompanied by folds within the skin as well as lowered eyelids.

In the new human form, the subject had more fat in the stomach, thigh, and breast region, while the torso, arm, and legs were thin and long like the rest of the body.

The unusual, elongated skull shape often used in portrayal of the royal family "may be a slightly exaggerated treatment of a hereditary trait of the Amarna royal family", according to the Brooklyn Museum, given that "the mummy of Tutankhamun, presumed to be related to Akhenaten, has a similarly shaped skull, although not so elongated as [in typical Amarna-style art]".

The hands at the end of each ray extending from Aten in the relief are delivering the ankh, which symbolized "life" in the Egyptian culture, to Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and often also reach the portrayed princesses.

His lips are thick, and his arms and legs are thin and lack muscular tone, unlike his counterparts of other eras in Egyptian artwork.

Not many buildings from this period have survived the ravages of later kings, partially as they were constructed out of standard size blocks, known as talatat, which were very easy to remove and reuse.