EGYPT

Ancient Egyptian society was highly sophisticated for its time. Examples of Egyptian art can rarely be classified as 'art for art's sake'. Ancient Egyptians believed in a sort of magic. Their magic was based on the concept that there was a supernatural force available to humans through sympathetic means. They believed that by acting out or depicting a situation, it would happen. Anthropologists call this "transformation of state", or changing reality to a more desirable situation.

Egypt's history has seen thirty dynasties. New styles in Egyptian art often developed with a new dynasty and historical era. The beginning of Egyptian history seems to exhibit Mesopotamian influences, while the end sees the influence of the Greco-Roman world.

Actually, ancient Egyptians had no work for art. They did however have words for different monuments that today we regard as art. It is not known if Egyptians had a concept of art as we think of it today. They did not have a notion of gathering art together to be viewed as we do today with museums. It is or these reasons that we now think that their 'art' was almost purely functional. They created through representation. Statues provided a place for the gods to manifest themselves and pictures were the contacts between the world of the living and the dead.

The pieces of art seen in museums today are not a total representation of Egyptian art. There are many pieces not shown that do not exhibit perfect composition, proportions and poor workmanship. Kings could afford the higher ranked artist while the common man could not. This only goes to show that the pieces must have worked whether beautiful or not, just one more example that Egyptian art was almost purely functional.

Egyptian art has been criticized for having figures not sculpted in twisting shapes and pictures with no perspective. This has nothing to do with a lack of skill or imagination on the Egyptians part, but rather with the purposes for which the art was created. Their sculpture and paintings had a system to them that was widely used. Paintings were composed in a hierarchical way.

A main material used for Egyptian art was stone, mostly limestone. Stone had many uses, such as temples and monuments, statues and relief's. Often the stone was painted, but much was usually left bare, as the color of stone chosen had meaning. Before painting, walls were smoothed out and any holes filled in with plaster. Then scenes were laid out in red, and corrections made in black. During the middle Kingdom grids were introduced to help with proportions and composition. Then paint was laid on one color at a time, details completed last.

Egyptian society encouraged conformity and not individualism. It has been deduced that Egyptian artists worked in teams, and not alone. The fundamentals of these team's art were established early in Egyptian history and changed little over time. With the introduction to the Western World, modern Egyptian art sees a change in medium, but still embodies many ideas, and techniques of the earlier arts.