I have said that Egypt invented elegance, which means reduction, simplification, and compression.
Mother Nature represents accumulation and multiplication, while Nefertiti is a descent, a return to essence.
Visually, it has been reduced to its purest essence.
Her smooth-contoured face is just one step away from withering; an abbreviation, a symbol, a pictogram — a pure idea of ??pagan pictorialization.
"A man is never too rich or too poor," declared the Duchess of Windsor.
I have said that the idea of ??beauty relies on great exceptions.
In the bust of Nefertiti, so much is left out that it seems as if we see her silhouette struggling against the electric field of the atmosphere of an Apollonian battle.
The name Nefertiti means: "The beautiful one is coming."
Her proud face seems to have been carved from the very shell of nature.
Beauty is a state of war — an empty, cold, besieged land.**
By Camille Paglia
