Joseph Lindon Smith

After a brief period spent painting portraits in Boston, Joseph Lindon Smith returned to Europe to make copies of old master paintings. Smith then decided to devote his time to interpreting the work of past artists. After his first trip to Egypt in 1898, he wrote, "Now Ramesses [sic] the Great is posing for me, and he is the sort of sitter I enjoy. He will always be on time, he won't wriggle, and his relatives, like himself, are in stone." Smith was delighted when his illusionistic techniques succeeded in deceiving his viewers into thinking that they were the originals. While in Egypt, he developed a special "dry brush" method to mimic the stone surface of the relief sculpture. Smith would dip his brush in paint, then wipe most of it of before he touched the canvas. The background color was applied by pushing the brush straight onto the canvas, creating a textured effect. He worked with just a few primary colors, mixing the exact shade as he went along. To complete the illusion of a stone surface, Smith tried to remove all traces of his brushwork. His decision to crop the painting Sety I from Abydos around the carved figure without including the Pharaoh's attributes and inscriptions shows his primary interest in the aesthetic properties of the sculpture rather than in archaeological detail.