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Description

About a month ago I decided that I desperately needed to paint a portrait of a handsome man to enjoy painting and then to hang it in the office and admire. My choice fell on king Seti.
In addition to the purely external appeal, I had two other considerations in favor of Seti. I am fascinated by the figures of the "predecessors" of great people such as their parents or teachers who remained in shadows. Everyone knows the son of Seti Ramesses II (My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!), but he himself is known only by those interested in Egyptian culture.
The second consideration is his name. Unfortunately, I can't write his name (and names) properly, since I'm shamefully illiterate, but I love that Seti's name refers to his Lower Egyptian origins, where the god Seth was in honor (in Upper Egypt he used the more socially acceptable name Merenptah). The history of the cult of Seth is also a "predecessor" story in itself. It began with the veneration of him as a defeater of the serpent, but later he was seen as the evil god of the desert and chaos.
I drew the image itself from a classic mummy photograph (they knew how to photograph kings a hundred years ago), but I wasn't aiming for photorealism. During the process of drawing I thought that when we see a portrait of a person in his active years, it can create the illusion that he was really like that, and that one can tell something about his personality or professional qualities from his appearance. If, however, we are looking at a portrait of a mummy, it is immediately obvious that what is depicted is just a shell, and it is up to the viewer to endow it with meaning.
Water-soluble graphite, 23x31 cm

Description

About a month ago I decided that I desperately needed to paint a portrait of a handsome man to enjoy painting and then to hang it in the office and admire. My choice fell on king Seti.
In addition to the purely external appeal, I had two other considerations in favor of Seti. I am fascinated by the figures of the "predecessors" of great people such as their parents or teachers who remained in shadows. Everyone knows the son of Seti Ramesses II (My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!), but he himself is known only by those interested in Egyptian culture.
The second consideration is his name. Unfortunately, I can't write his name (and names) properly, since I'm shamefully illiterate, but I love that Seti's name refers to his Lower Egyptian origins, where the god Seth was in honor (in Upper Egypt he used the more socially acceptable name Merenptah). The history of the cult of Seth is also a "predecessor" story in itself. It began with the veneration of him as a defeater of the serpent, but later he was seen as the evil god of the desert and chaos.
I drew the image itself from a classic mummy photograph (they knew how to photograph kings a hundred years ago), but I wasn't aiming for photorealism. During the process of drawing I thought that when we see a portrait of a person in his active years, it can create the illusion that he was really like that, and that one can tell something about his personality or professional qualities from his appearance. If, however, we are looking at a portrait of a mummy, it is immediately obvious that what is depicted is just a shell, and it is up to the viewer to endow it with meaning.
Water-soluble graphite, 23x31 cm