Ancient Egyptian Art, Painting, Sculpture

Ancient Egyptian art is five thousand years old. It emerged and took shape in the
ancient Egypt, the civilization of the Nile Valley. Expressed in paintings and
sculptures, it was highly symbolic and fascinating - this art form revolves round the
past and was intended to keep history alive. In a narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art
refers to the canonical 2D and 3D art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used
until the 3rd century. It is to be noted that most elements of Egyptian art remained
remarkably stable over the 3000 year period that represents the ancient civilization
without strong outside influence. Ancient Egyptian art forms are characterized by
regularity and detailed depiction of human beings and the nature, Some art forms
present an extraordinarily vivid representation of the 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.

Periods

Old Kingdom (2680 BC-2258 BC)

Middle Kingdom (2134 BC-1786 BC)

New Kingdom (1570 BC-1085 BC)

Cartouche

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a horizontal line at one end,

indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning
of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu. While the cartouche is usually vertical
with a horizontal line, it is sometimes horizontal if it makes the name fit better, with a
vertical line on the left. The Ancient Egyptian word for it was shenu, and it was
essentially an expanded shen ring. In Demotic, the cartouche was reduced to a pair of
parentheses and a vertical line.

Such items are often important to archaeologists for dating the tomb and its contents.
Cartouches were formerly only worn by Pharaohs. The oval surrounding their name
was meant to protect him from evil spirits in life and after death. The cartouche has
become a symbol representing protection from evil and give good luck Egyptians
believed that if you had your name written down in some place, then you would not
disappear after you died. If a cartouche was attached to their coffin then they would
have their name in at least one place.
 Character and Style

The highly religious nature of Ancient Egyptian civilization, many of the great works
of Ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and Pharaohs, who were also considered
divine. Ancient Egyptian art is characterized by the idea of order. Clear and simple
lines combined with simple shapes and flat areas of color helped to create a sense of
order and balance in the art of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian artists used vertical
and horizontal reference lines in order to maintain the correct proportions in their
work. Political and religious, as well as artistic order, was also maintained in Egyptian
art. In order to clearly define the social hierarchy of a situation, figures were drawn to
sizes based not on their distance from the painter's point of view but on relative
importance. For instance, the Pharaoh would be drawn as the largest figure in a
painting no matter where he was situated, and a greater God would be drawn larger
than a lesser god.
Of the materials used by the Egyptian sculptors, we find - clay, wood, metal, ivory,
and stone - stone was the most plentiful and permanent, available in a wide variety of
colors and hardness. Sculpture was often painted in vivid hues as well. Egyptian
sculpture has two qualities that are distinctive; it can be characterized as cubic and
frontal. It nearly always echoes in its form the shape of the stone cube or block from
which it was fashioned, partly because it was an image conceived from four
viewpoints. The front of almost every statue is the most important part and the figure
sits or stands facing strictly to the front. This suggests to the modern viewer that the
ancient artist was unable to create a naturalistic representation, but it is clear that this
was not the intention.
 Symbolism

Symbolism also played an important role in establishing a sense of order. Symbolism,

ranging from the Pharaoh's regalia (symbolizing his power to maintain order) to the
individual symbols of Egyptian gods and goddesses, was omnipresent in Egyptian art.
Animals were usually also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Color, as well, had
extended meaning - Blue and green represented the Nile and life; yellow stood for the
sun god; and red represented power and vitality. The colors in Egyptian artifacts have
survived extremely well over the centuries because of Egypt's dry climate. Despite the
stilted form caused by a lack of perspective, ancient Egyptian art is often highly
realistic. Ancient Egyptian artists often show a sophisticated knowledge of anatomy
and a close attention to detail, especially in their renderings of animals.
 Papyri

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
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, , 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 burial chambers 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.

These objects suggest that there was already a belief in the afterlife. The vessel
illustrated here is typical of the Naqada II period, being decorated in red line on a light
background. The elaborate motifs relate in part to life on the Nile, and show oared
boats, water plants, standards, and birds. Other examples also include wild animals
and male or female figures. Such vessels were probably made specifically for burial,
rather than for everyday use.

Hieroglyphics
A hieroglyphic script is one consisting of a variety of pictures and symbols. Some of
symbols had independent meanings, whereas some of such symbols were used in
combinations. In addition, some hieroglyphs were used phonetically, in a similar
fashion to the Roman alphabet. Some symbols also conveyed multiple meanings, like
the legs meant to walk, to run, to go and to come. The script was written in three
directions: from top to bottom, from left to right, and from right to left. This style of
writing continued to be used by the ancient Egyptians for nearly 3500 years, from
3300 BC till the third century AD. Many art works of the period contain hieroglyphs
and hieroglyphs themselves constitute an amazing part of ancient Egyptian arts.
Knowledge of hieroglyphic script was lost after it was superseded by other scripts.

Literature

The Scribe

Ancient Egyptian literature 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 to the gods, mythological and magical texts,.
Other subject matters were biographical and historical texts, scientific premises,
including mathematical and medical texts, wisdom texts dealing with instructive
literature, and stories. A number of such stories from the ancient Egypt have survived
thousand of years, the most famous being Cinderella, where her names is Rhodopis in
the oldest version of the story.

Paintings

Ancient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient
Egyptians created paintings to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place.
Accordingly, beautiful paintings were created. The themes included journey through
the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the
underworld. Some examples of such paintings are paintings of Osiris and
Warriors.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.

The Amarna Period

The Ancient Egyptian art style known as Amarna Art was a style of art that was
adopted in the Amarna Period, and is noticeably different from more conventional
Egyptian art styles.It is characterized by a sense of movement and activity in images,
with figures having raised heads, many figures overlapping and many scenes are
crowded and very busy.The illustration of hands and feet were obviously thought to
be important, shown with long and slender fingers, and great pains were gone to be
show fingers and finger nails. Flesh was shown as being dark brown, for both males
and females (contrasted with the more normal dark brown for males and light brown
for females) - this could merely be convention, or depict the life blood. As is normal
in Egyptian art, commoners are shown with 2 left feet (or 2 right feet).The depiction
of the Royal Family is often seen as being informal, intimate and with a family
closeness, but this hides the conventions of the style. Central to most scenes is the disc
of the Aten, shining down on the Royal Family and literally giving life and prosperity
to Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Royalty are shown with left and right feet, each with a big
toe.The decoration of tombs of non-Royals is quite different from previous eras, with
not many agricultural scenes, and the image of the king being central.Sculptures from
the Amarnaperiod .

The Tree of Life

On the Tree Of Life, the birds represent the various stages of human life. Starting in
the lower right-hand corner and proceeding counter-clockwise:

 The light gray bird symbolizes infancy.

 The red bird symbolizes childhood.
 The green bird symbolizes youth.
 The blue bird symbolizes adulthood.
 The orange bird symbolizes old age.

In ancient Egypt, the direction east was considered the direction of life, because the
sun rose in the east. West was considered the direction of death, of entering the
underworld, because the sun set in the west. They believed that during the night, the
sun traveled through the underworld to make its way back to the east so it could rise
in the east again on the next day. On the tree of life, note that the birds representing
the first four phases of life all face to the east, but the bird representing old age faces
to the west, anticipating the approach of death.
In ancient Egypt, both men and women wore eye makeup, and to manufacture it they
ground up mineral pigments on a palette. Such palettes were often put into graves,
perhaps to ensure that the deceased had the means to grind eye makeup in the next
world.

This palette is made from polished green slate, with two bird heads carved in profile at
the top. Three holes have been drilled: a central one may be for hanging, whereas the
other two, serving as eyes for the birds, may originally have been inlaid. The birds are
possibly falcons, perhaps an early reference to the sky god Horus.

This rectangular coffin was put together from local timber for a priestess of the
goddess Hathor called Nebetit. The head end is identified by a pair of stylized eyes,
known as wedjat eyes, painted in a panel on the side. The coffin would have been
oriented in the tomb with the head end pointing north. This would have enabled the
deceased, lying on her side, magically to look out through the wedjat eyes at the sun
rising on the eastern horizon - a symbol of rebirth.The coffin has hieroglyphic
inscriptions on the sides, end, and lid. The vertical inscriptions on the sides and ends
identify the owner. The long horizontal inscriptions consist of "offering formulae" and
ask for offerings for the 'ka' (spirit) of Nebetit. These include beef, birds, bread, and
beer, and also a request for "a good burial in her tomb in the necropolis of the western
desert."Funerary Cones

Isis
The goddess Isis, sister-consort of Osiris, god of the dead, is represented seated with
her son placed at a right angle to her on her lap. She wears a tight-fitting dress and a
vulture headdress surmounted by a sun disk enclosed by a pair of cow's horns, which
are now broken. The horns and sun disk were originally associated with the goddess
Hathor, but later they were used by Isis too. The child is supported by his mother's left
arm, while her right hand offers her breast for suckling.Horus is given the attributes of
a child, being shown naked, with a single lock of hair falling on the right side of his
otherwise shaven head, and sucking his forefinger. However, he is also closely
associated with the ideal of kingship - the living king being a manifestation of Horus -
and so he wears a uraeus (cobra), a symbol of kingship, on his forehead.
Isis was revered as an emblem of motherhood and protector of young children.

Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts

 Mummification

Canopic Jars

Canopic jars were used by the Ancient Egyptians during the mummification process
to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife. They were commonly
either carved from limestone or were made of pottery. These jars were used by
Ancient Egyptians from the time of the Old Kingdom up until the time of the Late
Period or the Ptolemaic Period, by which time the viscera were simply wrapped and
placed with the body. The viscera were not kept in a single canopic jar: each jar was
reserved for specific organs. The name "canopic" reflects the mistaken association by
early Egyptologists with the Greek legend of Canopus. Canopic jars of the Old
Kingdom were rarely inscribed, and had a plain lid. In the Middle Kingdom
inscriptions became more usual, and the lids were often in the form of human heads.
By the Nineteenth dynasty each of the four lids depicted one of the four sons of
Horus, as guardians of the organs.

Burial, Afterlife

Egyptian Afterlife

In order to enter the afterlife, it was important that the deceased have a proper burial
with all the correct rituals and traditional funerary equipment. First, the body had to be
preserved through mummification, a process by which it was artificially dehydrated
and then wrapped in linen bandages. The invention of mummification may have
stemmed from the initial practice during predynastic times of burying bodies directly
in the ground. The preservative properties of the hot, desiccating sand may have
suggested to the Egyptians that survival of the body was necessary for continued
existence in the afterlife. Later, in the Early Dynastic period, when the body was no
longer directly surrounded by sand but was placed in a specially constructed burial
chamber, the natural processes of decay set in. When they discovered this, the
Egyptians over the course of centuries developed a way of keeping the body intact
using resins and the naturally occurring salt, natron

Scarabs

The winged scarab symbolized self-creation. This potent symbolism appears in tomb
paintings, manuscripts, hieroglyphic inscriptions on buildings and carvings. In
addition to its use as an amulet for the living and the dead, scarabs adorned jewelry
including necklaces, bracelets, wrist cuffs and wide decorative collars. A bracelet
from the tomb of Tutankhamun featured a bright blue scarab holding a cartouche
between its front legs. A cartouche is an oval frame that encloses a name. The ancient
Egyptians sometimes painted or carved scarabs on a deceased person's sarcophagus,
the human-shaped coffin that held the mummy. Scarabs often hold a sun disk over
their heads.
This wooden anthropoid coffin consists of a separate bottom and lid. It is plastered
and painted on the outside, but the inside was left undecorated. It is made of irregular
pieces of native Egyptian wood, and gaps between planks are filled in with mud. The
underside of the base is decorated with a large figure of the goddess of the west,
recognizable by the falcon emblem, the hieroglyph for west, that she wears on her
head. Because the sun sets in the west, where it was believed to enter the underworld,
the goddess was associated with the necropolis and helped the dead make the passage
from this life to the next. As such, she often appears in tombs and on coffins.
King Tutankhamun's Tomb
Sculptures

The ancient art of Egyptian sculpture evolved to represent the ancient Egyptian gods,
and Pharaohs, the divine kings and queens, in physical form. Massive and magnificent
statues were built to represent gods and famous kings and queens. These statues were
intended to give eternal life to the ÒgodÓ kings and queens, as also 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 falconÕs head, the god of funeral
rites (Anubis) was to be always shown with a jackalÕs 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 statutes.
Ramesses II at Abu Simbel
Ancient Flying Vehicles

Egyptian Dynasties
Egyptian Gods and Goddesses