Egyptian art is very interesting in the way that they have very specific proportion rules that all artists were to abide by at this time.
Humans were usually depicted in a composite pose, where their torsos would face the viewer but their heads would be in profile view. This unnaturalistic position would mostly be used by people of higher worth, or higher on the hierarchy of scale. In this scale the people who were of higher ranking would also be larger than the people around them who were of lower ranking. Even if the a slave had been bigger than a pharaoh in real life, they would be portrayed smaller.
People that were of lower ranking in the Egypt social class were usually depicted more realistically as well. As with the piece "The Seated Scribe" (c. 2450-2325 BC) he is seen as extremely realistic. The fat between his midsection is shown, which would be on any person sitting in the same position. His pectorals were not taught, but depicted as if they probably were on this man. He is not toned which means he must have had a somewhat higher ranking job than a salve (see scribe) but he was not of a high enough ranking to be depicted in an idealistic form. The great detail and realism shown in this piece shows that Egyptians were quite aware of the human form and capable of representing it exactly but they just preferred to idealize their pharaohs and gods.
Pharaohs can be seen in Egyptian art looking very youthful and appearing strong. Even if during their lifetime they were not particularly strong physically or were older when they reached death, they were depicted very powerful in the Ka statues (the statues that the soul could return to if the original body of the person had been destroyed). It is interesting that into today's culture it is a mark of artistry if a person can be represented realistically and the artwork is considered more valuable when in comparison during ancient Egypt it was quite the opposite.
The canon of proportions was a vital part of Egyptian art. This was a way of representing a figure by plugging it into a mathematical chart. Basically a square grid would be drawn and the figures would match the correct heights that were commonly used. The head of a figure would reach the top or above the 18th square, the shoulders at 16, and the knees at 6. This would insure that each figure would be the exact same height and around the same width as the one that came before it. The artist would break away from these rules slightly when depicting people of lower class, but they too would be drawn to match specific rules. The canon of proportions does not allow much in the way of creatively showing people, or realistically. Since most of the people were shown in the canon of proportions or idealistically it is hard for art historians to figure out what Egyptians truly looked like. There is some sense of creativity in being allowed to draw someone in how they actually look like and not matching them to these specifications. There is some creativity allowed in this culture, but it seems that they were very mathematically and detail driven in a specific way that was less about freely expressing emotions and more about getting a point across. Whether that be a story of a Pharaoh or of a god, it was very specific. This is not a negative thing at all; it shows what was important for the Egyptian people and what they used art for.
Thank you for making clear a portion of the chapter that I did not completely understand before. I think that I must not have understood how the math was used to create the flat murals and the people depicted within them. I now understand how the perfection was achieved much better. I think that it was a very important point that you made how everyday average people were portrayed as less than perfect and realistic by the artisans. How interesting I had not paid than much interest in these figures before.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I'm glad that you talked about how the strict artistic conventions did not apply to all members of society. I think it's important to keep in mind that people who were lower in social standing were depicted in a more naturalistic way. This shows that the Egyptians were certainly capable of depicting naturalistic figures, but they chose to adhere to a strict stylization to emphasize social standing.
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Wow, I didn’t understand the chapter portion when the author was talking about using math to draw the figures in Egyptian art—this was the main reason why I chose not to write my post on option #2. I knew the concept was important, so I didn’t want to write a post on option #2 leaving that information out. I’m really glad you chose to explain this in your post. I also didn’t really notice how the figures were depicted based on their status. Like how the lower class is shown to be smaller, and doing some sort of labor while the pharaohs are depicted as larger and in idealistic situations. I think you did a really good job on this post!
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