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Egyptian Art Notes
Fine Arts
Higdon
Egypt- first truly national state
The Nile River-protected from enemies and provided surplus of
food
History divided into three kingdoms: Old, Middle, New. The
Middle was a time of political disturbance and invasion s. The
New is considered the Golden Age in Egyptian history
Egyptian art- remained nearly unchanged for several thousand
years- is so well preserved because of its hot and dry climate
Imhotep- the first artist in history whose name is known
Egyptians wished to live forever - this desire led to the
development of tomb art and architecture in the fourth dynastywe owe most of what we know of ancient Egypt to ancient
pyramids where the pharaoh was buried with his food, servants,
art and equipment to accomp any him to his second life - Egyptian
rulers began to construct their tombs as soon as they were
crowned- they believed that a pharoah’s spirit or life force or ka
was immortal- the size and decoration of a tomb depends upon a
pharoah’s wealth
Book of the Dead- formula for facilitating passage of dead to
celestial realm
Religion-polytheistic-worshipped many god
Egyptian creation myth - Osiris placed in tomb to be drowned by
his evil brother Set but Osiris’ wife/sister Isis found him; then
Set cut up Osiris and scattered his body all over the earth but
Isis found all of his body except his _____, but she created one
for him, impregnated herself and had a son, Horus, who avended
Osiris by killing Set. Osiris’ death represents triumph over
death, immortality and the victory of Horus represents good
over evil
Sun god- Amon-Re- the creator of man
God of the Nile- Osiris- first story of resurrection
Isis- goddess of children and mother of Horus
Thebes- the religious capitol of Egypt
Amenhotep-introduced monotheistic religion
Egypt is mentioned in the Bible - plagues- Moses leading the
Hebrews away
Egyptian state was a theocracy - no separation of state and
religion- law in Egypt is based on a pharoah’s word or whims
Mummification-system of embalming that preser ves a body for
thousands of years- purpose to preserve body until the soul
returns-takes about 70 days- p. 165 , an embalmed body is called
a mummy- natron is the salty substance used in embalming
The Great Pyramids of Giza - purpose of pyramids is to h ouse the
dead pharoahs
Cheop’s Pyramid- the largest
Great Sphinx- carved in bedrock - a monument -body of a lion
with the head of the pharaoh Khafre, represents the pharaoh as
the god Horus- the protector of kingship
The last Egyptian queen was Cleopatra .
Statues- arms are rigid, faces look straight ahead, frontal view
of torso, sense of immobility, each left foot is slightly forward this is called stylization
System of writing= hieroglyphics , instruction through sacred
carvings, only priests could read them, tell stories of battles,
life of Egyptians, and other mysteries…helicopter, airplane
hieroglyphs, lost city of Atlantis
Rosetta Stone- French officer during Napoleonic conquests inscription in Greek and hieroglyphs - before this little was
known about the Egyptians
Bust of Nefretti- realistic-King Tut’s mother - regal headdress
and elongated neck - timeless standard of elegance
Tomb of King Tut - Howard Carter spent ten years looking for it found completely intact with no disturbance from grave robbers Tut died at age 18- the most famous art is his burial mask
Overall theme of Egyptian art concerns life after death.
Characteristics of Egyptian sculpture, hieroglyphs, paintings
1. The most important subject (person) is always the largest in
scale
2. always presents the body in the best physical view
Always balanced
3. figures look frozen - no movement, attached to the stone
from which they were carved
4. frontal view of body and eye
Egyptian art influenced Greek and Roman art.
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Egypt
• 4,000BC - 332AD
• Longest, uninterrupted history of any culture
Egypt Timeline
• Pre-dynastic
– 4,000 - 3,000BC
• Old Kingdom
– 3,000 - 2,400BC
• Middle Kingdom
– 2,400 - 1,575BC
• New Kingdom
– 1,575 - 1,100BC
• Late period
– 1,100BC - 332AD
• c. 600BC - conquest by Persia
• 332AD - conquest by Rome
• Ptolemaic period (Ruled by Rome)
– after 332AD
General Concepts
• Protected by deserts, isolated
• Depended on yearly flooding of Nile
• Art in service of the Pharaoh
• Order and Balance
• 90% of population wi thin 10 miles of
Maps of Egypt
Nile
Egyptian Mythology
INTRODUCTION
The religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians were the
dominating influence in the development of their culture.
A true religion, in the sense of a unified theological system,
never existed among them.
The Egyptian faith was based on an unorganized collection of
ancient myths, nature worship, and innumerable deities.
In the most influential and famous of these myths a divine
hierarchy is developed and the creation of the earth is
explained.
CREATION
According to the Egyptian account of creation, only the ocean
existed at first.
Then Ra, the sun, came out of an egg that appeared on the
surface of the water.
Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the
goddesses Tefnut and Nut.
Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who
became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky.
Ra ruled over all.
Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two
daughters, Isis and Nephthys.
Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his
sister-wife.
Set, however, hated his brother and killed him. (Osiris & Isis
legend, see below)
Isis then embalmed her husband’s body with the help of the god
Anubis, who thus became the god of embalmi ng.
The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king
of the netherworld, the land of the dead.
Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a
great battle and became king of the earth.
Nut and Geb
The Legend of Osiris and Isis
There were the four children of Geb and Nut;
Boys - Osiris & Set
Girls – Isis & Nephthys
Osiris married Isis
Set married Nephthys
Osiris became the living king of Egypt
Set was VERY jealous of this
Set tricked Osiris into getting into a g old box, which he then
closed and threw into the Nile
Set took the throne of Egypt
This upset Set’s wife, Nephthys, and she left him to help her
sister Isis
Together, Isis and Nephthys found the body of Osiris on the
island of Byblos and brought it back to Egypt
Set found the body and ripped it into 14 pieces, throwing them
again into the Nile, where they were scattered.
Isis and Nephthys went all over Egypt and found the 13 of the
parts (all except the penis), building a temple to Osiris at each
place
Isis then bound up the 13 pieces in cloth (mummification), and
constructed a penis
Isis turned into a Kite (a hawk) and flapped her wings on the
body of Osiris, breathing the wind of life back into his body
Osiris and Isis then had a child, Hours
Isis raises Horus in secret so Set cannot find him
Osiris becomes the lord of the dead, as he was the fist person to
die
When Horus grows up, he avenges his father’s death by defeating
Set
Horus castrates Set and sends him into the desert to live forever
in isolation
Horus becomes the “prototype” pharaoh, after which all
pharaohs are viewed as divine, being “Horus”
LOCAL GODS
Ennead, a group of nine divinities, and the triad, consisting of a
divine father, mother, and son.
Every local temple in Egypt p ossessed its own ennead and triad.
The greatest ennead, however, was that of Ra and his children
and grandchildren. This group was worshiped at Heliopolis, the
center of sun worship.
Their importance increased with the political ascendancy of the
localities where they were worshiped.
As the religion became more involved, true deities were
sometimes confused with human beings who had been glorified
after death. Thus, Imhotep, who was originally the chief
minister of the 3rd Dynasty ruler Zoser, was lat er regarded as a
demigod.
ICONOGRAPHY
The Egyptian gods were represented with human torsos and
human or animal heads.
Sometimes the animal or bird expressed the characteristics of
the god.
Ra, for example, had the head of a hawk, and the hawk was
sacred to him because of its swift flight across the sky
Anubis was given the head of a jackal because these animals
ravaged the desert graves in ancient times.
Because of the gods to which they were attached, the sacred
animals were venerated, but they w ere never worshiped until
the decadent 26th Dynasty.
The gods were also represented by symbols, such as the sun disk
and hawk wings that were worn on the headdress of the
pharaoh.
SUN WORSHIP
The only important god who was worshiped with consistency was
Ra, chief of cosmic deities, from whom early Egyptian kings
claimed descent.
Beginning with the Middle Kingdom (2134 -1668 BC)
Ra worship acquired the status of a state religion.
During the 18th Dynasty the pharaoh Amenhotep III renamed the
sun god Aton, an ancient term for the physical solar force.
Amenhotep IV, instituted a revolution in Egyptian religion by
proclaiming Aton the true and only god.
He changed his own name to Akhenaton, meaning "Aton is
satisfied."
This first great monotheist was so iconoclastic that he had the
plural word gods deleted from monuments, and he relentlessly
persecuted the priests of Amon.
Akhenaton’s sun religion failed to survive, although it exerted a
great influence on the art and thinking of his time, and Eg ypt
returned to the ancient religion of polytheism after Akhenaton’s
death.
BURIAL RITUAL - The Book of the Dead
Burying the dead was of religious concern in Egypt, and Egyptian
funerary rituals and equipment eventually became the most
elaborate the wo rld has ever known.
The Egyptians believed that the vital life -force was the ka.
The ka, a duplicate of the body, accompanied the body
throughout life and, after death, departed from the body to take
its place in the kingdom of the dead.
The ka, however, could not exist without the body; every effort
had to be made, therefore, to preserve the corpse.
Bodies were embalmed and mummified according to a traditional
method supposedly begun by Isis, who mummified her husband
Osiris.
After arriving in the kingdom of the dead, the ka was judged by
Osiris, the king of the dead, and 42 demon assistants.
The Book of the Dead also contains instructions for proper
conduct before these judges.
If the judges decided the deceased had been a sinner, the ka
was condemned to hunger and thirst or to be torn to pieces by
horrible executioners.
If the decision was favorable, the ka went to the heavenly realm
of the fields of Yaru.
Anubis as the God of Embalming, the son of Nephthys, depicted
as a jackal, or as a jackal-headed man probably because of the
jackal's tendency to prowl around tombs, he became associated
with the dead, and by the Old Kingdom , worshipped as the
inventor of embalming, who had embalmed the dead Osiris, thus
helping preserve him in order to li ve again.
Apis- an early deity, probably the best known Egyptian deity
represented only as an animal, h e was represented as a bull
crowned wit h the solar disk and serpent, h e was primarily a
deity of fertility.
Aten- the sun-disk itself, depicted as a d isk with rays, each ray
terminating in a human hand and bestowing sym bols of "life"
upon those below.
Bast- a cat-goddess, protector of cats a nd those who cared for
cats, as a result, an important deity in the home (since cats
were prized pets).
Geb- the god of the earth, h e is generally represented as a man
with green or black skin - the color of living things, and the
color of the fertile Nile mud, Geb is masculine, contrasting with
many other traditions of Earth being female.
Hathor- a very old goddess of Egypt, worshiped as a c ow-deity
from earliest times, s he was usually shown with a solar disk
flanked by cow horns on her head, s he was also the patron of
love, dance, alcohol, and foreign lands.
Horus-one of the most important deities of Egypt. As t he Child,
Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis, who, upon reaching
adulthood, avenges his father's death, by defeating and
castrating his evil uncle Set, h e then became the divine
prototype of the Pharaoh.
Imhotep- a historical figure. He was the architect , physician,
scribe, and vizier (adviser) of the 3rd Dynasty pha raoh Zoser,
conceived and built the Step Pyramid at Sakkara .
In the Late Period, Imhotep was worshipped as the son of Ptah
and a god of medicine, as w ell as the patron of scribes.
He was one of the few mortals born of common blood to be
elevated to the rank of deity.
Isis- Perhaps the most important goddess (or god, for that
matter) of all Egyptian mythology, h er most important functions,
however, were those of motherhood, marital devotion, h ealing
the sick, and the working o f magical spells and charms, s he was
believed to be the most powerful magician in the universe,
owing to the fact that she had learned the Secret Nam e of Ra
from the god himself, s he was the sister and wife of Osiris,
sister of Set, and twin sister of Nephthys, and was the mother of
Horus, responsible for protecting Horus from Set during his
infancy; for helping Osiris to return to life; and for assisting her
husband to rule in the land of the Dead.
Nephthy-s"Lady of the House", the youngest child of Geb and
Nut, The sister and wife of Set, and sister of Isis and Osiris; also
the mother of Anubis , She abandoned Set when he killed Osiris,
and assisted Isis in the care of Horus and the resurrection of
Osiris, he was, along with her sister, considered the special
protectress of the dead, and she was the guardian of Hapi, the
protector of the lungs of the deceased.
Nut- the goddess of the sky, depicted as a woman with blue skin,
and her body covered with stars, standing on all fours, leaning
over her husband Geb, representin g the sky arched over the
earth.
Osiris- the god of the dead, and the god of the resurrection into
eternal life; ruler, protect or, and judge of the deceased, Osiris
was the first child of Nut and Geb, thus t he brother of Set,
Nephthys, and Isis, who was also his wife. By Isis he fathered
Horus, and according to some stories, Nephthys assumed the
form of Isis, seduced him thus, and fro m their union was born
Anubis.Being the first person to die, he subsequently became
lord of the dead.
Ra- the god of the sun; the name is thought to have meant
"creative power", and as a proper name "Creator", similar to
English Christian usage of the term "Creator" to signify the
"almighty God." Very early in Egyptian history, Ra was identified
with Horus, who as a hawk or falon -god represented the loftiness
of the skies. Ra is represented either as a hawk-headed man or
as a hawk.In order to travel through the waters of Heaven and
the Underworld, Ra was also depicted as traveling in a boat.
Sekhmet- A lioness goddess, created by Ra from the fire of his
eyes as a creature of vengeance to punish mankind for his sins.
Selket- A scorpion -goddess, shown as a beautiful woman with a
scorpion poised on her head; her creatur e struck death to the
wicked, she was also petitioned to save the lives of innocent
people stung by scorpions and was also viewed as a h elper of
women in childbirth, s he is depicted as binding up demons that
would otherwise threaten Ra, and she sent seven of her
scorpions to protect Isis from Set, s he protected Qebehsenuef,
the son of Horus who guarded the intestines of th e deceased,
she was made famous by her statue from Tutankhamen's tomb,
which was part of the collection which toured America in the
1970's.
Set- the patron deity of Lower (Northern) Egypt, and
represented the fierce storms of the desert that the Lowe r
Egyptians sought to appease. When Upper Egypt conquered Lower
Egypt and ushered in the 1st Dynasty, Set became known as the
evil enemy of Horus (Upper Egypt's dynastic god). Set is best
known for murdering his brother and attempting to kill hi s
nephew Horus. Horus, however, managed to survive and grew up
to avenge his father's death by establishing his rule over all
Egypt, castrating Set, and casting him out i nto the lonely desert
for all time.
Sobek- the crocodile god, worshipped to appease him and his
animals
Thoth-he god of wisdom, Thoth was said to be self -created at
the beginning of time, along with his co nsort Ma'at (truth),
depicted as a man with the h ead of an ibis bird, and carried a
pen and scrolls upon w hich he recorded all things, h e was shown
as attendant in almost all major scenes involving the gods, but
especially at th e judgement of the deceased, h e served as the
messenger of the gods, and was thus equated by the Greeks with
Hermes, he is a god of the moon, and is also the god of time,
magic, and writing. He was considered the inventor of the
hieroglyphs.
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From earliest times in Egypt the pharao hs were worshipped as
gods: the son of Ra, the son of Horus, etc.
The pharaoh was looked upon as being chosen by and favored by
the gods, his fathers.
Ra
Heiroglyphs
• Old
Kingdom – beginnings of Hieroglyphics - ("sacred carving")
• Characters in any of several systems of writing in which the
characters are pictorial , that is, represent recognizable
objects.
• The term hieroglyph is, however, most generally associated
with the script in which the ancient Egyptian language was
written; the Greeks applied the t erm to the decorative
characters carved on Egyptian standing monuments.
Hieroglyphics
• The word hieroglyphic was later used to describe the pictorial
writing systems of the Hittites, Cretans, and Mayans, but their
systems are in no way related to one anoth er or to the Egyptian,
having in common only that they are pictorial.
IDEOGRAMS AND PHONOGRAMS
• Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions are composed of two basic
types of signs: ideograms and phonograms.
• Ideograms signify either the specific object drawn or so mething
closely related to it; for example, a picture of the sun may mean
"sun" or "day".
• Phonograms, or sound signs, were used purely for their
phonetic value and have no relationship to the word they are
used to spell.
Hieroglyphic inscriptions could b e written either vertically or
horizontally, usually from right to left, or top to bottom.
DECIPHERMENT OF HIEROGLYPHS
The Romans believed that Egyptian hieroglyphs were symbolic
and allegorical, not phonetic; this theory prevailed into the time
of the Renaissance.
The breakthrough came in 1799, when a soldier serving in
Napoleon's campaign in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone, a
bilingual stela inscribed (196 BC) with a decree in honor of
Ptolemy V in Greek, hieroglyphic, and demotic (“popular”
writing form) Egyptian.
It was not until the work (begun 1821) of the French
Egyptologist, Jean François Champollion, however, that the two
Egyptian scripts were recognized as phonetic.
In earlier stages of the work Champollion had predicted the
hieroglyphic spelling of various royal names based on the
demotic; these spellings were confirmed by actual cartouches on
the Rosetta Stone and other Ptolemaic monuments.
After identifying the names and titles of the Greco -Roman
rulers, he combined the phonetic va lues he had so derived with
his knowledge of Coptic, the late stage of the Egyptian language.
This achievement enabled him to decipher earlier Pharaonic
cartouches. In 1822 the decipherment of the hieroglyphs was
completed.
Sculpture / "Solid" arts
• 1 s t and most important art form of the Egyptians
• Small to life-sized
• Realistic, with some idealization
• Cubic, upright rectangle, frontal
• To be viewed from the front
• To glorify the king, and to give the spirit the things
it needed
for the after-life
Show parts of the body from their most identifiable side;
Head – side
Lower body – side
Eye – front
Upper body – front
Face rarely shown from front
Idea was to preserve the essence of what was being shown, n ot
always realistic.
Old Kingdom
• Oldest surviving metal statue
– Pepi I (ruled 2395-2360BC)
• Copper, circa 2300BC
• Pottery
– Well made
– Variety of shapes
– Usually un-decorated
Old Kingdom
• Jewelry
– Gold and precious stones
– Animal and plant designs
Middle Kingdom
• More realism (less idealization)
– Jewelry
• Precious metal inlaid with colored
– Few large sculptures
–
stones
New Kingdom
• Combination of realism and idealization
• Decorative arts
– Well designed and made
– Alabaster, ebony, gold, ivory, precious stones
– Love of decor ation
Painting / "Visual" Arts
• Relief carving
– Painting on carvings and
– Tomb wall painting
– Palette of King Narmer
sculptures
• 3100BC
• Shows uniting of upper and lower
• Make-up palette
• Shows king in “smiting” pose
– Arm raised in striking gesture
Egypt
Treasures of King Tut
Tomb plan
Antechamber as found
Opening the three coffins
Gold mask as found
Gold mask restored
Anubis
Alabaster case
Canoptic shrine
Two part case
Portrait head
Relief of Selket
Tut’s throne
Vulture pendant
Wooden chest
Architecture
2 n d most important
art form
Old Kingdom
Imhotep, architect for Zoser
Stepped pyramid at Saqqarah
c. 2,720BC
Grew from mastaba (Ar. “bench”)
Pyramids - c. 2700BC
• 80+ still in existence
• Giza Pyrmid complex most famous
• Oldest existent complete buildings in th e world
• Only remaining structure of the 7 ancient wonders
world.
• Necropolis
– city of the dead
Reconstruction of the pyramid complex
Cheops/Khufu (The “Great” pyramid)
of the
•755’ 8” on a side (13 acres, area of 10 football fields)
•481’ tall (40 story bu ilding, 1 and 2/3 football fields)
•2.3 million blocks
•Base covers 13 acres
•Base is level 1/4 inch from corner to corner
•Oriented perfectly N and S
•Used as a Geodetic marker for the entire ancient world
•Is at the center of a circle drawn around the Nile Del ta
the other pyrimads at Giza
• Chephren/Khafre, son of Cheops
– 707’ on a side
– 471’ tall
– appears taller because it’s built
• Mycerinus, son of Chephren
– 356’ on a side
– Less well made
on higher ground
“Man fears time,
time fears the pyramids.”
Sphnix – head of man, body of lion, guardian of pyramids
Architecture
• Middle Kingdom
– Little building, almost none still
• New Kingdom
– New focus on religious building
existing
(see following)
Temple at Luxor
• Temple of Amun, Mut, and Chons
– Anchorage for the royal boats d uring the floods
– Main religious center at various times in Egyptian
Temple at Luxor
Temple at Al Karnak
• Valley of the Kings
• Tombs cut into rock, underground
• Covered to hide (Tutankhamun)
Temple at Al Karnak
Tomb of Hatshepsut
history
•Only true female phar aoh
•Vast above ground, terraced structure
•Many shrines to gods and carvings of her accomplishments
Temple at Abu Simbal
• 4 large statues of Ramses II (pharaoh at the time of Moses)
• Deep rock-cut temples behind in mountain
• Moved in 1968 to save it from the r ising of Lake Nasser
Temple at Abu Simbal