Egyptian Art
Old Kingdom reliefs and paintings
(2575-2134 BCE)
Middle Kingdom
(2055-1650 BCE)
The Nile – stability
Egypt - stability
Balance and Symmetry
(Ma’at – goddess of justice, truth and balance)
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Upper and Lower Egypt
South and North
East and West
Life and Death
Truth and Falsehood
Horus (good,living pharaoh and son)
vs. Seth (evil god of deserts)
Relief carving and painting
• Used grid system
• Used conventional canons of proportion
(established, calculated and used a specific ratio between body
height and all parts of the body as a guideline for all artwork; height=
18 fist widths; foot length= 3.5 fists; base of nose to shoulder = 1
fist… )
Used conceptual (vs. naturalistic) conventions (frontal
and profile views together; aerial and side and frontal
views together)
Hippopotamus Hunt, Ti’s Tomb
2450-2350 BCE (4’ high)
entrance to Ti’s mastaba in Saqqara. Has courtyard,
funerary chapel, serdab, and burial shaft with
sarcophagus
First Intermediate period,
Middle Kingdom,
2040-1640 BCE
Second Intermediate period
Head of Senusret III (Sesostris III)
Middle Kingdom
Rock-cut tombs,
carved out using the subtractive method,
at Beni-Hasan
Pectoral of Senusret II,from his daughter’s tomb,
gold with inlaid semiprecious stones.
Horus, coiled cobras (Ra);
ankhs (everlasting life);
scarab beetles (Ra, Atum, rebirth),
“May the sun god give eternal life to Senuseret II”