Egyptian Art

Lesson 5. The target skills: using the given information to describe the visual effects produced by a work of art; to draw analogies between various phenomena.

1. Read the given information, reproduce the gist of it and add a few sentences to explain the essence of the attitude to life common among ancient Egyptians.

The pyramids and the Sphinx are mysteries in stone. In their silent presence one has the feeling that they are somehow eternal, in the true sense of the word, “outside time” – that they are emerging into visibility from some powerful spiritual world that the ancient Egyptians believed interpenetrated and enriched this material world. The dividing line between life and death was obviously not so clearly defined for the Egyptians as well as it is for us. The life of spirit that surrounded men in the living world was believed to continue in that other world with a difference that what was under normal circumstances invisible to ordinary eyesight during life became quite visible after death.

2. Read the information and try to explain the similarities and differences between the Egyptian concepts of “Ka” and “Ba” and the Christian concept of the soul.

The mummy could be inhabited by the dead man’s Ka. The Ka appeared as the double of his earthly body, but it was the vital force that survived him after death. If the mummy had been destroyed, the Ka could live in a statue of the deceased, but it needed constant nourishment. Knowing this, the Egyptians included pictures or models of food and drink and all the other good things of life in their tombs for the use of the dead. The tomb was “the House of the Ka”. The scenes of daily life carved or painted on the walls, and the clothes, and the furniture, and the jewels buried with the dead make it look as if the Egyptians imagined the afterlife taking place in the tomb and being very like life in Egypt.

As well as a Ka, every Egyptian was thought to have a Ba, or soul, which was shown as a bird with a human head. After death, a man’s or woman’s Ba could take the form of a swallow, or a falcon, or a heron, and fly wherever it liked on earth with flocks of other souls. Nor was the Ba confined to earth; it also made a perilous journey through the underworld to win the right to an afterlife of eternal joy.

3. Read the following information about Egyptian sculpture and characterize a plate (representation of a statuette or a bas-relief):

The vital aim of a statue was to ensure the survival of the person represented for the rest of eternity. By being inscribed with his name and titles. it became magically endowed with his personality, and would provide an eternal dwelling place for his spirit after death. The correct religious formulas would likewise make a statue fit to house the presence of a god. Such statues might have beauty, but even the roughest would fulfil its purpose if correctly inscribed. Many indeed were never intended to be seen by the living: they were buried with their owners in tombs. Any representation, whether sculpture in the round, relief, or painting, was therefore intended to be timeless. To produce a portrait of a person was not the aim; instead the human form was idealized, so that men were shown in the prime of life and women in the gracefulness of youth. There were exceptions, however. Some men who held particularly high offices are shown as they must have appeared in later life.

Most figures follow accepted conventions. Treatments of the human figure in the round and in relief consistently draw on the same formal traditions. Men are usually shown striding forward on to the left foot, their hands at their sides, while women stand with their feet together or slightly apart. Ancient traditions were also followed in colouring statues and reliefs fashioned in wood and stone, which were usually brightly painted. The skin of men, who spent much of their time out-of-doors, was always painted reddish-brown, in sharp contrast to the creamy yellow or light pink tints used for the skin of royal and noble ladies.

The convention of relative size was also followed from the earliest times: the most important figure in any scene was always larger than the rest. Thus the power and divinity of the king is at once apparent in his domination of any scene.

The plastic laws were very much the same for monumental sculpture and small statuettes. Every part of the body had its counterpart, and the symmetry was ensured by an axis that went through the centre of the body. The figure, though a bit conventional, had poise, balance, and monumentality.

4. Characterize a plate (representation of a painting or carving), taking into account the Egyptian canons of visual arts:

The representation of life as an everlasting procession with no beginning and no end reflected itself in the linear composition of Egyptian frescoes and bas-reliefs. Line after line, being static and yet symbolizing movement, the string of figures goes from this world to the other one. The picture is placed in one plane, confirming the unity of episodes in time and space.

Egyptian painters never knew any laws of perspective, but at the same time they tried hard to show volume in bas-reliefs and frescoes due to a simultaneous representation of a human figure both in profile and facing the spectator. The head and legs were shown in profile, and the upper part of the body and the eye were depicted as if from the front. The waist and the hips are in three-quarter view. The Egyptian believed it gave a perfect representation of the human form on a flat surface. Indeed, 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 otherwise might seem rigid and severe.

Instead of perspective, which could suggest depth and distance, Egyptian craftsmen established 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. The registers could also be used to represent various stages in a developing sequence of actions, rather like the frames of a strip cartoon. The important events of the agricultural year follow each other across the walls of many tombs: plowing, sowing, harvesting, and threshing the grain are all faithfully represented. 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. But the workers and peasants could be shown in a more relaxed manner. They seem sturdy and vigorous. Painting in Ancient Egypt followed a similar pattern to the development of carved relief, and the two techniques were often combined. Throughout the Old Kingdom, paint was used to decorate and finish limestone reliefs, but during the 6^th dynasty painted scene began to supersede relief in private tombs.

5. In a Japanese haiku you may find another interpretation of time.

The pond is old and dumb,

A jumping frog ... a splash ... a wave ...

And all again is calm.

Compare the interpretations of time as presented in the Pyramids, Egyptian paintings and haikus. What do they have in common? What do they differ by?