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Part 4: The Progression of Art through Egypt to Greece

Imagine what art history would be like, how lackluster, were it not for the art of Egypt. From roughly 4000 B.C. when it was conquered, Egypt was said to have possessed wonders of such number and quality as to be indescribable. Today's interest in all that is Egyptian certainly supports that theory.

The profusion of monuments, massive sculptural works, temples and tombs of unprecedented grandeur seem almost impossible to comprehend, yet Egyptian dwellings were made of inferior materials. Clearly their message was the religious structures were far more important and should exist for eternity. The timelessness of these structures characterizes the ageless art of Egypt.

Egypt was known as the Kingdom of Two Lands, referring to Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. It was a physical and political division; the upper land was dry and rocky and maintained a rustic culture, while the lower land was opulent and urban. Great conflict emerged until around 3000 B.C., when the art of the time began to reflect a gradual change. The images began to depict Kings who now were shown as divine and of equal importance to gods. This marked a change in the fundamentals of politics and religion and began to create an idealistic form and structure in art.

Architecture of the time concentrated on the construction of tombs, their permanence and timeless symbolism. The Stepped Pyramid of King Zoser was completed in about 2750 B.C., and the great pyramids at Giza were completed between 2680 B.C. and 2260 B.C. One question often asked is whether or not the pyramids would ever have come to be had it not been for the Egyptians' religious need to create an everlasting shrine. But from an art history point of view, the reason is far less important than the actual structures themselves. Building the structures of nearly solid masses of limestone, which were quarried miles away and floated across the Nile during flood season, seems like an almost impossible feat. Stones were then shaped by a mason and numbered in red ink, with the number representing the placement of the stone in construction. Each corner of the largest pyramid at Giza, Khufu (or Cheops), is situated exactly on one of the four points of the compass. These were awesome feats no matter when they were constructed.

Painting and sculpture complemented the architecture for which they were designed. Sculpture of the time is reflected in the popular image of everything from the Great Sphinx to thousands of other more human likenesses. The method used for most Egyptian sculpture was subtractive - working away the excess stone - and accounts for the block-like look of most statues of the time. Relief sculpture and painting were also practiced and seemed to echo that same stiffness and formality in design. But the purpose of these works was more to document and elevate those depicted. Pottery continued this same depiction of daily routines and events in a graphic yet somewhat flat style.

As the power of Egypt began to slip, Greece and Grecian art began to rise. For the Greeks, the order of both nature and reason was beauty. The intellectual process became a part of the creative process, and the "good life" was entwined with all that was cultural, social and political. Man was regarded as the highest creation and value in nature. It was the Greeks who created the natural image of man in art, an honoring of the individual.

The landscape differences - Egypt with its long, horizontal line and Greece with its diversified geography helped change the art as well. Nature worship became personified and gods assumed human form. Athens in many ways became the symbol of Greek culture. We think of masterpieces of Greek art as being temples and statues but not paintings. This is because temples and paintings still exist in some form, but not one painting has survived.

The art of Greece is more an embrace of older civilizations that were embellished with contemporary motifs and ideas. Greeks acknowledged their adaptation from others and melded it into the style and form we now consider so much a part of this time period. The stylized beauty of Greek sculpture, the form and design of the pottery, jewelry and glass, and the architecture clearly have had a lasting impact on the world of art.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 11 No. 5 -- March 2001