On the basic principles of ancient Egyptian painting

The basic law of ancient Egyptian painting is the law of body integrity, that is, the body faces the audience and the face faces the audience sideways.

The law of body shaping is a typical plastic art form in Egyptian painting and sculpture. When drawing a character, draw the head as the most undulating side of the skeleton.

In order to preserve the mental outlook of the characters, the eyes are drawn in a positive way; Because the front can best express the body image, the trunk is depicted from a front angle.

They think that everything is eternal, and the limbs will "get shorter" when they move from the front, so they use the side to depict the limbs. In ancient Egyptian painting, the "lateral law" was strictly observed as an order. And influenced the painting and sculpture art in ancient Greece.

Extended information: the characteristics of Egyptian art;

The building is huge and magnificent, with a strong sense of loftiness; Sculpture is simple and realistic, with strong integrity, and tends to be conceptual, conceptual and stylized, and its expression method obeys the positive law; The painting lines are smooth and beautiful, and the colors are rich. The characters are represented by a mixture of front and side, with distinctive style and unique interest.

The earliest Egyptian art is animal paintings carved on rock walls, such as elephants, giraffes and hippos, which belong to nomadic rock paintings and are mainly distributed in Upper Egypt. The subsequent fine arts developed in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt respectively.

Upper Egypt pays attention to depicting the surrounding environment on the basis of rock paintings; Lower Egypt, on the other hand, developed slowly and could not compare with upper Egypt in terms of technology and wealth. Different burial habits in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt led to different burial architectural forms in the future.

In Lower Egypt, the deceased are generally buried in the house or village where they lived before their death, indicating that they are still family members and there are few funerary objects; In Upper Egypt, the dead were buried on the edge of the desert outside residential areas.

Food, weapons and daily decorations are usually provided, so there are two forms of graves: house-style and grave-style. In terms of pottery firing technology, upper Egypt is also more advanced than lower Egypt.

The surface of upper Egyptian pottery is smooth and delicate, and various decorative patterns are drawn in white on a black-red background. Occasionally, animals or figures appear in the gaps between some geometric shapes and plant shapes.

Most of these paintings have the characteristics of the Nile Valley, such as hippos, crocodiles or primitive ships, and their techniques are more abstract. Around the middle of 4000 BC, the pottery of upper Egyptian tombs appeared with ships with complete decks, paddles, cabins and flags, as well as dancing women's images, and the composition was more complete and unified.

The background color is no longer black and red, but pink, with black and red lines painted on it. The most striking thing is the appearance of tomb murals, and the painting skills are much better than those of previous pottery paintings.

The mural found in a tomb in Yerakompolis is the earliest known mural. In the center of the picture are six big ships. There are many people and animals around the ships and other blank spaces.

Characters have different postures and actions. At the bottom right of the picture, there are two warriors fighting, one of whom is facing down, indicating that he has been defeated; On the lower left is a winner, holding a stick and holding three prisoners. This theme and method of showing the victory of war has been used in the history of Egyptian fine arts.

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