Research further examples of Ancient Egyptian visual
communication- especially relating to spiritual or religious beliefs and how
they were expressed.
The ancient Egyptian civilisation began around 3100 bce. The Egyptians were based along the river
Nile the reason that this civilisation lasted so long was because of how
fertile the land was along the banks of the river. The fertile land enabled the
people to grow healthy crops to sustain healthy lives. This is the reason why
their civilisation lasted for over 3,000 years[1].
The Egyptians created most of their
art for tombs which implies that this art was never intended to be looked at[2].
Therefore it wasn’t a recreational thing to create art; it had a deeper meaning
to it. A lot of the art was created for religious and spiritual reasons. An
example of this is the book of the dead. This was seen as a magical book full
of spells, chants and illustrations that is thought to lead the deceased to a
better afterlife.
The art that was created for
tombs, temples and scrolls was often representative of everyday life in ancient
Egypt. It was like a form of visual documentation. Although their drawings show
what happened in real life their representations of life are far from
realistic. People didn’t have a general sense of drawing perspective till later
centuries so the Egyptians tried to depict all of the most important parts of a
human in one drawing. For example they would draw the body and the head represented
in profile (side on) and the limbs and shoulders and eyes shown straight on. Their
images of people also came across very stylised and cartoon like.
[1] ‘Explore / World Cultures Ancient Egypt’ http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/cultures/africa/ancient_egypt.aspx,
(November 03,2013)
[2] Dr. Amy
Calvert ,‘Egyptian art’
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history/art-history-400-c-e--ancient-cultures-1/ancient-egypt/a/egyptian-art (November 04,2013)
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