EGYPTIAN ART

Tomb of Amenherkhepshef

Ancient Egyptian art must be viewed from the standpoint of the ancient Egyptians to understand it. The somewhat static, usually formal, strangely abstract, and often blocky nature of much Egyptian imagery has, at times, led to unfavorable comparisons with later, and much more ‘naturalistic,’ Greek or Renaissance art. However, the art of the Egyptians served a vastly different purpose than that of these later cultures.

King's Daughters

Egyptian society was based on the concept of harmony known as ma'at which had come into being at the dawn of creation and sustained the universe. All Egyptian art is based on perfect balance because it reflects the ideal world of the gods. The same way these gods provided all good gifts for humanity, so the artwork was imagined and created to provide a use. Egyptian art was always first and foremost functional. No matter how beautifully a statue may have been crafted, its purpose was to serve as a home for a spirit or a god. An amulet would have been designed to be attractive but aesthetic beauty was not the driving force in its creation, protection was. Tomb paintings, temple tableaus, home and palace gardens all were created so that their form suited an important function and, in many cases, this function was a reminder of the eternal nature of life and the value of personal and communal stability.

Tutankhamun&Ankhsenamun

Egyptian art and architecture, the ancient architectural monuments, sculptures, paintings, and decorative crafts produced mainly during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia bce in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia. The course of art in Egypt paralleled to a large extent the country’s political history, but it depended as well on the entrenched belief in the permanence of the natural, divinely ordained order. Artistic achievement in both architecture and representational art aimed at the preservation of forms and conventions that were held to reflect the perfection of the world at the primordial moment of creation and to embody the correct relationship between humankind, the king, and the pantheon of the gods. For this reason, Egyptian art appears outwardly resistant to development and the exercise of individual artistic judgment, but Egyptian artisans of every historical period found different solutions for the conceptual challenges posed to them.

THE CHARACTERISTIC EGYPTIAN ART

• Heavily influenced by everyday life, especially religion and life after death.
• Not focused on exact replication, just representations.
• All art looked similar to preserve a sense of stability among the people.
• The Egyptians strictly upheld the style of frontalism, adhering carefully to stylistic rules.
• The subject's head is always drawn in profile with the full eye shown.
• The upper body is depicted from the front and the legs face in the same direction as the head with one foot in front of the other.
• The person in the picture sits or stands stiff and rigid in a formal posture, but the face is calm and usually slightly tilted toward the sky. 

ARCHITECTURE

The two principal building materials used in ancient Egypt were unbaked mud brick and stone. From the Old Kingdom onward stone was generally used for tombs the eternal dwellings of the dead and for temples the eternal houses of the gods. Mud brick remained the domestic material, used even for royal palaces; it was also used for fortresses, the great walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.

Most ancient Egyptian towns have been lost because they were situated in the cultivated and flooded area of the Nile Valley; many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on ground unaffected by the Nile flood. Any survey of Egyptian architecture will in consequence be weighted in favour of funerary and religious buildings. Yet the dry, hot climate of Egypt has allowed some mud brick structures to survive where they have escaped the destructive effects of water or man.