Egyptian Painting

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• Egyptian Painting Low Relief Carving

Kevin J. Benoy
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Egyptian Painting Low Relief Carving

• Much of what survives is temple or funerary art.
• Wall paintings in tombs were often instruction
  manuals for the dead, to assist them in passing
  to the afterlife.

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Egyptian Painting Low Relief Sculpture

• Painting and low-relief carving follow exactly
  the same style, the latter being merely a carved
  version of the former.
• Most low-relief carvings were also painted.

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The System

• Paintings are divided into registers or bands.
• A ground line is generally present.
• This could be vertical or horizontal.

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The System

• Paintings usually convey a story they do not
  capture a particular movement as modern western
  art tends to to.
• This multi-moment art is not unlike medieval
  European art.

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The System

• Only three views are possible
• Side
• Front
• Top
• Side and front were combined in the same image.
  Eye and shoulders are frontal, with head and legs
  in profile all in the same image.
• No attempt is made to portray three
  dimensionality
• Men are coloured reddish and women, yellowish.
• Colours are flat and not blended.

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The System

• Pharaohs are shown with great dignity.
• They seem not to exert themselves, even when
  engaged in dramatic activities.

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The System

• Egyptian painting was hieratic which means that
  people were scaled according to importance.
• Pharaohs are shown larger than other beings,
  followed in importance by high priests, nobles,
  then others.

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The System

• Lesser beings can be depicted with greater
  naturalism.

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The System

• Women are shown more lifelike than men with
  more movement apparent.

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The System
Proportions follow rigid rules and continued to
do so throughout most of the 3000 year history of
Ancient Egypt.
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The System

• The Canon of Human proportions was a square-grid
  of 18 units applied to a drawn human figure
  (standing) allowing its reproduction in various
  sizes, but always anatomically proportionate.
• There were 2 squares allowed for the face (from
  the hairline to the base of the neck), 10 squares
  from the neck to the knees, and 6 squares from
  the knees to the sole of the feet. There was a
  nineteenth square used for the hair, but it was
  not counted with the rest of the body.
• A sitting figure was divided into a 14
  square-grid (15 including the hair).
• From Egyptvoyager.com

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The Amarna Period

• In the dramatic Amarna Period the time of
  Akhanaton (Amenhotep IV), a religious and
  artistic revolution swept through Egypt.

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The Amarna Period

• Fluid lines replaced the hard geometry of
  traditional painting and low-relief carving.

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The Amarna Period

• The standard geometry of traditional art was also
  changed
• The canonical grid of 18 units was replaced by
  one of 20.
• 2 squares were added between neck and knee.
• Though orthodoxy was restored after Akhenatons
  death, some of the fluidity remained in later
  work.

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The Amarna Period

• While the Amarna style survived Akhenaton in its
  less dramatic forms, his religion did not.
• The boy-king, Tutankhamen, returned Egypt to
  religious orthodoxy and artistic orthodoxy
  reasserted itself.

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Finis