Egyptian Art
by- Dhirendranath Thakur
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower
reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It was part of a larger complex of civilizations,
the Nile Valley
Civilizations, of which regions south of Egypt (are a part. Egyptian
civilization coalesced around 3150 BC
with the political unification of Upper
and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next
three millennia. Its history occurred in a series of
stable Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as
Intermediate Periods. Ancient Egypt reached its pinnacle during the New Kingdom, after which it entered a
period of slow decline. Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign powers
in this late period. The rule of the pharaohs officially ended in 31 BC
when Egypt fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province.
Ancient Egyptian art refers to
the style of painting, sculpture, crafts and architecture developed by the
civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art was expressed in paintings and
sculptures & was both highly stylized and symbolic. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs
and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the
preservation of knowledge of the past.
In a more
narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical 2nd and 3rd Dynasty art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until the 3rd century. Most
elements of Egyptian art remained remarkably stable over that 3000 year period
without strong outside influence. The same basic conventions and quality of
observation started at a high level and remained near that level over the
period.
Art forms
Ancient Egyptian art
forms are characterized by regularity and detailed depiction of human beings
and nature, and were intended to provide company to the deceased in the other
world. Artists endeavored to preserve everything of the present time as clearly
and permanently as possible. Completion took precedence over style. Some art
forms present an extraordinarily vivid representation of their time and the life,
as the ancient Egyptian life was lived thousand of years before.
Egyptian art in all
forms obeyed one law: the mode of representing man, nature and the environment
remained almost the same for thousands of years and the most admired artists
were those who replicated most admired styles of the past. Following
forms are used by Egyptian.
Architecture : Ancient Egyptian
architects used sun-dried and kiln-baked bricks, fine sandstone, limestone and
granite. Architects carefully planned all their work. The stones had to fit
precisely together. Ramps were used to allow workmen to move up as the height
of the construction grew. When the top of the structure was completed, the
artists decorated from the top down, removing ramp sand as they went down.
Exterior walls contained only a few small openings. Hieroglyphic and pictorial
carvings in brilliant covers were abundantly used to decorate the structures,
including many motifs, like the scarab, sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the
vulture.
Paper : The word paper is derived from
"papyrus", a plant which
was cultivated in the Nile delta. Papyrus sheets were derived after
processing the papyrus plant. Some rolls of papyrus discovered are lengthy, up
to 10 meters. The technique for crafting papyrus was lost over time, but was
rediscovered by an Egyptologist in the 1940s. Papyrus was used by
ancient Egyptians for writing and painting.
Papyrus texts
illustrate all dimensions of ancient Egyptian life and include literary, religious, historical and administrative documents. The
pictorial script used in these texts ultimately provided the model for two
most common alphabets in the world, the Roman and the Arabic.
Pottery : Ancient Egyptians
used steatite (some varieties were
called soapstone) and carved small
pieces of vases, amulets, images of deities, of animals and several other
objects. Ancient Egyptian artists also discovered the art of covering pottery
with enamel. Covering by enamel was also applied to some stone works.
Different types of pottery items were
deposited in tombs of the dead. Some such pottery items represented interior
parts of the body, like the heart and the lungs, the liver and smaller intestines, which were removed before embalming. A large number of smaller objects in
enamel pottery were also deposited with the dead. It was customary to craft on
the walls of the tombs cones of pottery, about six to ten inches tall, on which
were engraved or impressed legends relating to the dead occupants of the tombs. These cones usually contained the names of the deceased,
their titles, offices which they held, and some expressions appropriate to funeral purposes.
Sculpture : The ancient art of
Egyptian sculpture evolved to represent the ancient
Egyptian gods, Pharaohs, and the kings and queens, in physical
form. Whether there was real portraiture in
Ancient Egypt or not is still debated till now. Massive statues were
built to represent gods and famous kings and queens. These statues were
supposed to give eternal life to the kings and queens, and to enable the
subjects to see them in physical forms.
Very strict
conventions were followed while crafting statues: male statues were darker than
the female ones; in seated statues, hands were required to be placed on knees
and specific rules governed appearance of every Egyptian god. For example, the
sky god (Horus) was essentially to
be represented with a falcon’s head, the god of funeral rites (Anubis) was to be always shown with a jackal’s head. Artistic
works were ranked according to exact compliance with all the conventions, and
the conventions were followed so strictly that over three thousand years, very
little changed in the appearance of statues. These conventions were intended to
convey a timelessness and non aging representation of the figure's ka, or life
for an eternal afterlife. And once the Egyptians entered the afterlife, thus
began a long afterlife.
Hieroglyphs : Hieroglyphics are the
ancient Egyptian writing system in which pictures and symbols stand for sounds
and words. Jean-Francois Champollion first decoded hieroglyphics from Rosetta
Stone, which was found in 1799. Hieroglyphics have more than 700 symbols.
Literature : Ancient Egyptian
literature, most often written on papyrus, also contains elements of ancient
Egyptian art, as the texts and connected pictures were recorded on papyrus or
on wall paintings and so on. They date from the Old Kingdom to the Greco-Roman period.The subject matter of such
literature-related art forms include hymns to the gods, mythological and magical
texts, mortuary texts. Other subject matters were biographical and historical
texts, scientific premises, including mathematical and medical texts, wisdom
texts dealing with instructive literature, fables and stories.
Paintings : Many ancient Egyptian
paintings have survived due to Egypt's extremely dry climate. The paintings
were often made with the intent of making a pleasant afterlife for the
deceased. The themes included journey through the afterworld or protective
deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld (such as
Osiris). Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in
when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the
entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the
afterlife.Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view
and a side view of the animal or person. For example, the painting to the right
shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view. Their main
colors were red, blue, black, gold, and green.
For 3000
years the Ancient Egyptian people practiced an art form and style that is
almost immediately recognizable as Egyptian. In those 3000 years there was
almost no change in the style, meaning of color, or meaning of body placement
in a painting, with the exception of the Armarna Period. To the untrained eye
it would seem that the Egyptians were a people of little imagination to
continue a style for so long, however to those who know anything about Ancient
Egyptian art the story is quite complex.
Egyptians used a special code of colors in
each painting they did, with each color representing a different quality of the
people represented. There were six colors the Ancient Egyptians used in their
paintings red, green, blue, yellow, black, and white. They made these colors of
mineral compounds and that is why they have lasted so long. The color green was
symbolic of new life, growth, vegetation, and fertility. Depictions of Osiris
often show him with green skin. Red was the color of power it symbolized life
and victory, as well as anger and fire. Red was associated with the god Isis
and her blood, which red could also represent. It also represented the God Set
who was considered evil and who caused storms. The color blue was the color of
the heavens and the water and it symbolized creation and rebirth. The god Amun,
who played a part in the creation of the world, is depicted with a blue face.
Anything yellow symbolized the eternal and indestructible, the qualities of the
sun and gold. It was the color of Ra and of all the pharaohs, which is why the
sarcophagi and funeral masks were made of gold to symbolize the eternalness of
the pharaoh who was now a god. The color of death was black. Black also
represented the underworld and the night. Both the gods Annubis and Osiris were
depicted in black as the gods of the embalming and the afterlife respectively.
Lastly white was the color of purity, it symbolized all things sacred and
simple. Normally used in religious objects and tools used by the priests.
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