The sculpture
| Compared to the ancient dynastic period, in the Ancient Reign the
Egyptian sculpture had a quick development: from Zoser’s time, the pharaohs’
great statues were typical, it was believed they kept their spirit. The
recursing technique foresaw that the block of stone was first squared until it
had the shape of a parallelepiped, it was than sculptured on the front and
lateral sides according to the human figure to represent: the sculpture was made
to be seen in the front. As he had to create an image with no time and eternal of the person represented, the artist wasn’t interested in a naturalistic description of his physiognomy: moreover the figure was almost always represented standing up, blocked in a static position, even when the scene represented was in motion. The human anatomy was know, but was translated in an abstract way; the sovereigns’ images, particularly, were idealized and exaggerated with great dignity. Chefren’s diorite statue (2530 bc, Egyptian Museum in Cairo) the pharaoh for whom the second great pyramid in Giza was built, summarizes all the typical characteristics of the way of representing the sovereigns in Ancient Egypt: the king is sitting on a throne decorated with the emblem of the unified lands, with his hands on his Knees, his head up and his glance far away. God horu’s falcon on his shoulders symbolizes that he is the “living Horus”. The volumes are compact, almost geometric, and all the parts in the figure are balanced, creating a powerful image of the divine royalty. The personages in the pharaoh’s family and the high dignitaries could also be represented in group of statues, together with living relatives and consanguinous. The statues were in stone, in wood or rarely in metal, and were painted the eyes were made with other materials, such as the crystal rock, and set the statue to increase the varismiltude. The sculptures almost alway represented high-class people; sometimes humble people were represented preparing food or busy in handicraft activities, in statues that were to be put in the aristocrats’ tombs, as an eternal image of their servants. If the relief on the temple walls had to glorify the king, the walls of the inner chambers of the tombs represented acts or things that pleased the dead person’s spirit, so they could accompany him in afterlife. Often they were scenes when the dead person is busy or supervisees various activities, as when he was alive. The typical bidimensional way of representing the human figure, sculptored or painted, was directed by the intention to represente the person’s essence; it mixed the representation of the head, and the lower part of the body in profile with a frontal image of the torso, offering a clear description of each part. This rule was always followed for the portraits of kings and nobles; while for the servant and laborers in the fields there wase some differences and free interpretations. To complete the verisimiltude effect the bas-relief were coloured and some details were added with brushes; we have examples, that go back to the Ancient Reign, of rase decoration that weren’t sculptored, but completely frescoed. From the funeral bas-relief many information can be deduced about the Egyptians’s life and customs; ways of raising livestock are represented; the variety of food and of the ways to prepare it, how to capture wild animals, the construction of boats and handicraft activities. The images were arranged horizontally on the walls, or in registers, and were read as recurring, cyclic events. |
