Culture and art in Egypt
Ancient Egyptian Art.
The art of the ancient Egyptians was inspired by the love of beauty, common in contemporary culture, and the artist's desire to recreate the world around him.. Most of the items, which survived to our times, they are not works of art as we understand them today, but it was created for this, to accompany the deceased in the afterlife and be a magical equivalent of a real living thing or figure.
Egyptian canon, that is, the rules of composition in art and architecture, it manifested itself in a different way of representing gods and rulers: they were motionless, about the features of timeless youth and strength. The characters were idealized, highlighting the synthetic features, not portraits. There was a principle of realism in relation to the lower classes. Sometimes the higher status of characters was emphasized, showing an obese person. There was a scheme of capturing the human figure: head, limbs in profile, arms and eye en face and a strict canon of proportions.
One of the oldest structural elements found in Egyptian art is the pillar and the column, also having a decorative function. A square pillar was often found in the architecture of the Old Kingdom. Over time, it was covered with inscriptions and reliefs. The Osirian pillar is a rectangular sloop, a stone statue of Osiris with the face of the founding king leaned against the front wall. So-called proto-diodes columns (incorrect name, actually polygonal columns) are architectural supports in the form of a polygonal column (8, 16, 32 walls), used since the times of the Middle Kingdom. The lotus, papyrus and palm trees were used as patterns for the columns. The lotus and papyrus columns were characterized by a capital representing open or closed flower buds. The stem was formed by a stem or a bundle of stems. Beam columns were characteristic of the art of the Old and Middle Kingdom. The palm column had a straight stem, and the pommel imitated the crown of a tree. Hatorycka was distinguished by a characteristic capital with the head of a goddess.
Egyptian temples were built according to the canon established during the New Kingdom (XVI-XI w. p.n.e.). The whole was surrounded by a mud brick wall.
An alley of sphinxes led to the temple, and the entrance opened between the two pylon towers. Then there was a columned courtyard, from which you entered the hypostyle room (columnar). Then there was a hall for the sacred barge and a walk around it, from where you passed to the sanctuary with the statue of the deity. Stairs led from the vestibule and the hall to the barge to the roof, to the chapel. Starting from the sunlit courtyard, each subsequent room was darker and smaller.
The complex also included priests' houses and warehouses, sacred lake and birth house (mammisi). The basic elements of the temple could be repeated many times (pylon, courtyard, hypostylowa prayer). Colossal statues of the founder stood in front of the pylons, obeliski. Often, instead of ordinary columns, Osirian statues of the ruler were placed in the courtyards.
The walls of the tombs and temples were covered with paintings and inscriptions. The outer walls of the temples were decorated with colorful reliefs depicting the military successes of the ruler. The interiors were decorated with depictions of pharaohs worshiping deities.
Reliefs have accompanied Egyptian art from the earliest times. Among them, there were:. flat relief, where the imaginary motif protrudes slightly above the background plane; relief wklęsły (in-depth) – the background plane is the face of the plate, and the composition is recessed, and convex – the composition stands out clearly in front of the background, approaching a full sculpture. From the Old to the New Kingdom, the flat relief was most often used; in Hatshepsut's time there is a recessed relief, to reign for good in the art of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasty.
Coptic art
Coptic art was created out of a fusion of Hellenistic and early Christian art, in opposition to the art of the pharaonic period.
In the first centuries, its main center was Alexandria. After the Islamic conquest, there was a regression and mixing with elements of Islamic art.
From the 4th c. Copts built monasteries and churches. Since the time of Justinian (VI w.) domes were often used. The walls were covered with mosaics and paintings with biblical and New Testament themes. There is no full sculpture here, instead, a small ornamental carving in wood develops, ivory and stone, about strict compositional canons. The Copts introduced a new way of representing human figures (frontalism, opposition to the Egyptian canon). Their characteristic feature is geometrism, hieratism and big eyes. The first to introduce Madonna nursing the Child.
Their craftsmanship is wonderful jewelery, ceramic dishes and, above all, fabric (woven and embroidered). The art of writing resulted in numerous codices illuminated on the papyrus, parchment and paper.
The art of Islam
The Persian variety was the inspiration for Arab art in Egypt. There were no presentations of living people in visual arts (exception – Fustat ceramics from the Shiite Fatimid period), only in scientific treatises and miniatures in manuscripts can one admire the perfect mastery of the art of depicting human and animal figures by Islamic artists. The ornament has developed tremendously: processed floral and geometric motifs of incredible richness, unheard of in other cultures (ornamental Arabic script was often used for this purpose). The art of Islam was also characterized by horror vacui and a love of color. The latter feature is most common in ceramics and fabrics. horror void – fear of the vacuum – it stimulated artists to cover the entire surface with ornaments. The decorations were inspired by processed Hellenistic art, nomad art, Ancient East and China.