It seems that no matter where you go in Egypt you will always be surrounded by its beauty and art. As you get closer to the monuments and pyramids of the great Pharaohs, you'll find statues of all sorts that surround the entrances, as well as contained within. Of these statues you will notice several common characteristics from the way they face and are positioned, to the way they are sized and depicted.
The combination of geometric regularity is characteristic of all ancient Egyptian art which was often described as cubed and constrained. Its purpose was to keep alive the history of the individual and give eternal life to the Pharaohs. The divine nature of the rulers evolved the art of sculpture. In order for the people to be able to see what they worship, statues became the most important symbol of divinity. Enormous sculptures where built up to represent famous Pharaohs and their queens.
Most sculptures depicted the individual as eternally young and beautiful, staring straight ahead, their gaze lost in contemplation. To the uninformed tourist the statues, paintings and architectural forms seem to fall into place as if they obeyed one law. No one seemed to want anything different. The artist was never told to be original. On the contrary, he was graded and praised for how precise his work was and how exact it resembled the past statues. The goal seemed to be completeness, the task to preserve everything as clearly as possible. Needles to say, Egyptian art changed very little.
Another major component of Egyptian statues lies in the fact that they had to adhere to strict rules. These were a set of very strict laws, which every artist had to follow. Seated statues had to have their hands on their knees; statues of males had to be made using darker materials than females. This was mostly because of the socio-economic structure of the males having a darker complexion from being outside all day. There were only three options for statue figures. People could either stand, sit, or kneel. This was because artists did not free the sculpted form from the block of stone.
As they were primarily to be viewed from the front, the images and symbols of the hieroglyphs, were clearly and accurately carved in stone. The finished product was more or less an idealized manner, the way the individual would have wanted to be for the rest of their eternal lives.
Aside from the position, there was an emphasis on the size of the individual. This was to show the divinity, or the social status and power of the Pharaoh. However powerful his queen, she was most often depicted rather small, barely taller than a child. These children were easily recognizable simply by the fact that they were depicted naked. Nudity indicated the young age an innocence of the child. However, adults were sometimes depicted naked, but more so as a symbol of rebirth in the afterlife, more commonly found in the case of a funeral statue.
Children were depicted with their index finger on their lower lip, a 'side lock of a braid of hair worn usually at one side. Representations of older children were fully clothed and usually wore a wig, marked by a second hairline. Although older, these children were still depicted smaller than their parents, sometimes barely knee- high - of course you have to remember that none of Egyptian art is based proportionately.
Written by Natalie Low, 2002
 |
Archaeology of Egypt | History | Hieroglyphs |
| Religion | Daily Life | Links |