Chapter 2: Egyptian Art Instructor's Manual

PART ONE: THE ANCIENT WORLD

CHAPTER TWO: EGYPTIAN ART

The following chart is based in the work of French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal.

Early Dynastic Egypt

• About 3150 BC Egypt became a unified state.

• According to tradition, Egypt had evolved into two regions — Upper Egypt, to the South, and Lower Egypt, near the Nole Delta.

• Ancient documents refer to "Menes King — Menes God" as the ruler who conquered Lower Egypt and merged the two lands.

• Modern Egyptologists feel that the process of unification evolved over a long period of time.

• The Palette of King Narmer, which probably celebrates a victory over Lower Egypt, is the earliest surviving image of a historic personage identified by name.

• Through the figure of King Narmer, we can understand that Egyptian artists adhered to artifical conventions in the posing of figures: eye and shoulders are frontal, head and legs are profile.

Third Dynasty

• The most notable figure of the Third Dynasty is King Djoser, whose tomb complex at Saqqara included: a temple, built in the form of a mastaba, a South and North Palace, and a serdab that contained the Ka statue of Djoser inscribed with the name of a man called Imhotep, the first architect in history known by name.

• For the Egyptians, who had a strong belief in an afterlife, the most important part of the soul to be served in the afterlife was the Ka.

• The Egyptians provided an earthly abode for the Ka either in the mammified body of the deceased or in a statue of the deceased.

Fourth Dynasty

• The Founder of the Fourth Dynasty was Sneferu who adapted the step pyramid of King Djoser to the more familiar smooth-sided shape.

• The development of the pyramid shape reaches its climax with the three pyramids at Giza, the earliest and largest of which was built by Khufu (c. 2601 — 2528 BC), Sneferu’s son. The other two pyramids were built by Menkaure and Khafre.

• Also a part of this necropolis is the Great Sphinx whose head traditionally was through to resemble the features of Khafre. Recent scholars, however, are now attributing the features to Khufu.

• Apart from the temples and pyramids, there are a number of sculptures that survive from the Fourth Dynasty among which are the rigid, blocky figures of Khafre and of his son Menkaure and His Wife, Queen Khamekemebty. These examples all proclaim stability, are confined within a rectangular composition, and are abstracted to conform to a standard of perfection dictated by Egyptian cultural preferences.

The Middle Kingdom

• The art of this unsettled period is fascinating in its variety of subjects and experimentation.

• There was a change in the perception of the pharaoh at this time. He was seen not simply as a god but as an individual with responsibilities to his subjects.

• A fragment of a portrait of Sesostris III, located today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, displays an emotional and physical realism that was altogether unique and not seen in the royal portraits of the Old Kingdom.

• In architecture, the funerary monument at Deir el-Bahri of Mentuhotep II is a mixture of traditional elements with new ones introduced during the Middle Kingdom. Here we find, in ruins, a terraced structure that extended in the living rock and was topped off with a pyramid in the form of a mastaba.

• Departing from convention, too, are the paintings and relief sculptures of this period.

• The Middle Kingdom ended when a group of foreign settlers, the Hyksos, took advantage of a weakened government.

The New Kingdom

• Within a century, the Hyksos were expelled and Egypt entered a final period of cultural and economic prosperity, the New Kingdom.

• The art of the New Kingdom is diverse and covers a wide range of styles. We can still find the rigid conservatism of the previous dynasties but we also encounter a short-lived disruption during the reign of Akhenaten (ruled 1352-1336 BC) that is known as the Amarna period because Akhenaten’s capital was located near present-day Tel el-Amarna. Here, Akhenaten launched an artistic and religious revolution.

• Akhenaten, whose names means "One Who Is Effective on Behalf of Aten," was instrumental in changing the complex traditional polytheistic foundation of Egyptian religion to monotheism, in particular the worship of the god of the solar disk, Aten.

• Here, as well as looking at the sunken relief panel of Akhenaten and His Family or the limestone bust of Akhenaten’s wife Nefertiti, the instructor may want to expand the students’ appreciation of this period by reading one of the most famous hymns of the New Kingdom. Entitled The Great Hymn to the Aten, it celebrates the idea that there is only one god (the Aten) who is lord of the entire creation. A second theme of the hymn is the mediating role played by the king in interpreting God to humankind.

• Akhenaten’s innovations angered the priests and the political elite, who were able to restore the conventions of older ways both in religion and art.

• This process of restoring orthodoxy in religion and art began soon after Tutankhamen, Akhenaten’s son-in-law, ascended the throne.

• The Rameses dynasty was the last significant dynastic family of the New Kingdom.

• The New Kingdom pharaoh, Ramses II, completed a massive temple at Luxor whose two walls, with sloping sides form a gateway or pylon entrance.

• In 323 BC, Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great, thus introducing a Greek presence in ancient Egypt.

Key Terms/Places/Names

Discussion Questions

1. Discuss in both form and function tomb architecture from the mastaba to the Pyramids at Giza.



2. Compare and contrast painting and sculpture from the Fourth Dynasty with that of the reign of Akhenaten.



3. Discuss the representation of the deceased in Old Kingdom tomb decoration, such as that of "Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt."



4. How does the "Palette of King Narmer" establish both visual and iconographic conventions which will guide Egyptian art for centuries?



5. How do Middle Kingdom portraits and paintings differ from those of the Old Kingdom?



6. Discuss the importance of tomb paintings and how do these paintings relate to the Egyptian concept of the Ka.



7. How were aristocratic women of Ancient Egypt portrayed in the art of the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom?

Resources

Casson, Lionel. Ancient Egypt. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1978.

Samivel. The Glory of Egypt. New York: Vanguard Press, 1956.

Schiff, Bennett. "Out of Egypt: Art in the Age of the Pyramids." Smithsonian, September 1999.

Shler, Jeffrey L. "Tales from the Crypt (Ramses the Great)." US News and World Report, May 29, 1995.

Urschel, Joe. "Digging Up the Dead: Exploring the mystery of Egypt’s greatest tomb," USA Today, July 28-30, 1995.

Vercoutter, Jean. The Search for Ancient Egypt. New York: Abrams, 1992.

Ancient Egypt. 1971, 51 min. VHS, TLF.

Pyramid. David McCaulay. PBS, 1987. VHS. 60 min.

Egypt–the Gift of the Nile. VHS. OP. 29 min.

Exploring the Egyptian Pyramids. FFTH, 2000. VHS. 50 min.

http://www.idsc.gov.eg/culture/egy_mus.htm, The Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

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