A question about ancien egyptian art
Keith Grenville
On 14/10/1997 18:28, in message <3443964f...@news.mindspring.com>,
Katherine Griffis <gri...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Marc De Preter <depr...@helios.iihe.ac.be> wrote:
>
> >Hi
> >
> >I saw a book on ancien egyptian art, and I was wondering why sculptures
> >where so accurate (i mean, with a real knowledge of 3D, and quite
> >accurate body representation), and why where drawings so flat ? Was
> >drawing a minor art (compared to sculpure) ?
>
> The Canon of Egyptian art, which every ancient artist seems to have
> abided by, can be explained most coherently in this fashion:
>
> a) Egyptian art was a reflection of the continuity of the Universe,
> the gods, king and the people of Egypt. In that sense, what was
> represented in art was not so much how things actually _appeared_, but
> an idealized version of what was important to the maintenance of the
> metaphysical realms of creation.
>
> In the _Dictionary of Ancient Egypt_, by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson,
> in association with the British Museum (1995, Abrams), it was stated
> thusly:
>
> (Huge snip)
Hello Katherine ( best regards to you) - and Hello Marc!
Just a quick contribution...
Let us not forget that the Narmer Palette in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo,
established the conventions of ancient Egyptian art (c.3000 BC)- i.e. formality
of immediately recognizable representations and symbols of persons and actions.
We see the pharaoh in the 2 dimensional form - also we must remember that this
is, by our standards, fundamentally "primitive" art. Before this, as far as we
know, people were creating cave paintings, etc. The Narnmer PaNarmererves as
an early example of hieroglyphs, conventions of visual representation,
registers or horizontal divisions of an illustration to be read from the bottom
to the top, and, presumably, the earliest representation of the union of the
two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Regarding the full frontal face in 2 dimensional art - this was most often used
for protectors and guards in tombs - often depicted as flat-headed, bald or
shaven-headed, threatening-looking guys carrying knives. (Sounds like any
place, next week!!!)
Marc, look at Cyril Aldred's book "Egyptian Art".
*--
Keith Grenville
The Egyptian Society of South Africa
PO Box 232, Plumstead, Cape Town, 7801
Telephone/Fax 27 (021) 72 9471
Cell Phone 083 441 0003
Pedro Ramírez
Katherine Griffis wrote:
> I think the key to this
> is to remember that the Egyptian (as you can tell by the sculptures)
> had no problems in three-dimensional representation, but for
> _functional purposes_ (what the art was meant for), it just wasn't
> necessary to show 2 eyes when the other is _implied_ by inference from
> the one represented, and the main point of the representation was to
> assure sight to the person represented, for example. The Canon (art
> rules) required ritualistic ways to represent person in sculpture and
> painting, and because this system had more religious than aesthetic
> importance, it was pretty well adhered to through the entire history
> of ancient Egypt, with the Amarna Period being a point of deviation
> for its naturalistic posing of the human body, and the Old Kingdom
> another slight deviation, emphasis on detailed nature
> representations.
>
> HTH
>
> Regards --
>
> Katherine Griffis (Greenberg)
> Member, American Research Center in Egypt
> International Association of Egyptologists
> University of Alabama at Birmingham
> Special Studies
>
> ftp://newton.newton.cam.ac.uk/pub/ancient/egypt/email.addresses.txt
>
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Dear Katherine:
The question of the "problem"the egyptians had with tridimensional
representation is one many of us have wondered on. I tried once to
establish an explanation (please correct me if I'm wrong or if this
sissue has already been explored by someone, I'm not an egiptologist,
just and artist looking in):
Due to the enormous level of mysticism and religiousness of this people,
they could not accept to view a tridimensional ilusion of another
reality, it would be felt like a blasphemy among them, so they mus have
made an agreement not to represent, tridimensional figures. The rule to
represent volume figures must have been: "Imagine the object or person
you are representing as if it were confined between a transparent
slightly flexible surface and the wall. If possible imagine the distance
between the surface and the wall at a máximun of 5 cm. Imagine as if the
transparent surface applies enough pressure on the object or person in
order to minimize the protuberancies of the object, then and only then
you can represent it".
Hope to hear your comments on this.
Best,
--
Pedro Pablo RAMIREZ _ o _
Cra. 15 No. 59-57 Apt. 801 /|\
Bogotá, Colombia ______|_|______|___||_______
www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/1243 / / \ \\