ancient egypt, pp. 33-40 - cc intro to the study of · pdf file04.03.2010 ·...

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Ancient Egypt, pp. 33-40 The invention of Egyptian visual language: relief representations from the Palette of King Narmer (Pre-Dynastic Period) Giving shape to eternity: architecture from the mastaba (Pre-Dynastic) to the pyramid (Old Kingdom) Abstraction and realism in sculpture (Old Kingdom) Notions of abstraction and agoraphobia

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Ancient Egypt, pp. 33-40

The invention of Egyptian visual language:

relief representations from the Palette of

King Narmer (Pre-Dynastic Period)

Giving shape to eternity: architecture

from the mastaba (Pre-Dynastic) to the

pyramid (Old Kingdom)

Abstraction and realism in sculpture

(Old Kingdom)

Notions of abstraction and agoraphobia

The Egyptians brought

the prehistoric period to

an end when they

created hieroglyphic

writing:

the use of pictures,

objects, and other signs

to represent spoken

sounds

Egyptian culture was

characterized by a concern

for personal as well as

collective eternity:

elaborate funerary

practice

Rulers devoted huge sums

to the design, construction,

and decoration of extensive

funerary complexes ,

including the pyramids: a

dialogue with History

Egyptians elaborated

representational

conventions that are among

the most distinctive in art

history, and that were

applied for 3000 years

Palette of Narmer,

Pre-Dynastic

Period, c.3000

BCE, p.34

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

With the Palette of

Narmer we are at its

origins and we can

already recognize its main

qualities

We are at the end of the Pre-

Dynastic period, when the

two kingdoms of Upper and

Lower Egypt were united in a

great and powerful empire

(Upper conquered Lower Eg.)

the palette is the earliest

document of this historical

passage

Palette of Narmer,

Pre-Dynastic

Period, c.3000 BCE

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

Subject matter: unification

of Egypt

Left: king Narmer

slaying Lower Egypt.

Under his feet are two

fallen enemies

Right: the interwound

necks of two felines refer

to Egypt’s unification;

in the uppermost register,

victorious parade

Palette of Narmer,

Pre-Dynastic

Period, c.3000 BCE

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

Palette of Narmer,

Pre-Dynastic

Period, c.3000

BCE, p.34

The invention of

Egyptian visual

language

FUNCTION: makeup

holder (eyes make up) used

in religious rituals

-political value:

commemoration of the

military and territorial

victories of Narmer

The palette is decorated with relief images

Relief: Image or motif which sticks out from a

fixed background in carved or molded

sculpture - and is therefore not freestanding.

The image may stick out in high (alto),

medium (mezzo) or low (bas) relief

FORMAL ANALYSIS

Palette of

Narmer, Pre-

Dynastic

Period, c.3000

BCE

Here we have the 4 main characteristics of the

Egyptian figure representation:

1) twisted-perspective (descriptive

approach): profile views of head, legs and

arms; front views of eye and torso

2) hierarchical proportions: the size of

figures corresponds to their importance

within the image’s narrative and to their

social rank

3) the surface is subdivided into registers:

pictorial elements are inserted into their

organized setting in an orderly way

horizontal lines are both separating the

narratives and defining the ground

supporting the figures

Egyptian “abstraction”

4) the Egyptian tendency toward

abstraction:

Abstraction: the process of considering

something independently of its associations,

attributes, or concrete accompaniments.

-the process of removing something.

-in 20th century art: freedom from

representational qualities

-from Latin: from the verb abstrahere: raw

away

Egyptian artists tend to “remove”

images and forms from reality and

to elaborate them into ideal shapes

with new, symbolic meanings

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

the representation of facts is translated into

symbols

The falcon with human arms is Horus, the

king’s protector: he is taking captive a man-

headed hieroglyph with a papyrus plant

growing from it that stands for the land of

Lower Egypt

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

Texture: smooth surfaces.

no surface irregularities (opposite to Paleolithic

exploitation of the natural conformation of the

rocks);

shapes are neat and perfect, the hand of the sculptor

is not visible

- Spatial abstraction: the notion of space is

translated into abstract registers without reference

to the optical perception (flat background, figures

reduced to silhouettes)

Stylistic abstraction:

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

that Egyptians, like moderns, suffered of collective

agoraphobia (fear of open spaces),

which led them to formulate an abstract

representation of space

German art historian and theorist, Worringer,

wrote (Abstraction and Empathy, 1907)

The invention of Egyptian

visual language

Subject-matter abstraction:

Actually, in Narmer’s palette

is not represented the

historical fact,

but rather a religious ritual,

staging the unification of

Egypt

In fact, Narmer’s servant is

holding the king’s shoes: in

Egypt the act of taking off

shoes characterized religious

rituals

The Unification of Egypt was

the historical fact from which

Narmer’s dynasty received its

right to rule

Ti Watching a

Hippopotamus Hunt,

painted relief, Saqqara,

Egypt, c. 2510-2460

BC, p. 39

Symbolic value

of images:

hunting as

metaphor of

triumph over the

forces of evil

Twisted

perspective:

descriptive

approach to the

human figure

Tendency toward

abstraction: the dense

forest of papyrus changes

from being a

representation of nature

to a fine abstract pattern

the surface is subdivided

into registers: fishes and

hippopotami are inserted

into their organized setting

in a neat and orderly way

Palette of Narmer,

Pre-Dynastic

Period, c.3000 BCE

hierarchical

proportions: Ti

(an official of the

pharaoh) is bigger

than his servants

While Ti is represented

according to a traditional

abstraction and stillness,

his servants are much

more realistic

They are portrayed in action,

and with more natural poses

Hierarchy is shown

not only through the

figures’ size:

different levels of

abstraction are used

as differentiation of

social ranks

In the history of art, especially portraiture, it is almost a rule that as a human

subject’s importance decreases, formality is relaxed and realism is increased

Imhotep, Stepped

Pyramid, ca. 2630-

2611 BC

Giving shape to eternity:

architecture from mastaba to the

pyramid

Ancient Egyptians believed that an essential part

of every human personality is its life force, or

spirit, called the ka

Which lived on after the death of the body

It was important to provide a comfortable home

for the ka of a departed king

In Early Dynastic Egypt, the most common

tomb structure was the mastaba:

A flat-topped, one story building erected above an

underground burial chamber

For his tomb complex at Saqqara, king Djoser

commissioned the earliest known monumental

architecture in Egypt.

mastaba

Imhotep, Stepped

Pyramid, ca. 2630-

2611 BC, p.35

Giving shape to eternity:

architecture from mastaba to the

pyramid

Imothep first planned the tomb as

a matsaba, then later decided to

enlarge upon the concept

In the end, what he produced

was a stepped pyramid formed

by six mastaba-like elements

This monument fulfilled a dual

function:

1)to protect the mummified king

2)and to symbolize his absolute

divine power

The architect of the complex was Imothep, king

Djoser’s prime minister and priest of the sun: the

first artist in history known by his name (after his

death he would be venerated as a god)

-Djoser’s Stepped Pyramid may

also have been conceived as a

giant stairway (link between the

ka and the sun)

Giving shape to eternity:

architecture from mastaba to the

pyramid

the true pyramid, with a square

base and four sloping triangular

faces

The growing wealth of ruling families of the Old Kingdom

(c.2575-2150 BC) is reflected in the size and complexity of

the tomb structures they commissioned for themselves

is the development of the

Stepped Pyramid into an

abstract, purely geometric

solid

Great Pyramids, Giza, c. 2550-

2450 BC, p.35

The angled sides of the

pyramids may have been meant

to represent the slanting rays of

the sun,

inscriptions on the walls of

pyramids tell of the deceased

kings climbing up the rays to

join the sun god Ra

Giving shape to eternity:

architecture from mastaba to the

pyramid

Moreover, pyramids were

surfaced with white limestone

When this facing was intact, the

reflected sunlight would further

underscore the pyramid’s role as

a solar symbol

Symbolism: kings were reborn in the afterlife as the sun is

reborn each day at dawn

the four sides of each of the

Great Pyramids are oriented to

the cardinal points of the

compass

Great Pyramids, Giza, c. 2550-

2450 BC, p.35

The funerary temples

associated with them are placed

on the east side, facing the

rising sun and underscoring

again their connection with Ra

this is probably the origin of the east orientation existing in most of the

temples in Mediterranean cultures

Giving shape to eternity:

architecture from mastaba to the

pyramid

Great Pyramids, Giza, c. 2550-

2450 BC

They placed the king’s tomb chamber in the very heart of

the mountain of masonry,

at the end of a long, narrow, steeply rising passageway,

sealed off after the burial with a 50-ton stone block.

Three false passageways further

obscured the location of the tomb

The designers of the pyramids tried to ensure that the king

and his tomb would never be disturbed

abstraction and realism in

sculpture

Egyptian statues’ blocklike forms

express a feeling of strength and

permanence

Function: images of the deceased

served as houses for the ka

should the mummies be

destroyed

Khafre wears a simple kilt

and sits rigidly, he has the

royal false beard fastened to

his chin

Khafre, from Gizeh,

ca. 2520-2494 BC,

diorite, p.38

perfect body and face,

regardless of his actual age

and appearance

strict proportional

scheme

A squared grid drawn

on three sides of a

block of stone

was used to demarcate

the height and width of

each figure’s body

parts following a

STANDARD

FORMULA

abstraction and realism in

sculpture

abstraction and realism in

sculpture

The purpose was not to

record individual features,

but rather to proclaim the

godlike nature of Egyptian

kingship

Khafre, from Gizeh, ca.

2520-2494 BC, diorite,

p. 38

Egyptians considered ideal

proportions and symmetry

appropriate for representing

imposing majesty,

abstraction and realism in

sculpture

Not only in the seated figure of

Khafre, but also in the

canonical “walking”

Menkaure, the sculptor

suppressed all movement and

with it the notion of time,

creating an eternal stillness

Khafre, from Gizeh, ca.

2520-2494 BC, diorite

Menkaure and His

Wife, slate statue,

Egypt, c. 2515-

2472 BC, p.39

abstraction and realism in

sculpture

Such works are often more lively and

less formal than royal portraits (we

noticed the same phenomenon)

Old Kingdom sculptors produced figures not only of kings

but also of less prominent people

Scholars have written of an Egyptian

Realism in order to contrast these works

to the abstract character of royal portraits

Because the pupils are slightly off-

center, the face acquires a lively

intelligence

Seated Scribe,

from Saqqara,

ca. 2400 BC

The scribe’s sedentary vocation has

made his body a little flabby, a

condition that advertised a life freed

from hard physical labor

Such signs of physical imperfection

and liveliness (which means

humanness) would have been

disrespectful in a depiction of a divine

king