introduction

Introduction about Ancient Egyptian Art
Just as the works of the Impressionists or the cubists can be properly understood only in terms of the particular time and place in which they were made. So, the style and purposes of Egyptian art make real sense without a detailed understanding of Ancient Egyptian culture.
Egyptian Art was essentially functional, in that funerary paintings and sculptures were considered primarily with the continuance of life.
The works of Art were indeed not merely to imitate or reflect reality but to replace and perpetuate it.
Egyptian art was concerned about all with ensuring the continuity of the universe, the gods, the king and the people.
The artists therefore depicted things not as they saw them but as idealized symbols intended to be them significant and enduring them the real day to day world.
They portrayed each individual element of the subject from the most representative angle, the human torso and eye were clearly both best viewed from the front legs and arms, leg and face were best seen from the side. This concern with separate components, at the expense of the overall effect, often causes Egyptian depictions of human figures to appear distorted and internally inconsistent to modern eyes even when the figures on the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples are acting out myths, ritual and historical events they are still carved and painted with the stiffness and formulaie appearance of Hieroglyphs.
In an extreme example of this connection between writting and art, the burial chamber of the tomb of Tuthmosis III has the shape of a cartouche, thus enabling the body of the king to take the place of the writting of his own name.
In the western art the artists themselves tended to be as well known as their works in, the last resort, their signatures, mark out a body of their work, in ancient Egypt the situation was almost the reverse, it was essential for the subject of the art to be identified by name in order that the sculpture or paintings could serve its religious purpose, the artists on the other hand, are only rarely mentioned.
Egyptian Artists themselves were regularly regarded as anonymous craftsmen, working in teams and according to strict guidelines, Although their works might be highly regarded.
The earliest Egyptian Art is quite different from that of the pyramids and temples of the pharaonic period. The Art of predynastic period (5500-3100 BC) has survived mainly in the form of small carved stone and ivory grave goods and painted pottery vessels placed along side the deceased in simple pit-burials.
A painting in the final stage of the predynastic period, Maces, palettes and ivory handled flint knives began to play an important role in the emerging religious ritual and social hierarchy.
It's obviously that the art for the ancient Egyptians is a completely practical affair designed not to move the emotions of the spectator for whom, in any case, it was not produced, but to ensure by magic means the immortality of the person represented.
Also we can observed the naturalistic form which Egyptian Art often took and the high degree of technical skill with which it was fashioned. During the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC). The essential elements of the art were the funerary sculpture and painted reliefs of the royal family.
We can see the greatness of works of this period in a famous example, most impressive statue of a seated figure of Chephren, (Egyptian Museum). As the sculptor had no need to produce more than on idealised portrait of the current dynastic type and what could appear to be important from the point of view of the Egyptian was that a statue should be identifiedable by having the name and title of its owner inscribed upon it.
The Art of Middle Kingdom (2055-1950 BC) is exemplified both by the fragments of relief from the royal pyramid complexes at DAHSHUR, El-Lisht, El-LAHUN and HAWARA, and by the spacious tombs of the governors buried at Beni-Hassan, in Middle Egypt.
In the sculpture, the soft limestone statuary of the Old Kingdom disappears and there's no preference for sombre stones which were not coloured for a total effect, but often highly polished for their own sakes quantity and size of this hard stone sculptures.
While the royal statue were large, the statues of private persons tends to be of modest dimensions even under size. In short, it would hardly be a great exaggeration to claim that during the Middle Kingdom, statuary seems to aspire to the condition of being a pure block of stone.
And the artists seems to be less concerned with delineating majesty or divinity than with conveying an official mood, less with imprisoning god head in stone than with releasing human characterisation.
After the End of Middle kingdom, Egypt had passed its second intermediate period when it was under the role of "The HYKSOS" which they governed from their strongholds in the Delta.
The monuments of this phase show that they simply re-used and copied traditional Egyptian sculptures and reliefs in order to strength their claims to throne. There were increasing links with the Mediterranean world, As the Hyksos capital "Avaris" some objects were founded and Minoan-style paintings suggesting close contacts with the people of Crete.
During New Kingdoms or Empire period which include XVIII-XXth dynasties during this period, magnificent temples were built, Egyptian Art and culture reached a Zenith.
In XVIIIth dynasty at Thebes - which were a religious and political center - the path to glory once again begins.
The institution of the royal tomb commences a long line of impressive sepulchres. The artistic creations which began under the reign of Hatshepsut reach a technical perfection and harmonious aesthetic of rare elegance by the time of Tuthmosis III and culminate in its apogee under Amenhotep III under his reign, tombs, royal statements, Art reaching colossal proportions.
Also the Theban tombs display their most successful examples of mural decoration, narrative representation is animated and reaches its high-point under the reign of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), Nevertheless, in both artistic conception and style a sharp break took place. provoked by a brutal change in religious belief. Akhenaten initiated the "Amrana style" in a halo of spirituality. The tormented faces and deformed bodies, pot bellied as the king believed in "Maat" which means the realism and truth. This reign didn't enduring for a long time and after this brusque disorder of rather short duration, the return to orthodoxy engendered an original, expressive art style, in which tradition resurfaces, but contains persistent vestiges of the Amarna style.
The arts of relief, sculpture and mural paintings long continue to bear the imprint of the Amarna taste for motion and love of nature.
Also during New Kingdom, the relation between Egypt and Asia appears in art. Its taste for luxury, reflecting the contemporary mentality and revealing to us the changes in fashion. costume becomes elaborate, sumptuous dress emerges for the first time. At XIXth dynasty, the Art prolonged the preferences current at the end of XVIIIth dynasty, as is clear from the royal tomb and civil statuary. Nevertheless, already under the following reign there occurred a concreted return to tradition. The plastic arts are charachterized by a serene beauty, relief sculpture returns to purity of line, elegance and perfection, architectural projects initiated by Seti I and Ramses II.
In royal statuary iconographic themes diversify, depicting the king slaughtering his enemies on the one hand but on the other hand stretching out prostrate to present a royal offering before a deity. Private statuary multiplies in the temples including naophorous and stelophorous statues and other types showing the individual in the company of a divinity.
However, during the New Kingdom thanks to both the unfinished state of certain tombs and more importantly to countless fragments bearing artists preliminary sketches, we can discover the beauty and spontaneity of design, as well as the Egyptian artist's exquisite mastery of his craft.
Egypt inter its late period since XXIst dynasty till the end of its history XXXth dynasty.
This period may divided into two parts... third intermediate period XXI-XXIVth dynasties and the second half is from XXV-XXXth dynasties when Egypt was governed by Kushite dynasty, persains till Alexander the great conquered Egypt and it began new period of its history under Greaco-Roman rule....
The disappearance of the great royal and private tomb during the first half of this period led to a decrease in the employment of painters and sculptors. Moreover, as the kings of the period operated almost exclusively in lower Egypt, little of their statuary has survived from that greatly ravaged region.
The dynasties of this period called Saite dynasty belonging to their capital "Sais" in the Delta. also Libyan period from XXII-XXIVth dynasties.
At the XXIIth dynasty a great revival took place in the arts, certain number of earlier works were still usurped during their dynasty, original statues were also created, particularly in metal.
The most distinguished remark for all arts of the late period, is their trials to imitate (recall of the great traditional of the past) the artificial style of Old, Middle and New Kingdoms especially Old Kingdom and they were fond of these periods and didn't try to create other designs or materials, there is however an original contribution of the Libyan age in the emphasis upon elegance, achieved by the rather elongated proportions, the slim waists, the slender limbs and the meticulous finish.
During Kushite period, when Egypt have been ruled by the Nubian dynasties, art reflects the features of this dynasty which differ a little for the Egyptian features as we see big naos, heavy lips and hard face, may it come from the hard circumstance which surrounded them in their countries "Nubia" southern from Egypt.
The Egyptians of the Kushite period, in reviving and an ideal handed down in the sculpture of XIIth dynasty. stressed as the most prominent features of a man's body the median line. vertically bisecting the torso into two distinctly separate halves this style enduring till the beginning of the second half of the XXVIth dynasty. Then New basic principle appears and endures till the beginning of XXVIIth dynasty which depended on "tripartition, in this the median line is hardly noticeable or entirely absent and three main portions of the torso-chest, rib cage, and abdominal reign are modeled almost as separate entities, markedly set off against each other.
We are poorly informed about the modeling of the body in XXVII-XXIXth dynasties, but with the king Nectanebo I of XXXth dynasty, the body is again often shown in the mud from neck to loins although the king himself employed sculptors who modled him in a fashion which can only be described as a mixture of bipartition and restrained tripartition. The private statuary of his time and of the following period displays, for the most part, pure tripartition. By far the largest number of statues created during the late period represent men, thus widely changing the ratio which prevailed in earlier times.
We have something strange, that the female statues were so little comparising by the statues of men. The reason of this strange ban against temple sculpture of women is not known. it almost seems as if the Egyptians, on account of increasingly frequent contacts with foreign nations, had come to deem inappropriate the presence of a female sculpture, only a few statuettes in wood show that there may have been a traditional undercurrent among the populace, to bridge the two and half centuries during which stone statues of women were apparently never fashioned, one of the many fascinating aspects that lend to late period sculpture a mark of distinction is the treatment of the human face. As in all previous periods of Egyptian art, there is a faire share of idealization, arising from the desire to creat for posterity a harmonious contended, eternally youthful countenance at the close of XXVth dynasty and during the reign of XXVIth dynasty there set in a trend of almost brutal realism and usually we can notice a "smill" on the face of the XXVII-XXIXth dynasties may because Egyptian were under foreign rule "persian" and they try to show that they didn't care about this occupation.
In this period the technical process involved in making hard-stone sculpture remained essentially the same as it had always been. By pounding and hammering and bruising. The stone was worn away, the cutting was done with stone tools and the polishing with quartize sand.
Generally, we can observe that the main aim of Egyptian art sculpture or relief is served religious purpose and to help the king or any other one to endure during neither world through his image "statue"
And thus it will be understood that Egyptian statues might be considered to be primarily, living bodies, animated by the spirit of a god or of a man-generally of a dead man-and it will therefore be appreciated that much a conception as this could modify the artistic point of view profoundly. Moreover, certain made for the funeral ceremonies, were often hidden away for all eternity, shut in as they were by the masonry of that part of the tomb which is known as the "Serdab" the sculptor of statues of the most ancient times appears to us not so much as an artist as a specialised workman, the assistant of the funerary priest, contributing by his skill to the successful conclusion of the ritual ceremonies which were indispensable for assuring to the deceased a continued existence beyond the grave. The success of perfection of the sculptor's work, since the body of wood, stone or metal had to be befitting to the soul of the dead, just as it was necessary in order that the divine statue should receive the soul of the god.
And we can understand the same meaning of the Hieroglyphic words which means "statue" as "tut" = image & "shepses" = "statue" & "iakh" = "to be a spirit" may we can imagine relation between these words and the aim of statue to be as an image of the dead which helps him to resurrection again in the neitherworld.

Egyptian Colours
To the Egyptians the word "colour" meant the same as "substance" of which colour was not an accidental but an integral part. When it was said of the gods that one could not know their colour it meant that their substance was inscrutable. In painting an emotive aspect was attributed to colour apart from its function of covering surfaces. Therefore red, the aggressive, life-giving and at once threatening, colour was placed in juxtaposition to blue which is subdued and yet flows out into infinity. Amun's blue coloration alluded to his cosmic aspect. Other gods wore blue wigs or beards. Ambivalent concepts of colour were displayed especially with regard to black which was a reference to death and the netherworld but, at the same time, to rebirth. Colour also distinguished one thing from another as in the case of the russet-coloured men against the pale yellow women. The early IVth Dynasty statues of Rahotep and Nofret were already painted in this way.
Red and white were also opposites. When placed in juxtaposition to each other, they were an expression of wholeness and perfection. The white Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Crown of Lower Egypt were worn by a single ruler of all Egypt in the form of the Double Crown. Bread made from white grain and beer from red were food and drink in the netherworld. In the case of hippopotami, the "red" male animal and the "white" female animal were distinguished, the former being outlawed as hostile and the latter regarded as sacred and helpful.
The colours found in Egyptian paintings and applied to works of sculpture and Architecture are one of the most commanding aspects of Egyptian art. Because they were made from mineral compounds, which retained their essential characteristics. The colours are largely permanent and still brilliant in many cases. Thousands of year after they were applied.
this freshness and vibrance of colours is something which often surprises those who are visiting Egypt for the first time, but it is authentic. Those temples and tombs which display smudged. Faded colours are usually the result of generations of curious hands, rather than any deficiencies in the ancient paints.
Egyptian art appears to reflect a wide range of color, but in fact the palette available to the ancient artist was limited to about six colours.
The principal colours and their sources included:
Red :
Naturally occurring oxidized iron provided the colour for the red iron oxides and red ocher used the Egyptian artist in representing flesh tones and wherever red was needed.
Blue :
A pigment commonly known as "Egyptian blue" was manufactured by combining oxides of copper and iron with silica calcium to produce a rich. Though relatively unstable, pigment which in some cases has darkened or changed color.
Yellow :
like red, naturally occurring ocher or oxide was the main source for the yellow pigment found in Egyptian art.
From the latter New Kingdom orpiment "naturally occurring arsenic trisulphide probably imported" supplied another source of yellow.
Green :
This colour could be produced in the form of a manufactured paste similar to that used for blue, or from malachite. a naturally occurring copper ore. in either case altimate source of the color was from mineral copper.
White :
Strong. clear whites were produced from the plentiful chalk and gypsum available in Egypt.
Black :
Various forms of carbon-sometimes from soot, but also from ground charcoal or burnt animal bones were utilized in the production of black pigments.

Secondary Colours
Some less common colours were also occasionally produced by the use of other substances, and the primary pigments were mixed by the Egyptian artists to produce the various secondary colours which are sometimes found such as gray, pink, brown, or orange. white chalk could be added to any of the pigments to lighten their hue, or carbon black might be used to darken them.

Language: Aspects of writing | Linguistic Features | Hieroglyphs etc.Gods

Paint: Introduction | Subjects of paint scenes

Sculpture: Introduction | Old kingdom statues | Middle kingdom statues | New kingdom statues

Mummification

Geography

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