Ancient Egyptian illustration style-talk about the basic rules of ancient Egyptian painting

What are the characteristics of ancient Egyptian painting art?

Looking at the painting art of ancient Egypt, we can draw the conclusion that ancient Egyptian paintings are very similar to children's crayon drawings. This is not meant to belittle the art of ancient Egyptian painting in the slightest. Children's paintings can make it easier to understand the content of their thoughts. If we ask them to explain their paintings, we will find that there are more abstract things in their painting language, which are not found in adult works that repeatedly emphasize realism. They will grow two trees root to root for easier expression. They will draw the fish in the water to the surface of the water. They will fill the entire canvas and fill in the blank spaces with irrelevant content. They prefer bright colors and use as many colors as possible in a painting at the same time, allowing black, white, gray, red, pink, brown, yellow, blue, green and other colors to fill the entire picture.

This is clearly demonstrated in the paintings of ancient Egypt.

There is an example that illustrates this point. There is a famous mural in the tomb of the queen of the Fourth Dynasty of Meidum. Some people call it "Six Goose Picture of Meidum". This mural is said to be a masterpiece among ancient Egyptian paintings, with a rare realistic style. But this same mural is called "Picture of Ducks" in some books. The difference between ducks and geese need not be elaborated. Only in children's paintings can we not distinguish whether the poultry in the picture is a duck or a goose.

Another characteristic is exaggeration based on realism. In a mural showing the childhood life of Akhenaten's daughter, two naked princesses with shaved heads both have a melon-like back of their head protruding from them. In children's paintings, a certain feature is often highlighted and magnified. Moreover, the tone of this painting is bright red. I wonder if the grown-up princess will feel the same when seeing this painting. Embarrassed.

In terms of composition, ancient Egyptian paintings are quite satisfactory. For example, when painting a mural on a wall, they first use long lines to divide the wall into several levels, so that the content on each level does not infringe on each other. In many places, the main characters are enlarged so that they occupy the entire wall, and the blank spaces are filled with plots narrated in small pictures, or some hieroglyphs are written on them. In short, they do not leave large blanks like Chinese paintings. What are the characteristics of ancient Egyptian painting?

The basic characteristics of ancient Egyptian art are reflected in the following aspects:

A.

Strengthening the hierarchical concept of imperial power and the interpenetration of the religious spirit of service and soul , constitute the motivation for the creation of ancient Egyptian art. If in an equal primitive society, art, as a spiritual image of human beings trying to conquer natural forces, reflects the common desire of all members of society, then ancient Egyptian art serves a very small number of people.

Ancient Egypt was the most typical slave country in the East and a dictatorial kingdom that combined politics and religion. There is a very strict pyramid-like social structure there. In order to maintain the absolute dignity of the Pharaoh, it is necessary to use religious power to rule the spiritual world of people. This led the Pharaoh to spend hundreds of thousands of efforts to build himself tombs, temples, and carve giant statues to show his supreme status.

B.

The modeling rules that combine rational factors with fixed programs. Image creation in primitive art is all based on intuitive memory.

The creation of ancient Egyptian art used more rational factors. Those images are not based on what the artist can see at a specific moment, but on what he knows about a person or a scene. They always try to include everything they think is important in the shape of a person, and express it as clearly as possible. After the formation of this modeling rule, it was considered the only correct method, and future artists must strictly follow it. As a result, stylized shapes formed an important feature of ancient Egyptian art.

This kind of intellectual description method rarely shows the author's passion, but the work shows an amazing sense of order.

C.

Emphasis on the regularity of geometric forms and the pursuit of decorative expressions. The form creation of ancient Egyptian art is by no means a human figment, but a sharp observation of nature and geometric forms. The close integration between the regulations. This makes people feel that the expression techniques of ancient Egyptian art are always very concise and have a decorative flavor.

D.

The formation of a vigorous, majestic, solemn, clear and concise artistic style is the image reflection of the above characteristics. It reflects the spirit of the times in ancient Egypt and shows a new level of human intellectual development. Let’s talk about the basic rules of ancient Egyptian painting

The basic rules of ancient Egyptian painting are the side-facing body rule, that is, the body faces the audience and the face faces the audience sideways.

Side profile is a typical form of plastic art in Egyptian painting and sculpture. When drawing a character, draw the head as the side with the most undulating bones.

In order to preserve the spiritual outlook of the characters, the eyes are drawn frontally; since the front best expresses the body image, the torso is drawn from a frontal angle.

They believe that all things are eternal, and the limbs will be "shortened" when viewed from the front when they are in motion, so the limbs are depicted from the side. In ancient Egyptian paintings, the "law of side straight body" was strictly observed as an order. And influenced the painting and sculpture art of the Greek Archaic period.

Extended information

Characteristics of Egyptian art:

The building is huge and magnificent, with a strong sense of sublimity; the sculptures are simple and realistic, with strong integrity, It has the tendency of conceptualization, conceptualization and stylization, and the expression method follows the law of frontal view; the painting lines are smooth and graceful, the colors are rich, and the characters are expressed using a mixture of frontal and side faces, which has a distinctive style and unique appeal.

The earliest Egyptian art is animal paintings carved on rock walls, such as elephants, giraffes, hippos, etc., which belong to the rock art of nomadic people and are mainly distributed in Upper Egypt. Subsequent art developed separately in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.

Upper Egypt paid attention to depicting the surrounding environment based on rock paintings; Lower Egypt developed slowly and could not compare with Upper Egypt in terms of technology and richness. The different burial habits in Upper and Lower Egypt formed different tomb architectural forms in the future.

In Lower Egypt, the deceased is usually buried in the house or village where he lived, indicating that he is still a member of the family, and there are few burial objects; in Upper Egypt, the deceased is buried outside the residential area. the edge of the desert.

Food, weapons, equipment and daily decorations are often provided. Therefore, tombs come in two forms: house type and tomb type. In terms of pottery firing technology, Upper Egypt was also more advanced than Lower Egypt.

The surface of Upper Egyptian pottery is smooth and delicate. Various decorative pictures are painted in white on a black and red background, and occasionally animals or human figures appear in the gaps of some geometric and plant shapes.

Most of these painted images bear the characteristics of the Nile River Basin, such as hippos, crocodiles or primitive boats, and their techniques are relatively abstract. Around the middle of 4000 BC, ships with complete decks, oars, cabins and flags appeared in Upper Egyptian tomb pottery, as well as images of dancing women, and the composition became more complete and unified.

The background color is no longer black and red, but pink, with black and red lines drawn on it. The most eye-catching thing is the emergence of tomb murals, and the painting skills are a step forward compared to the previous pottery paintings.

A mural discovered in a tomb in Hierakonpolis is the earliest known mural ever discovered. There are 6 large boats in the center of the picture, and there are many people and animals around the boats and in other blank spaces.

The postures and movements of the characters are different. In the lower right of the picture, there are two fighting warriors, one of whom is head down, indicating that he was defeated; in the lower left, there is a victor, holding a stick in his hand and guarding three prisoners. This theme and expression method of expressing war victory have been used continuously in the history of Egyptian art.

Reference sources:

-Side profile

-Egyptian art