If architecture is a fundamental part of ancient Egyptian culture, no less important are the various visual arts that complement and adorn its buildings.
The statues
Although much of the collection of statues of gods that were kept in Egyptian temples has been lost, especially because they were made of precious materials, most of the sculptures that have survived to this day represent the pharaoh and his family, and were intended for tombs, with the purpose of housing the ka.
The formal characteristics of these sculptures are:
* The frontality that suggests the view of the figure from the front, a perception accentuated by the vertical background against which it leans.
* The strict symmetry of the body respecting an axis.
* The inexpressiveness of the faces, which show no particular features other than an imposing severity.
* The succinct and robust character of the anatomy, which tends to represent idealized features, with the arms nailed to the body, folded or bent over the leg.
* An evident static character of the figure, which relates to the idea of eternity.
* Some gender differences can be perceived, such as the fact that male figures always have their left leg in front of their right, and female figures have their feet together. In the case of polychrome figures, the difference is in skin tone—dark in men, light in women—as in the statues of Prince Rahotep, son of Pharaoh Snefru and Nofret.
* Despite the rigid and severe character of the representations of the pharaoh and his deities, a certain realism is also found in the statues. This is the case of The Seated Scribe, in polychrome limestone, a more humanized figure with a reflective expression, represented at the moment he is performing his work, and the so-called Sovereign of the People, in which a common human type can be recognized.
The style of these statues remained almost unchanged for several centuries. The style of these statues remained almost unchanged for several centuries.
Nevertheless, in some works from the Old Kingdom, there is a desire to give the pharaoh's face some expression, contrary to the uniformity of the Middle Kingdom. Only during the reign of Amenhotep IV (around 1380 BC, 18th Dynasty) did an important transformation occur, known as the Tell-el Amarna period, when the pharaoh founded the new capital and encouraged the worship of the sun god Aten. The portrait of his wife Nefertiti shows some new features, such as the elongated proportions which, along with other facial features, can also be appreciated in reliefs.
Iconography and modes of representation
The reliefs and paintings that appear in the tombs reveal the richness of Egyptian iconography: they mainly represent religious beliefs in scenes of funeral banquets, with offerings and funeral processions, or aspects of daily life, such as victories, worship rituals, or the breeding and cultivation of animal and plant species.
In these scenes, there are hieroglyphic inscriptions, which form part of the decoration and give meaning to the scene depicted.
These inscriptions were made with extraordinary care. The relationship between writing and image is so close that one cannot be understood without the other, as part of the same plastic-textual narrative. The scenes are represented in two dimensions, using outlines that define the shape of figures and objects, foregoing depth, although this is sometimes suggested through the repetition of profiles or
superimposition. This implies certain conventions in relation to the human figure, such as the adoption of the front view for some parts of the body, such as the torso and eyes, and the profile for the bust and Nefertiti, the head and legs, in addition to the location of the leg that is furthest from the viewer always in front of the other.
The main figures are also larger than the secondary ones. From a technical point of view, the differences between reliefs and paintings are evident: the relief, which due to its small volume is called bas-relief, is obtained by carving a stone surface, while the painting, which is mural in nature, is done fresco, with colors diluted in lime water and applied over a layer of fresh stucco. Next, a touch of tempera was added, a procedure in which the colors are mixed with a soluble glue. But given the polychrome character of the relief and the type of linear representation it uses, it is similar to painting: both should be considered linked, both in terms of background and representation system. Relief reached its perfection during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, while painting acquired great autonomy as a specialty during the New Kingdom, as revealed by the paintings in the tomb of Vizier Ramose.
