Egyptian Art

Function

• First, to glorify the gods - including the Pharaoh - and facilitate human passage into the after-life.

• Second, to assert, propagandize and preserve the values of the day.

• Due to the general stability of Egyptian life and culture, all arts - including architecture and sculpture, as well as painting, metalwork, and goldsmithing - were characterized by a highly conservative adherence to traditional rules, which favoured order and form over creativity and artistic expression.

Sculpture

• Ancient Egyptian sculpture was closely associated with Egyptian architecture and mostly concerned the temple and the funeral tomb.

• The temple was built as if it were the tomb or eternal resting-place of a divinity whose statue was hidden within a succession of closed halls, opened to view only for a short time, when the sun or moon or particular star reached a point on the horizon.

• These divine statues were consulted as oracles.

• Egyptian tombs required the most extensive use of sculpture. In these vaults were placed portrait statues of the deceased King or Queen.

Above: Thutmose, Bust of Nefertiti, 1345 BC, Egyptian Museum of Berlin

Below: Karnak, 2055 B.C to 395 A.D

King Menkaura (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490–2472 B.C Museum of Boston

Hippopotamus, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Great Sphinx, built by Pharaoh Khafra (c. 2558–2532 BC

• www.360cities.net/image/karnak-complex#0.00,0.00,70.0

Painting

• Egyptian civilization was highly religious. Thus most Egyptian artworks involve the depiction of many gods and goddesses - of whom the Pharaoh was one.

• In addition, the Egyptian respect for order and conservative values led to the establishment of complex rules for how both Gods and humans could be represented by artists.

• figure painting: sizes were calculated purely by reference to the person's social status, rather than by the normal artistic rules of linear perspective.

• Head and legs always in profile; eyes and upper body viewed from the front.

Use of Pigments• The use of colour in Egyptian paintings was also regulated and used

symbolically. • Six colours used: red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. • Red: power, symbolized life and victory, anger and fire• Green: new life, growth, and fertility• Blue: creation and rebirth• Yellow: eternal, such as the qualities of the sun and gold. Yellow was

the colour of Ra and of all the pharaohs, which is why the sarcophagi and funeral masks were made of gold to symbolize the everlasting and eternal pharaoh who was now a god.

• White: purity, symbolizing all things sacred, and was typically used used in religious objects and tools used by the priests.

• Black: death and represented the underworld and the night.

Egyptian Grave PaintingHarachte and Hathor · ~ 1250 B.C. Grave of Nefertari, Thebes-West Scene from the Book of

the Dead(Thebes Dynasty c.1000 BCE)

Goldsmithing

• First used by the Egyptians, this decorative technique involves the application of Niello - a black-coloured powder, made by fusing together copper, silver, lead and sulphur - onto designs engraved on small-scale metal objects, usually made of silver. Once the engraved metal surface is coated with the Niello, heat is applied which causes the Niello to melt and run into the engraved channels.

The Gold Mask of Tutankhamun, c. late Eighteenth dynasty, Egyptian Museum

Osiris on a lapis lazuli pillar in the middle, flanked by Horus on the left, and Isis on the right, 22nd dynasty, Louvre