Known as funerary art, these pictures depicted the narrative of life after death as well as things like servants, boats and food to help the deceased in their trip through the after life.
These paintings would be executed on papyrus, on panels , using encaustic paint or on walls in the form of fresco murals using tempera. In addition, models eg.
As the spirit inhabited the body, the preservation of the latter against decay was also critical. The use of tightly wrapped bandages to mummify the corpse, and the removal and packaging of internal organs within ceramic canopic jars and other opulent sarcophagi became widespread among the ruling elite. All these arrangements helped to support a nationwide industry of Egyptian artists and craftsmen who laboured to produce the artworks paintings, scultures, pottery, ceramics, jewellery and metalwork required.
Egyptian sculpture was highly symbolic and for most of Egyptian history was not intended to be naturalistic or realistic.
Sculptures and statues were made from clay, wood , metal, ivory, and stone - of which stone was the most permanent and plentiful.
Many Egyptian sculptures were painted in vivid colours. NOTE: In addition to pyramid architecture, stone sculpture, goldsmithing and the Fayum Mummy portraits, Egyptian craftsmen are also noted for their ancient pottery , especially Egyptian faience , a non-clay-based ceramic art developed in Egypt from BCE, although it began in Mesopotamia.
The oldest surviving faience workshop, complete with advanced lined brick kilns, was found at Abydos in the mid-Nile area.
Egyptian faience is a non-clay based ceramic composed of powdered quartz or sand, covered with a vitreous coating, often made with copper pigments to give a transparent blue or blue-green sheen. See Pottery Timeline. Born into the cult of Amon Amen , a line that worshipped a wide range of gods, he changed his name to Akhenaton and, strengthened by his control of the army, instituted the worship only of Aten, a sun god. The Egyptian capital and royal court was moved to Amarna in Middle Egypt.
All this led to a radical break with tradition, especially in the arts, such as painting and sculpture. They became more naturalistic and more dynamic than the static rule-bound art of previous eras. In particular, the Amarna style of art was characterized by a sense of movement and activity. Portraits of Egyptian nobles ceased to be idealized, and some were even caricatured. The presence of Aten in many pictures was represented by a golden disc shining down from above.
After the death of Akhenaton, the next Pharaoh - the child Tutankhaten - was persuaded to move back to Memphis and change his name to Tutankhamen, thus reverting to Amon.
As a result, Egyptian painters and sculptors largely returned to the old traditions which continued until the Hellenistic era from BCE onwards. For contemporaneous sculpture, see for instance the Human-headed Winged Bull and Lion BCE from Ashurnasirpal's palace at Nimrud, and the alabaster reliefs of lion-hunts featuring Ashurnasirpal II and Ashurbanipal, both characteristic examples of Assyrian art c.
The influence of Greek Hellenistic art on Egyptian artists, a process accelerated during the Ptolemaic Era, encouraged the naturalistic representation of individuals in paintings and sculpture, not unlike the process initiated by Akhenaton. Portraits became realistic and the rules of colour were relaxed. This trend was further encouraged by the practical Roman style of art. The most famous example of Hellenistic-Egyptian painting during the era of classical antiquity , is the series of Fayum Mummy Portraits , discovered mainly around the Faiyum basin, west of the Nile, near Cairo.
A type of naturalistic portraiture, strongly influenced by Greek art , notably Hellenistic Greek painting BCE , Fayum portraits were attached to the burial cloth of the deceased person. Preserved by the exceptionally dry conditions, these paintings represent the largest single body of original art which has survived from Antiquity. Note: The rulers of Egypt were not called Pharaohs by their own people. This word was only used by the Greeks and Hebrews.
However, today it is the accepted term for for all the ancient Kings of Egypt. The earliest incised figures and scenes in relief date from prehistoric times when slate cosmetic panels and combs of wood, bone, and ivory were buried in the graves of their owners.
These were carved in the simple, effective outlines of species familiar to the people of the Nile Valley - antelopes, ibex, fish, and birds. More elaborate ivory combs and the ivory handles of flint knives which probably had some ceremonial purpose were carved in relief, the scene standing out from its background. By the end of the prehistoric period Egyptian sculpture was unmistakable, although up to this point there had been no great architectural monuments on which the skill of the sculptors could be displayed.
From the meagre evidence of a few carvings on fragments of bone and ivory we know that the gods were worshipped in shrines constructed of bundles of reeds.
The chieftains of prehistoric Egypt probably lived in similar structures, very like the ones still found in the marshes of South Arabia. The work of sculptors was displayed in the production of ceremonial mace-heads and palettes, carved to commemorate victories and other important events and dedicated to the gods. They show that the distinctive sculptural style, echoed in all later periods of Egyptian history, had already emerged, and the convention of showing the human figure partly in profile and partly in frontal view was well-established.
The significance of many details cannot yet be fully explained, but representations of the king as a powerful lion or a strong bull are often repeated in Dynastic times. Tomb Reliefs Early royal reliefs, showing the king smiting his enemies or striding forward in ritual pose, are somewhat stilted, but by the 3rd Dynasty techniques were already very advanced.
Most surviving examples are in stone, but the wooden panels found in the tomb of Hesire at Saqqara, BCE, show the excellence achieved by master craftsmen Egyptian Museum, Cairo. These figures, standing and seated, carved according to the conventions of Egyptian ideals of manhood, emphasized in different ways the different elements of the human form.
The head, chest, and legs are shown in profile, but the visible eye and the shoulders are depicted as if seen from the front, while the waist and hips are in three-quarter view. However, this artificial pose does not look awkward because of the preservation of natural proportion. The excellence of the technique, shown in the fine modelling of the muscles of face and body, bestows a grace upon what might otherwise seem rigid and severe. Hesire, carrying the staff and sceptre of his rank together with the palette and pen case symbolizing his office of royal scribe, gazes proudly and confidently into eternity.
The care of the craftsman does not stop with the figure of his patron, for the hieroglyphs making up the inscription giving the name and titles of the deceased are also carved with delicacy and assurance, and are fine representations in miniature of the animals, birds, and objects used in ancient Egyptian writing.
The animals and birds used as hieroglyphs are shown in true profile. The great cemeteries of Gizeh and Saqqara in which the nobles and court officials were buried near their kings, provide many examples of the skill of the craftsmen of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Dynasties, a skill rarely equaled in later periods.
The focus of these early tombs was a slab of stone carved with a representation of the deceased sitting in front of a table of offerings. The latter were usually placed above the false door, through which the spirit of the dead person, called the ka, might continue to enter and leave the tomb.
The idea behind this was that the magical representation of offerings on the stelae, activated by the correct religious formulas, would exist for the rest of eternity, together with the ka of the person to whom they were made.
In single scenes, or in works filling a wall from ceiling to floor, every figure had its proper place and was not permitted to overflow its allotted space.
One of the most notable achievements of Egyptian craftsmen was the way they filled the space available in a natural, balanced way, so that scenes full of life never seem to be cramped or overcrowded.
The horizontal sequences or registers of scenes arranged on either side of the funerary stelae and false doors in 5th-Dynasty and 6th-Dynasty tombs are full of lively and natural detail. Here the daily life of peasant and noble was caught for eternity by the craftsman - the action of herdsman and fisherman frozen in mid-step, so that the owner of the tomb would always be surrounded by the daily bustle of his estate.
The subjects were intended to be typical of normal events, familiar scenes rather than special occasions. Egyptian craftsmen did not employ perspective to suggest depth and distance, but they did establish a convention whereby several registers, each with its own base line, could be used to depict a crowd of people.
Those in the lowest register were understood to be nearest to the viewer, those in the highest furthest away. A number of these scenes occur in the Old Kingdom: many offering-bearers bring the produce of their estates to a deceased noble at his funerary table, for instance, or troops of men are shown hauling a great statue.
Statues represented in reliefs, like the hieroglyphs, are shown in true profile, in contrast to the figures of the men hauling them.
Perhaps the best-known scenes showing nearness and distance, however, are the painted banqueting scenes of the New Kingdom, where the numerous guests, dressed in their finest clothes, sit in serried ranks in front of their hosts.
The registers could also be used to present various stages in a developing sequence of action, rather like the frames of a strip cartoon. In the Old Kingdom, the important events of the agricultural year follow each other across the walls of many tombs: ploughing, sowing, harvesting, and threshing the grain are all faithfully represented. The herdsmen are shown at work in the pastures caring for the cattle so prized by the ancient Egyptians, while other scenes depict the trapping of waterfowl in the Nile marshes and fishing in the river itself.
Other domestic activities, such as baking and brewing, also vital to the eternal existence of the dead noble are represented; other scenes show carpenters, potters, and jewellers at work. It was in these scenes of everyday life that the sculptor was able to use his initiative, and free himself to some extent from the ties of convention. The dead man and his family had to be presented in ritual poses as described - larger than life, strictly proportioned, and always calm and somewhat aloof.
The rural workers on the estates, however, could be shown at their daily asks in a more relaxed manner, capturing something of the liveliness and energy that must have characterized the ancient Egyptians. While the offering-bearers, symbolizing the funerary gifts from the estates to their lord, are depicted moving towards him in formal and stately procession, the peasants at work in the fields seem both sturdy and vigorous.
They lean to the plough and beat the asses, tend the cattle and carry small calves on their shoulders clear of the danger of crocodiles lurking in the marshes. The natural details used to fill odd corners in these tomb scenes show how much pleasure the ancient Egyptian craftsmen took in observing their environment.
Birds, insects, and clumps of plants were all used to balance and complete the picture. Meulenaere, Herman de. Milleker, Elizabeth J. Newman, Richard. Patch, Diana Craig. Dawn of Egyptian Art. Peters, Erin A. Phillips, Dorothy Fern Williams. Pier, Garrett Chatfield. Pischikova, Elena. Roehrig, Catharine H. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh.
Rogers, Elizabeth A. Russmann, Edna R. Schlick-Nolte, Birgit. Schwarz, Bruce. Scott, Nora E. Simpson, William Kelly. Evans, and Daniel Walker. Textiles of Late Antiquity. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Watts, Edith W. Wilkinson, Charles Kyrle. Winlock, H. Winlock, Herbert E. Tutankhamun's Funeral. Young, Eric. Yurco, Frank J. Allen, James and Marsha Hill. Allen, Susan. Arnold, Dieter. Department of Egyptian Art. Frantz, Tony and Deborah Schorsch. Kamrin, Janice.
In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Knott, Elizabeth. Oppenheim, Adela. Reeves, Nicholas. Riccardelli, Carolyn. Roehrig, Catharine. Schorsch, Deborah. Aruz, Joan, ed. Nissen, Donald P. Aslihan Yener, Jean M. Morris, Marian Feldman, Glenn M. Schwartz, and Eric H. Harper, Trudy S. Kawami, Boris I. Ancient Art from the Shumei Family Collection. Ford, James H. Frantz, Maxwell K. Mertens, Helen B. Rabinow, Suzanne G. Watt, and H. Barbara Weinberg. Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection.
Houghton, James R. Goldner, Ian Wardropper, Thomas P. Campbell, Dita Amory, Laurence B. Kanter, Morrison H. Heckscher, J. Pyhrr, Donald J. La Rocca, Maxwell K. Hearn, James C. Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: — Abramatis, Dorothy, Maryan W. Kirby Talley Jr. Baetjer, Carmen C. Bambach, Peter Barnet, Andrea J. Boehm, Andrew Bolton, John T. Husband, Kyriaki Karoglou, Peter M. Mertens, Asher Ethan Miller, J.
Pyhrr, Rebecca A. Rippner, Catharine H. Roehrig, Jeff L. Edited by Joan Aruz, Sarah B. The ancient Egyptians quarried limestone all along the Nile Valley, granite from Aswan, and basalt and sandstone from the wadis valleys of the eastern desert. Deposits of decorative stones dotted the eastern desert and were collected early in Egyptian history.
The Prehistory of Egypt spans the period of earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt in ca. The Predynastic Period is traditionally equivalent to the Neolithic period, beginning ca.
The Predynastic period is generally divided into cultural periods, each named after the place where a certain type of Egyptian settlement was first discovered. While the Old Kingdom was a period of internal security and prosperity, it was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt not called the Pharaoh until the New Kingdom became a living god, who ruled absolutely and could demand the services and wealth of his subjects.
A new era of building was initiated at Saqqara under his reign. Indeed, the Old Kingdom is perhaps best known for the large number of pyramids constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places.
Djoser pyramid : Step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, Egypt. During this period, the funerary cult of Osiris rose to dominate Egyptian popular religion. Osiris : The gods Osiris, Anubis, and Horus, from a tomb painting.
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