In a narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical 2D and 3D art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until the 3rd century. It is to be noted that most elements of Egyptian art remained remarkably stable over the 3000 year period that represents the ancient civilization without strong outside influence. The same basic conventions and quality of observation started at a high level and remained near that level over the period.
Character and Style Homeometric regularity, keen observation and exact representation of actual life and nature, and strict conformity to a set of rules regarding representation of three dimensional forms dominated the character and style of the art of ancient Egypt. Completeness and exactness were preferred to prettiness and cosmetic representation.
Because of the highly religious nature of Ancient Egyptian civilization, many of the great works of Ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and Pharaohs, who were also considered divine. Ancient Egyptian art is characterized by the idea of order. Clear and simple lines combined with simple shapes and flat areas of color helped to create a sense of order and balance in the art of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian artists used vertical and horizontal reference lines in order to maintain the correct proportions in their work. Political and religious, as well as artistic order, was also maintained in Egyptian art. In order to clearly define the social hierarchy of a situation, figures were drawn to sizes based not on their distance from the painter's point of view but on relative importance. For instance, the Pharaoh would be drawn as the largest figure in a painting no matter where he was situated, and a greater God would be drawn larger than a lesser god.
Symbolism Symbolism also played an important role in establishing a sense of order. Symbolism, ranging from the Pharaoh's regalia (symbolizing his power to maintain order) to the individual symbols of Egyptian gods and goddesses, was omnipresent in Egyptian art. Animals were usually also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Color, as well, had extended meaning? Blue and green represented the Nile and life; yellow stood for the sun god; and red represented power and vitality. The colors in Egyptian artifacts have survived extremely well over the centuries because of Egypt's dry climate. Despite the stilted form caused by a lack of perspective, ancient Egyptian art is often highly realistic. Ancient Egyptian artists often show a sophisticated knowledge of anatomy and a close attention to detail, especially in their renderings of animals.
Art Forms Ancient Egyptian art forms are characterized by regularity and detailed depiction of human beings and nature, and were intended to provide company to the deceased in the ?other world?. Artists endeavored to preserve everything of the present time as clearly and permanently as possible. Completeness took precedence over prettiness. Some art forms present an extraordinarily vivid representation of the time and the life, as the ancient Egyptian life was lived thousand of years before.
Egyptian art in all forms obeyed one law: the mode of representing man, nature and the environment remained almost the same for thousands of years and the most admired artists were those who replicated most admired styles of the past.
Egyptians were obsessed with the Afterlife more than they were with this life, even though this obsession belied a deep sensuality. The spiritual and religious ideas of the Egyptians all center around the idea that this life is to be lived in such a way that one makes oneself worthy to be taken by the gods into the next world, the world or land of "millions of years" where there is no aging and people live with the gods for such a long, long time that for all intents and purposes they become immortal.
Many researchers into the spiritual and religious ideas that influence Egyptian art have thus pointed out that ancient Egyptian religion bore a strong similarity to Christianity at least in this way. Of course, the Christian Gospels relate that Jesus and his family somehow had some ties to Egypt, although by that point in history Egypt had long since become an enemy land considered hostile, dangerous, and anti-Jewish. And one of the most important pioneers of the Jewish nations, Moses, came out of Egypt as well. Some researchers believe that Moses was historically the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten.
Even in that renegade Pharaohs name is the world "akh", which to Egyptian spiritual and religious thinking is one of the five constituent parts of the personality that make up the totality of a being. The Akh in Egyptian religious thinking is the re-united Ba and Ka (two other constituents of a person's being) that have been brought back together again in the afterlife in the new land of "millions of years". The five constituent parts of the personality had a strong influence on Egyptian art.
The Akh has been depicted as a hand with the thumb and the forefinger brought close to each other or brought together to depict the complete circle of earthly birth, earthly death, and rebirth in the new land of the Afterlife. Hieroglyphically, the Akh was depicted as an Ibis bird looking to the right, the East, the direction of rebirth, where the Sun arose anew each day. Indeed, the ibis in ancient Egypt was called "the crested akh-bird".
Originally, Egyptian spiritual and religious ideas held that only the royalty (including the priesthood) could get to the Afterlife; everyone else on earth was just here to serve them and then would perish into blackness when their lifetime was through.
Thus the Pharaohs and other priestly and royal personages would have tomb painters create magnificent murals depicting their life accomplishments and their devotion to the gods (who in ancient Egypt were not truly "gods" as we think of such beings today, but were rather superior beings called NTR, or "neter", which translates into "guardians" but who also created mankind; "neter" is probably the root of our modern English word "nature").
Royal tomb painters were thus extremely important people, although they were not always taken into the Afterlife and were sometimes killed to prevent them from working for another. Later on, however, Egypt grew a middle class which also sought the Afterlife, and religious beliefs were modified to accommodate them.
Animals are extremely important to Egyptian art. The well-known scarab beetle, which rolls up balls of its own dung and lays eggs within them, is the symbol of rebirth and the sixth sense.
And a divine creature that is half crocodile and half hippopotamus is depicted as waiting to devour a soul whose heart, when weighed by the goddess Ma'at, is heavier than a feather; these people do not pass over into the Afterlife. Artistically rendered feathers and symbols of flight such as birds like the ibis are also extremely important to Egyptian spiritual and religious ideas.
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