The World's Progress, Vol. 01 (of 10): With Illustrative texts from Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American LiteratureDelphian Society
History
The World's Progress, Vol. 01 (of 10): With Illustrative texts from Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American Literature
Delphian Society
Civilization -- History; World history
Side by side with this conventional school of art there developed a
realistic school that exercised greater freedom with the human body.
Tomb pictures remain wherein persons are shown with their backs to the
spectator, and in many positions not permissible according to
established rules. However, these paintings are invariably in the tombs
of the lower classes. It would not have been deemed fitting that such
freedom be used in decorating the tombs of nobles, or of persons of high
social standing. Artists of this school seem to have been in disfavor in
ancient Egypt. To be sure, in the matter of portraying scenes where
captives, slaves or the humble people were gathered, artists of the
conventional school drew these with considerable degree of freedom and
ease. In the same picture the king, or noble, or high official was
represented according to the established custom.
All Egyptian drawing of human figures, birds and animals is plain, and
it is possible for any one today to read the stories of long series of
tomb pictures--studying them out, one by one. However, when it came to
representing a temple, a house, or a garden, the desire to show every
portion of it resulted in some confusion. The artist was in doubt as to
how to portray it all. "In treating such an important and complex object
he wished if possible to show every part of it; he therefore did not
draw the house from the front nor from the side, but made a picture of
both sides together, and when the house had an upper story with three
chambers, he put these three rooms close by also. He considered his duty
accomplished when he had placed all the details before the spectator,
but he did not care whether the spectator understood how these details
fitted together.
"We have to face another difficulty in order to comprehend these
pictures; the Egyptian artist has no sense of proportion between the
different parts of the representation. If, for instance, the king is
standing in one of the rooms of the building in question, our artist
would, regardless of truth, draw that room ten times as large as all the
others together, and even in one picture he frequently changes his
standard of measurement."[1]
All pictures were painted, some only in outline, some entirely. The
interiors of tombs were made to assume a gay appearance since tomb
colors were always bright. Red, the color of the sun, and blue, the sky
reflected in the Nile, were thought to be sacred.
Sculpture served two needs: it furnished statues of the dead for
relatives to worship, and statues of the kings and gods, with the
animals sacred to each, for the ornamentation of the temples. Thus the
scope of the sculptor was limited in the beginning. Furthermore, the
proportion, form, color and expression of every statue was fixed by laws
prescribed by the priests. The aim of the artist was in every case to
show absolute repose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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