Ancient Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian art refers to the style of painting, sculpture, crafts and architecture developed by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from c.5000 BCE to c.300 BCE. The adjective Egyptian is used, although Egypt is a more recent name for the country, from the Latin name Aegyptus, rather than the lesser known name K'mit used by the people themselves.

Ancient Egyptian art as expressed in painting and sculpture 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. There wasn't strong outside influence. The same basic conventions and quality of observation started at a high level and remained near that level over the period.

Egyptian Art Period

Predynastic
Old Kingdom (2680 BC–2258 BC)
Middle Kingdom (2134 BC–1786 BC)
New Kingdom (1570 BC–1085 BC)
Amarna Period (1350 BC–1320 BC)
Late Period
Ptolemaic

Evolution of Ancient Egyptian art

During the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt the Pharaoh Akhenaten took the throne. He worshiped a monotheistic religion based on the worship of Aten, a sun god. Artistic changes followed political upheaval, although some stylistic changes are apparent before his reign. A new style of art was introduced that was more naturalistic than the stylized frieze favored in Egyptian art for the previous 1700 years. After Akhenaton's death, however, Egyptian artists reverted to their old styles, although there are many traces of this period's style in late art.

Architecture - Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian architects used both sun-dried and kiln-baked bricks, fine sandstone, limestone and granite. Absence of trees prevented extensive use of woods as building materials.

Architects carefully planned all their work, as the stones had to fit precisely together and the construction was without the use of mortar. 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 moved down.

Over a period of time, primitive structures of clay and reeds matured, and there emerged magnificent monumental structures of granites, with very thick walls. The massive sloping exterior walls contained only 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.

The belief in existence of life beyond death resulted into mammoth and impressive architectural style to house the mummified bodies. Construction of a burial monument commenced as soon a pharaoh was named, and continued till he was deceased. Some of constructions are very large and finely decorated, while some are relatively small like King Tutankhamen’s tomb, as he died very young.

Another interesting aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture is that no structural support was provided, except the strength and balance of the structure itself, with one exception the mud brick roofs of common houses were supported by palm logs.

Papyrus - Egyptian Art
 
The Book of the Dead written on papyrusThe 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 - Egyptian Art
 
Egyptian pot on display at the LouvreAncient 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 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.

Sculpture - Egyptian Art
 
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 “god” 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 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 statutes.

These conventions were intended to convey a timelessness and non aging representation of the figure's ka, or life for an eternal afterlife.

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. The script was decrypted by Champollion who studied the Rosetta stone for 14 years and discovered the key.

Literature - Egyptian Art

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 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, and stories.

A number of such stories from the ancient Egypt have survived thousand of years, the most famous being ..., where her names is Rhodopis in the oldest version of the story.

Paintings - Egyptian Art
 
Wall painting of Queen NefertariAncient 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.

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.