Ancient Egypt, with its state structure and numerous innovations in culture and art, is one of the most complete sources of information about the life of people in the distant past. It is this state that is considered the founder of many trends in architecture, painting and sculpture. art history ancient egypt in many cases helps to understand the meaning of the events that took place at that time. Power changed, the geographical boundaries of the state changed - all this was reflected in the artistic images left on the walls of buildings and tombs, in miniature images on household items.

The first systematic material on the history of the origin and development of Egyptian art was written by the famous historian, anthropologist and archaeologist Mathieu. The art of Ancient Egypt in his understanding is the direct ancestor of the artistic creativity of Europe. At a time when Rome and Greece were just learning the basics of architecture and sculpture, the Egyptians erected monumental buildings and decorated them with numerous bas-reliefs and paintings.

The culture and art of Ancient Egypt did not undergo significant changes over many millennia. Undoubtedly, in certain periods of time, the branches of the artistic, applied or architectural direction were somewhat modified. But the basic dogmas established during the birth of cultural traditions remained unchanged. That is why even decorative applied art Ancient Egypt has features peculiar only to it. One glance at the objects made by the masters of this civilization is enough to determine that they were made in Egypt.

Periodization of the art of Ancient Egypt, its aspects and canons

The development of the art of Ancient Egypt took place in several stages. All of them coincided in time with the existence of the so-called kingdoms: the Ancient (28-23 centuries BC), the Middle (22-18 centuries BC) and the New (17-11 centuries BC). It was during these times that the formation of the basic principles of ancient Egyptian culture as such took place. The main trends in art were identified: architecture, sculpture, painting, musical and applied arts.

At the same time, the fundamental canons were determined. In the art of ancient Egypt, special attention was paid to their observance. What were they? Firstly, the heroes of the depicted events have always been gods, pharaohs and members of their families, as well as priests. The plot necessarily contained sacrifice, burial, the interaction of the divine and human principles (gods with pharaohs, gods with priests, etc.). Secondly, artistic composition almost never had a perspective: all the characters and objects were depicted in the same plane. Another feature is the proportions of human bodies in relation to their significance and nobility. The more noble the character, the larger he was portrayed.

Ancient Egypt, whose art is not limited only to artistic creativity, differed from other states that existed in the same time period in architectural structures. For several decades BC. e. majestic buildings were built in this state, the purpose and layout of which were also strictly canonized.

In order to get a better idea of ​​such a state as Ancient Egypt, whose art and architecture carry information about the past, it is worth considering certain periods of its development.

General characteristics of the art and architecture of the Old Kingdom

The true flowering of ancient Egyptian culture, according to archaeologists, falls on the period of the Old Kingdom, namely, during the reign of the 4th and 5th dynasties of the pharaohs. The art of the Old Kingdom of Egypt at this time is represented by tombs and palaces built of stone and baked bricks. At that time, the burial structures did not yet have a pyramidal shape, but already consisted of two chambers: an underground chamber, where a sarcophagus with mummified human remains was stored, and an above-ground one, where things were located that the deceased might need to travel along the river of death.

By the end of the period, the tombs began to take on other forms due to the additional tiers of stone blocks erected above them. The sculptural and visual art of Ancient Egypt at that time was an image of scenes from the life of the gods and pharaohs. Statues that personified the dead, their servants and the army were also widespread. All of them depicted people in their prime.

The main feature of sculpture in this period is monumentality. It was possible to inspect the statues only from the front and from the side, since their backs were turned to the walls of the buildings. They lacked any individual features of a deceased person or a living ruler. It was possible to identify who is depicted by the corresponding attributes, as well as by the inscriptions at the base of the sculpture.

Middle Kingdom: features of art and architecture

In the initial period of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, the disintegration of the state began. It took two hundred years to unite the disparate state formations into a powerful economic power. Many aspects of culture in the Middle Kingdom were borrowed from the past. Pyramids were also built with underground or hollowed-out burial chambers in rock formations. Materials such as granite and limestone have found wide application in architecture. Temples and other monumental structures were built using columns. The walls of buildings were decorated with carvings and reliefs depicting gods and pharaohs, domestic and military scenes.

Features of the art of Ancient Egypt during this period consisted in the use of floral ornaments in sculptural compositions and paintings. The frescoes depicted ordinary life Egyptians: hunting, fishing, farmers at work and much more. In a word, attention began to be paid not only to the ruling class, but also to ordinary people. Thanks to this, historians have the opportunity to learn how Ancient Egypt developed. The art of sculpture has also changed.

Unlike those made in the previous period, the statues acquired more expressive features. The sculptures of the Middle Kingdom could, at least in general terms, give scientists an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat the depicted person looked like in reality.

Art and architecture of the New Kingdom

The culture and art of Ancient Egypt acquire special monumentality and luxury during the period of the New Kingdom. It was at this time that the power, strength and wealth of the country are most vividly sung. Temples and other significant buildings are now being built not only from granite and limestone blocks, but also cut into the rocks. Their size is still amazing. In this regard, the construction lasted a very long time. The rules for the internal and external planning of buildings according to a single model have become generally accepted.

In the Middle Kingdom, columns became an important part of almost all buildings, which made even colossal structures lighter and more airy. It was thanks to them that inside the buildings it was possible to observe the unique phenomena of the play of light and shadow. Sculptural images of pharaohs, nobility and gods during this period were decorated with inserts of glass, ceramics and semi-precious metals. Often such inserts enlivened sculptural portraits. Here it is worth remembering the famous head of Queen Nefertiti, which looks very realistic.

The decorative art of Ancient Egypt at that time was enriched by such a branch as painting, or rather, painting. Various scenes from the life of the Egyptians were depicted surrounded by amazingly beautiful ornaments. At the same time, the canons of the image of human figures characteristic of the Old Kingdom were not rejected.

Another innovation that was not noticed in other periods of Ancient Egypt (art as such had not yet been formed) was the manufacture of small-sized figurines and household items: toilet spoons, incense bottles and cosmetics. The materials for them were usually glass and alabaster.

The most famous architectural monuments of ancient Egypt

One of the clearest examples of typical Egyptian architecture is the pyramidal complex at Giza. The pyramids represent ancient Egypt. The art of erecting these burial structures was perfected during the reign of Pharaoh Cheops, who, according to historical data, also initiated the creation of the Sphinx.

The most majestic building in this complex is the Cheops Pyramid, built from more than two million blocks. Its surface is lined with white Turkish limestone. Inside the grandiose structure there are three burial chambers at once. The smallest building in Giza is the Pyramid of Menkaure. Its value lies in the fact that it has been preserved better than others, since it was the last to be built.

Without exception, all the pyramids are built according to the same pattern. The schemes of their location on the ground coincide, as well as the complex structures included in them: the lower and mortuary temples, the "road" and, in fact, the pyramid itself.

Another architectural monument of Ancient Egypt is the temple of Pharaoh Mentuhotep I in Deir el-Bahri. Pyramidal buildings in it surprisingly combine with temple and burial rooms carved into the rocks, columned halls and bas-reliefs.

The architecture and art of Ancient Egypt in these historically significant places are still being studied. Unfortunately, the houses of ordinary citizens have not been preserved. They, according to the assumptions of archaeologists, were built of unbaked bricks, adobe blocks and wood.

Arts and Crafts in Ancient Egypt

Numerous crafts in Egypt began to develop in the period of the Old Kingdom. Initially, the applied art of Ancient Egypt was a combination of strict and simple features with clear lines. Alabaster, clay, stearite, granite, jasper and other semi-precious stones served as materials for the manufacture of decorative and household items. In later periods, faience and wood, metals (including copper, gold and iron), glass, ivory and porcelain were added to them. The artistic design of decorative products is also changing. Decorations become more complex, geometric and floral motifs predominate.

The most striking works of ancient Egyptian arts and crafts have been discovered in tombs. Funeral urns made of ceramics, decorated with paintings, metal mirrors, axes, wands and daggers - all this is done in the spirit of traditions. Products in the form of animal figurines have a special charm. And these are not only various figurines, but also vases.

Glass products are of particular interest to historians. Beads, rings and bottles are made in a very peculiar technique. For example, a fish-shaped eye drop bottle is decorated with multi-colored bulges that mimic scales. But the most amazing product now stored in the Louvre is a fairly large head of a woman. Face and hair made of glass different shades blue color, which suggests a separate molding of these elements. The method of their connection has not yet been elucidated.

The decorative and applied art of Ancient Egypt cannot be imagined without bronze figurines. The figurines of graceful and majestic cats are especially accurately made. A large number of such products are stored in the French Louvre.

Jewelry of Ancient Egypt

IN world development of jewelry craftsmanship, it was Ancient Egypt that made a great contribution. The art of metal processing in this state began to take shape long before the emergence of European civilization. This was done by large workshops at temples and palaces. The main materials for making jewelry were gold, silver and electrum - a unique alloy of several metals, very similar in appearance to platinum.

Jewelry craftsmen in ancient Egypt had the ability to change the color of metals. The most popular were considered saturated yellow or almost orange shades. Jewelry was encrusted with semi-precious stones, crystal and multi-colored glasses.

The Egyptians loved to adorn themselves with products made in the form of sacred animals: snakes, scarab beetles. Often on amulets, diadems and bracelets for arms and legs, the Eye of Horus was depicted. The Egyptians wore rings on each finger. In those days, it was common to wear them on both hands and feet.

Similar jewelry was made for the dead Egyptians. During burial, they were given golden masks, collars in the form of a kite, necklaces in the form of multi-row beads, pectorals in the form of a scarab with open wings, and pendants in the shape of a heart.

The legs and arms of the deceased were also adorned with gold jewelry. It could be hollow or massive bracelets. Moreover, they were worn not only on the wrists and ankles, but also on the forearms. In addition, many miniature canes, weapons, scepters and divine emblems were placed in the sarcophagus.

The jewelry art of Ancient Egypt is represented most fully, since metal products can be preserved for many years. Some of the exhibits of this civilization amaze with the elegance of the lines and the accuracy with which they are made.

Artistic creativity: painting, mosaic, reliefs

The Egyptians were among the first to use wall decoration with reliefs, paintings and mosaics in architecture. The fine arts of Ancient Egypt also obeyed certain canons. For example, the outer walls of buildings were decorated with images of the pharaoh. On the inner surfaces of houses, temples and palaces, it was customary to depict scenes of cult origin.

Contemporaries form an idea of ​​Egyptian painting on the basis of frescoes found in tombs. Murals in residential buildings and palaces have not survived to our time. The men in the frescoes were depicted as darker than the women. The position of body parts in the drawings is also interesting: the head and feet were drawn as if in profile and were turned to one side, but the arms, shoulders and torso were depicted from the full face position.

The first "book" pictures performed by the artists of Ancient Egypt were drawn in the world-famous "Book of the Dead". Many miniatures in it were copied from the walls of temples and tombs of the pharaohs. One of the most famous illustrations is the Judgment of Osiris. It depicts a god weighing the soul of the deceased on the scales.

Music and musical instruments

Images on the walls of Egyptian tombs told historians about another type of art, which, unfortunately, cannot be found in its original form and restored. Many murals contain paintings depicting people with musical instruments in their hands. This indicates that the Egyptians were not alien to music, singing and dancing. It is known for certain that the Egyptians knew such instruments as a flute, a drum, a harp, and a kind of wind pipe. Judging by the images, music sounded during any religious event in the life of the Egyptians. There were military bands that accompanied the troops of the pharaoh on campaigns (they became widespread in the New Kingdom).

In ancient Egypt, there was the concept of cheironomy, which literally means "to move hands." Usually people with the appropriate signature were depicted standing in front of the orchestra. This made it possible to make an assumption about the existence of choral singing and orchestral playing under the direction of a conductor.

It is interesting that percussion instruments prevail in the paintings belonging to the Old Kingdom: tambourines and drums. During the Middle Kingdom, musical ensembles were depicted with a predominance of wind instruments. In the era of the New Kingdom, plucked instruments are added to them: lutes, harps and lyres.

It is worth noting that teaching music and vocals in ancient Egypt was part of the compulsory subjects in schools. Every self-respecting person, especially the wealthy, had to be able to play all types of musical instruments: percussion, wind and plucked. These rules did not bypass the pharaoh and his family members. That is why in the tombs archaeologists often find miniature musical instruments from precious metals.

Sculpture in ancient Egypt

Sculptural portraits, statues and other monumental stone products were created in ancient Egypt thanks to the funerary cult. The fact is that the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians ordered them to perpetuate the appearance of a person so that he could safely return to the world of the living, having gone through all the hardships of the afterlife.

In each tomb, a statue of the deceased was installed, at the feet of which relatives brought household items necessary for his journey through the afterlife. Wealthy and eminent people, who during their lifetime were accustomed to the help of slaves and their own troops, could not safely go to the world of the dead without an appropriate escort. Therefore, next to their statue there were many smaller sculptures. There could be warriors, slaves, dancers and musicians.

The canons adopted in painting also applied to sculptural images of people. The facial features of the deceased never expressed emotions and were impassive, and their eyes were fixed on the distance. The position of the body was also always depicted in the same way: in the sculptures of men, one leg was always set slightly forward, but in the statues of women, the legs were tightly closed. Seated figures were created with these rules in mind. The hands of the standing people were either lowered down or holding a staff. Those sitting on the throne had their hands on their knees or crossed over their chests.

Much is known about the culture and art of Ancient Egypt at the moment. However, there are still a myriad of mysteries that have not been solved for several centuries. Perhaps, after the lapse of centuries, the meaning inherent in each drawing and each statue will be revealed.

Sculpture of Ancient Egypt

Sculpture of Ancient Egypt- one of the most original and strictly canonically developed areas of art of Ancient Egypt. Sculpture was created and developed to represent the ancient Egyptian gods, pharaohs, kings and queens in physical form. There were also many images of ka in the graves of ordinary Egyptians, mostly made of wood, some of which have survived. Statues of gods and pharaohs were put on public display, as a rule, in open spaces and outside temples. The Great Sphinx at Giza has never been repeated anywhere else in life size, however, the alleys of reduced copies of the sphinx and other animals have become an indispensable attribute of many temple complexes. The most sacred image of God was in the temple, in the altar part, as a rule, in a boat or a barque, usually made of precious metals, however, not a single such image has been preserved. A huge number of carved figurines have been preserved - from figures of gods to toys and dishes. Such figurines were made not only from wood, but also from alabaster, a more expensive material. Wooden images of slaves, animals and property were placed in tombs to accompany the dead in the afterlife.

Statues, as a rule, retain the original shape of a block of stone or a piece of wood from which it is carved. In traditional statues of seated scribes, similarities with the shape of a pyramid (cubic statue) are just as often found.

There was a very strict canon for the creation of ancient Egyptian sculpture: the color of the body of a man had to be darker than the color of the body of a woman, the hands of a seated person had to be exclusively on his knees. There were certain rules for depicting the Egyptian gods: for example, the god Horus should have been depicted with the head of a falcon, the god of the dead Anubis with the head of a jackal. All sculptures were created according to this canon and the following was so strict that for almost three thousand years of the existence of Ancient Egypt it has not changed.

Sculpture of the Early Kingdom

Sculpture of the early dynastic period comes mainly from the three major centers where the temples were located - She, Abydos and Koptos. The statues served as an object of worship, rituals and had a dedicatory purpose. A large group of monuments was associated with the “heb-sed” rite - the ritual of renewing the physical power of the pharaoh. This type includes types of sitting and walking figures of the king, executed in round sculpture and relief, as well as the image of his ritual run - which is characteristic exclusively for compositions in relief.

The list of heb-sed monuments includes the statue of pharaoh Khasekhem, represented as sitting on a throne in ritual attire. This sculpture indicates the improvement of techniques: the figure has the correct proportions and is modeled in volume. Here the main features of the style have already been revealed - the monumentality of the form, the frontality of the composition. The pose of the statue, which fits into the rectangular block of the throne, is motionless; straight lines predominate in the outlines of the figure. Khasekhem's face is portrait, although his features are largely idealized. Attention is drawn to the setting of the eyes in the orbit with a convex eyeball. A similar technique of execution extended to the entire group of monuments of that time, being a characteristic stylistic feature of portraits of the Early Kingdom. By the same period, the canonicity of the full-length Pre-dynastic period (Ancient Egypt) | pre-dynastic period]] is established and gives way in the plastic of the Early Kingdom to the correct transfer of the proportions of the human body.

Sculpture of the Old Kingdom

Statue of Kaaper ("Village Headman"). Cairo Museum. Egypt.

Sculpture of the Middle Kingdom

Significant changes in sculpture take place precisely in the Middle Kingdom, which is largely due to the presence and creative rivalry of many local schools that gained independence during the period of collapse. Since the XII dynasty, ritual statues have been more widely used (and, accordingly, made in large quantities): they are now installed not only in tombs, but also in temples. Among them, images associated with the rite of heb-sed (the ritual revival of the pharaoh's life force) still dominate. The first stage of the rite was symbolically associated with the murder of the elderly ruler and was performed over his statue, which in composition resembled the canonical images and sculptures of sarcophagi. This type includes the heb-sed statue of Mentuhotep-Nebhepetr, depicting the pharaoh in a pointedly frozen pose with arms crossed on his chest. The style is distinguished by a large share of conventionality and generalization, which is generally typical for sculptural monuments of the beginning of the era. In the future, sculpture comes to a more subtle modeling of faces and greater plastic dissection: this is most evident in female portraits and images of private individuals.

Over time, the iconography of the kings also changes. By the 12th Dynasty, the idea of ​​the pharaoh's divine power gave way in depictions to an insistent attempt to convey human individuality. Sculpture with official themes flourished during the reign of Senusret III, who was depicted in all ages from childhood to adulthood. The best of these images are considered to be the obsidian head of Senusret III and the sculptural portraits of his son Amenemhat III. The original find of the masters of local schools can be considered a type of cubic statue - an image of a figure enclosed in a monolithic stone block.

The art of the Middle Kingdom is the era of the heyday of small-scale plastic arts, most of which are still associated with the funeral cult and its rites (sailing on a boat, bringing sacrificial gifts, etc.). The figurines were carved from wood, covered with soil and painted. Often, entire multi-figure compositions were created in round sculpture (similar to how it was customary in the reliefs of the Old Kingdom).

Sculpture of the New Kingdom

In the art of the New Kingdom, a sculptural group portrait appears, especially images of a married couple.

The art of relief acquires new qualities. This artistic area is noticeably influenced by some genres of literature that became widespread in the era of the New Kingdom: hymns, military chronicles, love lyrics. Often, texts in these genres are combined with relief compositions in temples and tombs. In the reliefs of the Theban temples, there is an increase in decorativeness, a free variation in the techniques of bas-relief and high relief, combined with colorful paintings. Such is the portrait of Amehotep III from the tomb of Khaemhet, which combines different heights of the relief and in this respect is an innovative work. The reliefs are still arranged in registers, allowing the creation of narrative cycles of vast spatial extent.

Amarna period

The art of the Amarna period is remarkable for its remarkable originality, which stems primarily from the nature of the new worldview. The most unusual fact is the rejection of a strictly idealized, sacred understanding of the image of the pharaoh. A new style was reflected even in the colossi of Amenhotep IV, installed in the temple of the Aten at Karnak. These statues contain not only the typical canonical techniques of monumental art, but also a new understanding of portraiture, which now required a reliable transfer of the pharaoh's appearance up to the characteristic features of the body structure. The credibility criterion was a kind of protest against the former official art, so the word "maat" - truth - is filled with a special meaning. Images of Akhenaten are a curious example of a combination of authenticity with the requirement of extreme generalization and normativity, characteristic of Egyptian art. The shape of the head of the pharaoh, the unusually elongated oval of the face, thin arms and narrow chin - all these features are carefully preserved and reflected in the new tradition, but at the same time all visual techniques were fixed on special samples - sculptural models.

The characteristic techniques of depicting the pharaoh were also extended to members of his family. A frank innovation was the depiction of the figures entirely in profile, which was previously not allowed by the Egyptian canon. The fact that ethnic features were preserved in the portrait was also new: such is the head of the pharaoh's mother, Queen Tii, inlaid with gold and glassy paste. An intimate lyrical beginning is manifested in the Amarna reliefs, filled with natural plasticity and not containing canonical frontal images.

The culmination of development visual arts works of sculptors of the workshop are rightly considered. Among them is the well-known polychrome head of Queen Nefertiti in a blue tiara. Together with the completed works, a lot of plaster masks were found in the excavations of the sculptural workshops, which served as models.

Sculpture of the Late Kingdom

Notes

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Art of the Old Kingdom (3200 - 2400 BC)

Egypt of the Old Kingdom was a primitive slave-owning society, in which, along with the exploitation of slaves, there was also the exploitation of the labor of the free agricultural population, united in communities. With the development of the productive forces, the use of slave labor also increased. At the head of the state was the pharaoh, who despotically ruled the country and relied on the top of the slave-owning nobility. The unification of Egypt, dictated by the needs of the development of irrigation agriculture, was nevertheless rather unstable due to contradictions in the interests of the local nobility, which led to a struggle between the nomes (regions) and between the nome nobility and the pharaohs. Therefore, throughout the history of the Old Kingdom (as, indeed, throughout the history of Egypt), the degree of centralization of the state was not the same.

The period of the Old Kingdom was the time of the addition of all the main forms of Egyptian culture.

Already from early times, architecture occupied a leading position in Egyptian art, and from ancient times the main structures were the monumental tombs of kings and nobility. This is explained by the special significance that funeral cults had in Egypt, closely associated with the widely developed (as in any ancient agricultural country) cults of dying and resurrecting deities of nature. Naturally, the king and the slave-owning nobility, who played leading role in these cults, paid special attention to securing a posthumous " eternal life", and consequently - the construction of durable tombs; already very early for their construction, the most durable material available to ancient architects - stone - began to be used. And while brick and wood continued to be used for dwellings intended for the living, tombs - "houses of eternity" - were the first stone buildings. Secular buildings have hardly survived; we can judge the appearance of the palaces only by the images of their facades on steles and sarcophagi, while the clay "houses for the soul" placed in the tombs give an idea of ​​the houses.

According to the ideas of the primitive man who lived in the Nile Valley, the afterlife was a semblance of the earthly one, and a dead person needed housing and food just as much as a living one; the tomb was thought to be the home of the deceased, which determined its original form. From this was born the desire to preserve the body of the deceased, or at least the head. The climate of Egypt, with its exceptional dryness, especially contributed to the development of such aspirations. Here they were no longer limited to preserving skulls or embalming the heads of dead ancestors, but gradually, as a result of long searches, they developed complex mummification techniques. Since at first the methods of embalming were still imperfect, statues of the deceased were placed in the tombs as a replacement for the body in case of damage. It was believed that the soul, in the absence of a body, could enter the statue and revive it, thanks to which the posthumous life of a person would continue. Consequently, the tomb - the house of the deceased was supposed to serve as such a room where the mummy would be in complete safety, where the statue of the deceased would be placed and where his relatives could bring everything necessary for his food. These requirements determined the structure of the tombs of the Old Kingdom.

The tombs of the nobility, the so-called "mastaba" ( "Mastaba" in Arabic means "bench". This is the name given to the tombs of the nobility of the Old Kingdom by modern Egyptians. This name has also been retained in science.), consisted of an underground part, where a coffin with a mummy was placed, and a massive above-ground building. Similar buildings of the 1st dynasty looked like a house with two false doors and a courtyard where sacrifices were made. This "house" was a brick-lined mound of sand and stone fragments. Then they began to attach a brick chapel with an altar to such a building. Limestone was already used for the tombs of the highest nobility during the 1st dynasty. Gradually, the mastaba became more complicated; chapels and rooms for the statue were arranged already inside the above-ground part, completely built of stone. As the dwellings of the nobility developed, the number of rooms in the mastaba also increased, where corridors, halls and storerooms appeared by the end of the Old Kingdom.

For the history of Egyptian architecture great importance had the construction of royal tombs, the construction of which devoted huge funds, technical inventions, new ideas of architects. Great importance was attached to the construction of royal tombs because they were the site of the cult of the deceased pharaoh. This cult played a prominent role in the Egyptian religion, replacing the cult of the leader of the tribe of the pre-class period. At the same time, the remnants of the idea that the leader of the tribe is the magical center of the well-being of the tribe, and the spirit of the deceased leader, subject to the proper rites, will continue to guard his flame, were transferred to the cult of the pharaoh. It is characteristic, for example, that the pyramid of Senusret I was called “Senusret looking at Egypt”, and eyes were depicted on the tops of some pyramids.

In the growing grandiosity of the royal tombs, the desire to establish a despotic monarchy was clearly reflected, and at the same time, the unlimited possibility of exploiting the labor of the masses by this monarchy was manifested.

For the construction of such structures, enormous efforts were required, since the stone had to be brought from afar and dragged with the help of embankments to a great height. Only by extreme exertion of the forces of slaves and free communal farmers could such gigantic structures be built.

The idea of ​​architects and the improvement of technical methods followed the lines of increasing the above-ground mass of the building, but the horizontal increase of the latter, in the end, could no longer produce the required impression of overwhelming monumentality. The most important stage in the development of the royal tombs was therefore the idea of ​​increasing the building vertically. Apparently, this idea first arose during the construction of the famous tomb of the pharaoh of the III dynasty of Djoser (about 3000 BC), the so-called "step pyramid". The name of its builder, the architect Imhotep, survived until the end of the history of Egypt, as the name of one of the most famous sages, the first builder of stone buildings, a learned astronomer and physician. Subsequently, Imhotep was even deified as the son of the god Ptah, and the Greeks compared him with their god of healing Asclepius.

The Pyramid of Djoser was the center of a complex ensemble of chapels and courtyards. The ensemble, which did not yet differ in the harmony of the general layout, was located on an artificial terrace and occupied an area of ​​​​544.9 X 277.6 m. The terrace was surrounded by a stone-lined wall 14.8 m thick and 9.6 m high. The pyramid itself reached a height of over 60 liters and consisted, as it were, of seven mastabas, placed one on top of the other. Djoser's tomb is notable not only for its pyramid shape, but also for the fact that stone was widely used as the main building material in its chapels. True, the stone has not yet everywhere had a constructive value here. We will not yet see free-standing columns, they are connected to the walls, from which the architect does not dare to separate them. The stone repeats the forms characteristic of wooden and brick buildings: the ceilings are cut in the form of log ceilings, the columns and pilasters are designed in the proportions developed for wooden buildings. The tomb of Djoser is also very important for its decoration, rich and varied. The forms of columns and pilasters are interesting: clear, majestic in their simplicity, fluted trunks with flat abacus slabs instead of capitals, or pilasters made in stone for the first time in the form of open papyrus and lotus flowers. The walls of the halls were lined with alabaster slabs, and in a number of underground chambers - with shiny green faience tiles, reproducing reed weaving. Thus, the tomb of Djoser as a whole was an extremely important monument for its time, a monument that combined an idea of ​​great novelty and importance with technical and artistic capabilities that were not yet mature enough to give an equivalent design to this idea.

The forms inherent in stone construction have not yet been found, the planning of the entire ensemble has not yet been properly organized, but the main thing has already been realized and implemented - the building began to grow upwards, and the stone was identified as the main material of Egyptian architecture.

The Pyramid of Djoser paved the way for the creation of a perfect and complete type of pyramid. The first such pyramid was the tomb of King IV of the Snefru dynasty (about 2900 BC) in Dashur, which was over 100 m high and was the predecessor of the famous pyramids in Giza of the 29th - 28th centuries. BC, ranked in antiquity among the seven wonders of the world. They were built by the pharaohs. IV dynasty of Khufu (whom the Greeks called Cheops), Khafre (Chefren) and Menkaure (Mykerin).

The grandest of the three, the Pyramid of Khufu, probably built by the architect Hemiun, is the largest stone structure in the world. Its height is 146.6 m, and the length of the side of its base is 233 m. The pyramid of Khufu was built from precisely hewn and tightly fitted limestone blocks, weighing mainly about 2.5 tons each; it is estimated that more than 2,300,000 such blocks went into the construction of the pyramid. Individual blocks weighed 30 tons each. On the north side there was an entrance, which was connected by long corridors with the burial chamber located in the center of the pyramid, where the king's sarcophagus stood. The chamber and part of the corridor were lined with granite, the rest of the corridors with limestone. best quality. Outside, the pyramid was also lined with slabs of good limestone. Its array stood out clearly in the blue sky, being a truly monumental embodiment of the idea of ​​​​indestructible eternal rest and at the same time an eloquent expression of the enormous social distance that separated the pharaoh from the people of his country.

Each of the pyramids at Giza, like the pyramid of Djoser, was surrounded by an architectural ensemble; however, the layout of the buildings at Giza shows a greatly increased ability of architects to give a clear plan of the whole complex and balance its parts. The pyramid now stands alone in the center of the courtyard, the wall of which emphasizes the special position of the pyramid and separates it from the surrounding buildings. This impression is not disturbed by the small pyramids of queens sometimes located within the same courtyard; the difference in their scale in comparison with the pyramid of the king only reinforces the impression of the exorbitant size of the latter. The royal mortuary temple adjoined the eastern side of the pyramid, connected by a covered stone passage with a monumental gate in the valley. These gates were built where the waters of the Nile floods reached, and since the fields irrigated by the Nile were green to the east of them, and the lifeless sands of the desert spread to the west, the gate stood, as it were, on the verge of life and death. Around the pyramid, in a clearly planned order, were the mastabas of the pharaoh's courtiers, who were also his relatives. The clearest idea of ​​the mortuary temples at the Giza pyramids is given by the remains of the temple at the pyramid of Khafre, which was a rectangular building with a flat roof, built of massive limestone blocks. In the center of it was a hall with tetrahedral monolithic granite pillars, on the sides of which there were two narrow rooms for the funeral royal statues. Behind the hall was an open courtyard surrounded by pilasters and statues of the king in the form of the god Osiris. Next were the chapels. The entrance to the entire pyramid complex was the facade of the gate in the valley, reaching 12 m in height and having two doors guarded by sphinxes placed on their sides ( The Sphinx is a fantastic creature, a lion with a human head, the personification of the power of the pharaoh.). Inside, this gate also had a hall with quadrangular granite pillars, along the walls of which were placed statues of the pharaoh, made of various types of stone.

A distinctive feature of the architecture of the Giza pyramids is the knowledge of the constructive role of stone and its decorative possibilities. In the temples at the pyramids of Giza, for the first time in Egypt, free-standing pillars are found. The entire decoration of buildings is based on a combination of polished planes of various stones. The gleaming facets of the columns of the mortuary temple were in perfect harmony with the pink granite slabs that lined its walls and with the alabaster floors, just as the similar decoration of the gate hall in the valley was a wonderfully colorful whole with statues of green diorite, creamy white alabaster and yellow slate.

The design of the tombs of the pharaohs of the V and VI dynasties (about 2700 - 2400 BC) is of a different nature. Although these tombs retain all the main elements of the tombs of the kings of the IV dynasty, however, their pyramids differ sharply from the grandiose monuments of their predecessors. They are much inferior to them in size, not exceeding 70 m in height, and are built from small blocks, and partly even from rubble. The construction of the colossal pyramids of the 4th dynasty laid too heavy a burden on the country's economy, tearing off the mass of the population from agricultural work, and caused dissatisfaction with the nobility. It is possible that the result of this discontent was what happened around 2700 BC. dynasty change. The new pharaohs were forced to reckon with the nobility and could not strain all the forces of the country to build their tombs. The more attention they paid to the design of temples, which now had to express the main idea of ​​​​the tomb of the pharaoh - the glorification of royal power. The walls of these mortuary temples and halls at the gates began to be covered with colored reliefs glorifying the pharaoh as the son of God and the mighty conqueror of all the enemies of Egypt. Goddesses breastfeed him, in the form of a sphinx he tramples enemies, his fleet arrives from a victorious campaign. The sizes of the temples at the pyramids increase, their architectural decoration becomes more complicated. It is here that palm-shaped columns and columns in the form of bundles of unblown papyri, which later became so characteristic of Egyptian architecture, first appear.

The special attention that the architects of the end of the Old Kingdom paid to the design of temples had a fruitful effect on the general development of architecture of that time. In particular, a third, main type of Egyptian column arose - in the form of a bunch of lotus buds. A new type of building appears - the so-called solar temples. The most important element of such a temple was a colossal stone obelisk, the top of which was upholstered with copper and shone brightly in the sun; he stood on a dais, in front of which a huge altar was set up. Like the pyramid, the solar temple was connected by a covered passage to a gate in the valley.

Above, we talked about the statues that formed an integral part of the tombs of kings and nobility, as well as about religious ideas that caused the appearance of sculpture in the tombs. The same ideas determined the requirements for sculpture. The mortuary statues that have come down to us in a significant number have uniform motionless poses and conditional coloring. Placed in the niches of the mastaba chapels or in special small enclosed spaces behind the chapels, these statues depict the dead in strictly frontal poses, either standing or sitting on cube-shaped thrones or on the ground with their legs crossed. All the statues have the same straight heads, almost the same position of the arms and legs, the same attributes. The bodies of male figures, when they are made of light limestone or wood, are painted reddish-brown, female - yellow, their hair is all black, their clothes are white. The statues seem to be inextricably linked with the wall of the chapel, and behind the backs of many of them, a part of the block from which they were carved is preserved as a background. And, despite the fact that their multi-temporal origin, qualitative difference is clearly visible and their individual portrait character is clearly expressed, nevertheless, all these sculptures produce a general impression of solemn monumentality and strict calmness.

The unity of the figurative means of the sculpture of the Old Kingdom was caused both by its purpose and by the conditions of its development. The need to convey the resemblance to the deceased person, whose body the statue was to replace, was the reason for the early emergence of the Egyptian sculptural portrait. The solemn elation of the image was caused by the desire to emphasize the high social position of the deceased. On the other hand, the monotony of the poses of the statues, partly due to their dependence on the architecture of the tomb, was the result of a long reproduction of the same models, which dated back to the most ancient stone images and became canonically obligatory. The inhibitory role of the canon prevented artists from overcoming the established approach to conveying the image of a person, forcing them to invariably maintain stiffness of poses, impassive calmness of faces, emphasized strong and strong muscles of powerful bodies. This can be clearly seen, for example, on the statue of the nobleman Ranofer, he is depicted walking with his arms lowered along his body and his head raised; everything in this sculpture is sustained within the framework of the canon - pose, attire, coloring, overdeveloped muscles of a motionless (despite walking) body, an indifferent gaze directed into the distance.

However, life was stronger than the demands of religion, which could not completely retard the creative growth of Egyptian art. The best sculptors managed to create a number of truly remarkable works even within the time-honored traditions. Among them, one should especially highlight the statue of the architect Hemiun, the bust of the royal son Ankhhaf, the statues of the scribe Kaya and the royal son Kaaper, the head of a male statue from the Salt collection in the Louvre, the head of a female statue from the Carnarvon collection.

In each of these sculptures, an unforgettable experience is embodied vivid image, full of unique individual originality and genuine artistic power. In the portrait of Hemiun, one of the most highly placed people in contemporary society is depicted - a royal relative, the leader of the construction of such a wonderful monument as the Cheops pyramid. A clearly portrait face is interpreted in a generalized and bold way. Sharp lines outline a large nose with a characteristic hump, eyelids perfectly set in the orbits of the eyes, the line of a small but energetic mouth. The outlines of a slightly protruding chin, despite the excessive fullness of an already obese body, still continue to maintain a firm authority, expressively ending general characteristics this strong-willed, perhaps even cruel man. Hemiun's body is also very well shown - fullness of muscles, truthfully conveyed skin folds on the chest, on the stomach, especially on the toes and hands.

The portrait of the royal scribe Kai is no less striking individuality. Before us is a confidently outlined face with characteristic thin, tightly compressed lips of a large mouth, protruding cheekbones, a slightly flat nose. This face is enlivened by eyes made of various materials: in a bronze shell, corresponding in shape to the orbit and at the same time forming the edges of the eyelids, pieces of alabaster for the white of the eye and rock crystal for the pupil are inserted, and a small piece of polished ebony is placed under the crystal, thanks to which that brilliant point is obtained, which gives a special liveliness to the pupil, and at the same time to the whole eye. Such a method of depicting eyes, generally characteristic of the sculptures of the Old Kingdom, gives amazing vitality to the face of the statue. The eyes of the scribe Kai, as it were, inseparably follow the viewer, no matter where he is in the hall ( It is interesting that the fellahs, who excavated under the guidance of the French orchaologist Mariette at the end of the 19th century. the tombs of the Old Kingdom in Megum, having entered the tomb of Rahoten, threw down their picks and shovels and rushed away in horror, seeing the eyes of the two statues standing in the tomb glittering from the sunlight that had penetrated into the tomb.). Like the statue of Hemiun, the statue of the scribe Kai impresses with the veracity of working out not only the face, but also the entire body of the collarbones, fat, flabby muscles of the chest and abdomen, so characteristic of a person leading a sedentary lifestyle. The modeling of hands with long fingers, knees, back is also magnificent.

No less remarkable than the statues of Hemiun and the scribe Kai, and the famous wooden statue of the king's son Kaaper. We see here again an individual face with soft lines that imperceptibly merge into one another, with a round chin, a relatively small nose, a puffy mouth and small, masterfully depicted eyes. Again, as in the previous two monuments, the body with a large belly, full shoulders and arms is also carefully worked out here. The vital veracity of this statue is such that it was no coincidence that the fellahs who worked on the excavations near Marietta, having discovered the statue of Kaaper in his tomb, shouted “Why, this is our village headman!” ( Hence the nickname "village headman" by which this statue is known in science.). In this wonderful statue, with all the solemn importance of the pose, which speaks of the high social position of the depicted person, one is struck by the realism with which the image of an ugly, middle-aged stout person is embodied here.

The bust of the royal son Ankhhaf is perhaps the most remarkable sculptural portrait of all the mentioned masterpieces of the Old Kingdom. This is a striking face, marked by extreme realism not only for the sculptures of the period under consideration, but, perhaps, for all Egyptian plastic arts; it draws attention to itself with its amazing skill in transferring the muscles of the face, skin folds, overhanging eyelids, unhealthy “bags” under the eyes. All the modeling of the face was made not from limestone, from which the bust was carved, but from plaster, which covers the stone with a dense layer. The realism of the face also corresponds to the interpretation of the shoulders, chest, and back of the head, similar to the rendering of the body that we saw in the statue of Hemiun.

The same sharpness of individual characteristics is characteristic of the Louvre head from the Salt collection and other best works of the period of the Old Kingdom. In the female head from the Carnarvon collection, the image of a young woman in the prime of life and beauty, typical of the art of the period under consideration, is perfectly conveyed.

The sculptures listed above are among the finest examples of ancient Egyptian realistic portraiture. These are monuments in which the searches of the artists of the Old Kingdom were most fully realized. In each of them, the sculptor managed to convey the appearance of a certain person, with all the originality of his facial features, head shapes and figures. At the same time, these statues are by no means a simple repetition of the external appearance of a particular person. Before us are images created by selecting the most characteristic features, with the help of a certain generalization, certainly far from a passive transmission of reality.

The path that led the sculptors of the Old Kingdom to the creation of such masterpieces was long and difficult. For the first time, the artist had to overcome technical difficulties, master the material flawlessly and at the same time create a significant artistic image. Monuments that have survived from previous centuries show us how these difficulties were gradually overcome. An important step in creative way sculptors of the Old Kingdom was the manufacture of masks from the faces of dead people. However, the sculptors could not limit themselves to simply repeating these masks in the faces of the funeral statues, because the statue had to depict a living person. Hence the need to rework the cast, in which the sculptor made the necessary changes.

The successes that were achieved as a result of the application of such a method were so obvious that it was fixed and was further developed. In particular, it was used in the manufacture of heads or busts of the dead, which existed at the beginning along with the statues. Such portrait heads were found in a number of Gizah mastabas of the 4th dynasty; they were placed in the underground part of the tomb in front of the entrance to the chamber with the sarcophagus. These Gizakh heads are important as evidence of the intensive work of human thought and the unceasing growth of artistic quest. Each of them is distinguished by its individuality, expressed in a thoughtful and clear form, imbued with a strict rhythmic feeling. This whole group of monuments is also valuable because it helps to trace the ways of creating such outstanding works as the statue of the architect Hemiun. Only after comparing the statue of Hemiun with the heads of Gizah, it becomes clear that this statue is a natural stage of a long creative search, a monument in which the realistically truthful image of an Egyptian nobleman, a large slave owner, a royal relative who is confident in his significance is embodied to the greatest extent possible for the art of the Old Kingdom. , and at the same time an outstanding architect at the court of a powerful pharaoh. The social certainty of the image, so clearly expressed in the statue of Hemiun, which combines the cold arrogance of the appearance and the solemn immobility of the pose with the accurate and sober rendering of the heavy, fat body, is generally one of the most important elements of the style of sculptures of the Old Kingdom. After all, they had to reproduce not just the images of deceased ancestors, but the images of people who belonged to the top of society, which held the entire government in its hands.

Emphasizing the high social position of the depicted person was even more important for royal statues, where the main task was to create the image of the pharaoh as an unlimited ruler and son of God. The pharaohs were usually depicted with superhumanly powerful bodies and impassive faces that retained some undoubtedly portrait features, but at the same time were clearly idealized. Sometimes the idea of ​​the divinity of the pharaoh was conveyed by purely external means: the king was depicted together with the gods, as an equal to them, or the sacred falcon overshadowed him with his wings, sitting on the back of his throne. A special kind of embodiment of the idea of ​​the superhuman essence of the pharaoh was the image of the sphinx - a fantastic creature with the body of a lion and the portrait head of the king. It was the sphinxes that were the first royal statues that stood outside the temples and, therefore, available for viewing by the masses, to whom they had to give the impression of a supernatural and therefore irresistible force.

An exceptional place not only among such sculptures, but also in Egyptian art in general, is occupied by the famous Great Sphinx, located at the monumental gate and covered passage of the pyramid of Khafre in Giza. It is based on a natural limestone rock, which in all its form resembled the figure of a reclining lion and was carved in the form of a colossal sphinx, with the missing parts being added from suitably hewn limestone slabs. The dimensions of the Sphinx are enormous: its height is 20 m, length 57 m, the face is 5 m high, the nose is 1.70 m. The sacred snake, which, according to the beliefs of the Egyptians, protects the pharaohs and gods.), under the chin is an artificial beard worn by Egyptian kings and nobility. The face was painted brick red, the stripes of the handkerchief were blue and red. Despite the gigantic size, the face of the Sphinx still conveys the main portrait features of Pharaoh Khafre, as can be seen by comparing the Gizah Sphinx with other statues of this king. In ancient times, this colossal monster with the face of a pharaoh was supposed to leave an unforgettable impression, inspiring, like the pyramids, an idea of ​​the incomprehensibility and power of the rulers of Egypt.

Sharply opposite in character to the statues of kings and nobles are the statuettes of servants and slaves, which were placed in the tombs of the nobility to serve the dead in the afterlife. Made of stone, and sometimes wood, and brightly painted, they depict people engaged in various jobs: we will find here a farmer with a hoe, and weavers, and porters, and rowers, and cooks. Distinguished by great expressiveness, these figurines are made by the simplest means, outside the canonical norms.

A large place in the art of the Old Kingdom was occupied by reliefs and paintings that covered the walls of tombs and temples, and here, too, the basic principles for the entire further development of these types of art were worked out. So, both types of Egyptian relief techniques were already used in the Old Kingdom: both the usual bas-relief and the incised, in-depth relief characteristic only of Egyptian art, in which the surface of the stone, which served as a background, remained untouched, and the contours of the images were cut, which thus turned out to be rather flat. Two types of wall painting techniques were also known: most of the paintings were made in the usual and subsequently for Egypt technique with tempera on a dry surface; in some tombs of Medum, this method was combined with the insertion of colored pastes into pre-prepared recesses. The paints were mineral: white paint was mined from limestone, red - from red ocher, black - from soot, green - from grated malachite, blue - from cobalt, copper, grated lapis lazuli, yellow - from yellow ocher.

In the art of the Old Kingdom, the main features of the content of reliefs and paintings and the main rules for the arrangement of scenes on the walls, as well as in the compositions of entire scenes, individual episodes, groups and figures that later became traditional, developed.

The content of images in reliefs and paintings was determined by their purpose. The reliefs that covered the walls of the funeral royal temples and covered passages leading to them included, as mentioned above, scenes glorifying the king in the form of a mighty lord (battles, capturing prisoners and booty, successful hunts) and as the son of a god (a king among the gods), as well as images, the purpose of which was to deliver the king's afterlife bliss. The reliefs in the tombs of the nobility also consisted of scenes that glorified the activities of the noble, and scenes intended to ensure his posthumous prosperity. Therefore, images of the owner of the tomb in such reliefs were made portraits for the same reason as funeral statues. In the best examples, the skill of the portrait reaches a very high level. This is how, for example, the architect Hesira, who lived during the 3rd dynasty, is depicted: an aquiline nose, thick eyebrows, an energetic mouth perfectly express the image of a strong, strong-willed person in all his unique individuality.

The reliefs and paintings of the tombs are the most valuable source for the history of the culture of Ancient Egypt. They depict rural work and the work of artisans, fishing and hunting in the Nile thickets and in the desert. Before us are vivid pictures of social inequality - the unbearable burden of labor of the bulk of the people and the wealthy, idle life of the ruling elite. The beating of non-payers of taxes is replaced by the amusement of the nobility, sowing and harvesting under the scorching sun - dancing dancers at the feast of the nobles. All these images are based on the same desire: to exalt the owner of the tomb, to emphasize his nobility and wealth, the importance of his position during his lifetime and the favors that he enjoyed with the pharaoh.

The same desire was reflected in the construction of the scenes, in the relationship of the figures to each other and in the approach to their depiction. The main place is everywhere occupied by the figure of the king or nobleman: it far exceeds all others in size and, in contrast to the diverse and moving groups of working people, is completely calm and motionless. Whether the king and the noble are sitting or walking, they still hold a staff and a rod - the symbols of their high rank - and equally dominate the entire scene, not mixing with the actions of its other participants, even in cases where such a situation is completely unbelievable, as, for example, in some hippo hunting scene. Characteristic is the difference in the construction on the plane of the figures of people occupying different social positions. As a rule, the image of the human figure in the reliefs and paintings of the Old Kingdom was firmly based on that canon, the composition of which dates back to the times of the Narmer plate. Deviations from these norms are most often found in the images of farmers, artisans and other ordinary people. ordinary people.

In these deviations from the canon, those changes in life and in worldview that took place in the course of the development of culture and the growth of knowledge and technical discoveries found their reflection in art. Naturally, the artists already saw a lot differently and could convey by other means; the task of creating new, more and more complex compositions that confronted them was an effective motivation for the growth of their skills and overcoming the immovable rules of the canon. Acute observation and the desire to reproduce true life give a special attraction to such creations of Egyptian masters. Feeling less constrained by the canon when depicting the labor of the people and knowing this labor well, they were able to show the life of the people and convey to us its inexhaustible artistic creativity, especially in the frequent depictions of folk singers, dancers, musicians; they even preserved for us the words of labor folk songs.

However, some deviations from the canon could not change the general conditional nature of the style of the reliefs and murals of the Old Kingdom. The belt arrangement of the scenes and their strictly defined sequence, as well as the general planar nature of the images, remain conditional; the sketchiness of many compositions is also preserved, in which the uniformity of figures is sometimes broken only by a change of attributes or turns of heads and hands. The conditionality of many techniques was also supported by the persisting belief in the magical effectiveness of the depicted: for example, the enemies of Egypt were invariably shown defeated, and the animals - pierced by arrows, since the conviction that everything depicted had the same degree of reality as did not disappear. and real life.

During the period of the Old Kingdom, artistic crafts gained great importance and development. Vessels made of various types of stone - alabaster, steatite, porphyry, granite, jasper; jewelry made of gold, malachite, turquoise, carnelian and other semi-precious stones, as well as faience pastes; artistic furniture made of precious dereya breeds - armchairs, stretchers, tents, sometimes with gold inlays, sometimes upholstered with gold leaf, wooden beds with artistically processed bone legs; products made of copper, bronze, clay - this is only a short list of those various items that were already being produced in the era of the Old Kingdom. As in other forms of art, the main forms and techniques that existed in the future for a very long time also developed in the artistic craft of this period. The products of the artistic craft of the Old Kingdom are characterized by the same strict and simple, complete and clear forms that distinguish all the art of this period. In the decorative details of these things, there is a lot of direct reflection of real life phenomena: for example, the legs of the bed are given the shape of powerful bull legs, beads and pendants reproduce flowers, etc. Artistic craft was of great importance for the development of all the art of the Old Kingdom. On the one hand, the processing of a number of materials was first developed and improved precisely during the creation of an artistic craft, opening the way for the decorative use of these materials in other areas of art; Thus, the beauty of polished stone surfaces and colored earthenware was first found and understood in the craft, and then already used in sculpture and architecture. On the other hand, artisans, closely connected with the folk environment, were constant conductors of its life-giving influence on the work of professional artists.

The state of Ancient Egypt was rich and powerful. It was in Egypt that monumental architecture, a realistically truthful sculptural portrait, and works of artistic crafts were born.

One of the achievements of the Egyptians was the creation of a human image along with other people. In the art of ancient Egypt, an interest in the personality and individual characteristics of a person was established.

All ancient Egyptian art was subject to cult canons. Relief and sculpture were no exception. Masters left outstanding sculptural monuments to their descendants: statues of gods and people, figures of animals.

The man was sculpted in a static but majestic pose, standing or sitting. At the same time, the left leg was pushed forward, and the arms either folded on the chest or pressed against the body.

Some sculptors were required to create figures of working people. At the same time, there was a strict canon for the depiction of a particular occupation - the choice of a moment characteristic of this particular type of work.

Religious purpose of statues

Among the ancient Egyptians, statues could not exist separately from places of worship. They were first used to decorate the retinue of the deceased pharaoh and were placed in the tomb located in the pyramid. They were relatively small figures. When the kings began to be buried near the temples, the roads to these places were made with many huge statues. They were so large that no one paid attention to the details of the image. The statues were placed at the pylons, in the courtyards and already had artistic significance.

In the view of the Egyptians, a person had several entities. Combining them into one whole gave him the hope of gaining eternal life. Consequently, in relief and sculpture, they created not those images that they saw with their own eyes, but what they wanted to see or found the most suitable for happiness and eternal peace in the other world.

During the Old Kingdom, a round shape was established in Egyptian sculpture, and the main types of composition appeared. For example, the statue of Menkaure depicts standing man, who put forward his left leg and pressed his hands to the body. Or the statue of Rahotep and his wife Nofret represents a seated figure with their hands on their knees.

In the sculpture of Egypt, one can see not only a single image of a person, but also group compositions, where human figures are located on the same line. The main figure is 2-3 times larger than the others. The general rule - to create an exaggerated statue of the king - was also observed in planar images.

What materials did the sculptors make their sculptures from? Stone, wood, bronze, clay, ivory. Many huge statues were carved from granite, basalt or diorite. Life-size statues were molded from sandstone and limestone and covered with paint.

The art of Ancient Egypt was the most perfect and advanced among the arts of various peoples of the Ancient East. The Egyptian people were the first to create monumental stone architecture, realistic sculptural portraits, and beautiful handicrafts. Among the many achievements, the main one was the image of a person with an incomparably more realistic concreteness than before. Egyptian art for the first time began to depict a person in connection and comparison with other people, opened and approved an interest in individuality. From the very beginning of the formation of class relations, art has become a powerful means of influencing the consciousness of the masses in order to strengthen and exalt the power of the pharaoh and the slave-owning elite of society.

The Greeks and Romans drew attention to one of the most characteristic features of Egyptian art: a long adherence to the patterns adopted in antiquity, because. religion ascribed a sacred meaning to the artistic examples of antiquity. Because of this, a number of conventions have been preserved in the art of slave-owning Egypt, dating back to pre-class society and enshrined as canonical. For example, the image of objects that are actually invisible, but present; such as fish, hippos, crocodiles underwater; image of an object using a schematic listing of its parts; combination in one image of different points of view. Also a number of artistic principles, which arose and developed already in the early class society of Egypt, in turn became canonical for subsequent periods. Observance of the canons also determined the technical features of the work of the Egyptian masters, who early used the grid to accurately transfer the desired pattern to the wall. It is also known that in the Old Kingdom a standing human figure was divided into 6 cells, in the Middle and New - by 8, in the Saisian time - by 26, and a certain number of cells was assigned to each part of the body. Also, canonical patterns existed for the figures of animals, birds, etc. Despite the positive aspects, the canons fettered the development of art, and later played only an inhibitory conservative role that hindered the development of realistic trends.

The addition of ancient Egyptian art

(4 thousand BC)

Monuments give a relatively complete picture of the ancient Egyptian society from 5 thousand BC. They speak of the primitive communal nature of society based on primitive agriculture and cattle breeding. The fertility of the soil, formed from alluvial silt, provided food for a large number of people, despite the primitiveness of the tools. In some communities, agriculture based on irrigation began to appear. The labor of slaves, at first still few in number, was used. The development of property inequality within the community led to the rudimentary forms of state power. Constant internecine wars over lands, canals and slaves ended only in the middle of the 4th century BC. the formation of two large state associations - northern and southern. around 3200.BC. the south defeated the north, which meant the formation of a single Egyptian state.

The oldest human dwellings in the Nile Valley were pits and caves, sheds and tents were made of skins and wickerwork stretched on poles. Gradually, reed huts, plastered with clay, appeared. Further, raw bricks were used to build housing. In front of the dwelling, a yard was arranged, surrounded by a fence, and later by a wall. oldest view housing - a pit - served as a model for burials, which had an oval shape and were lined with mats.

The lack of knowledge about the true connection of phenomena gave a fantastic character to the ideas about the world, the rituals and beliefs that had already developed during this period determined the nature of the art products that were in the oldest tombs. The earliest of these are earthenware vessels painted with simple white patterns on a red background of clay. Gradually, both form and execution changed. Mortuary and agricultural rites were depicted, with female figures playing the main role, which is associated with the leading role of women in the period of matriarchy. Rough schematic figurines are made. An example of paintings of that time is a painting from the tomb of the leader in Hierakonpolis. In such images, the artist did not draw objects from life, but conditionally reproduced the most important features. The central role of the Priestess or Goddess was expressed more than other sizes.

Gradually, the art changes and the images become clearer. Examples of the new stage are relief depictions of battles between communities that led to the formation of large associations in the south and north. Leaders stand out especially in the relief: they are depicted in the form of a bull or a lion, striking enemies. With the formation of a new social system, art becomes an ideological weapon. A striking example is the slab of Pharaoh Narmer (64 cm). The scenes are depicted with belts, so in the future all wall paintings and reliefs will be decided. In the further art of slave-owning Egypt, deviation from the canons was most often applied to the depiction of people of the lower classes.

Art of the Old Kingdom

(3200 - 2400 BC)

Egypt of the Old Kingdom is the first slave-owning state, where, along with the exploitation of slaves, there was exploitation of the free agricultural population. The pharaoh was at the head of the state, but there was a constant struggle between the nomes (regions), between the nobility and the pharaoh. Also, the period of the Old Kingdom is the period of the addition of all the main forms of the forms of Egyptian culture.

From early times, the leading position in Egyptian art was occupied by architecture, the main monumental structures: tombs, kings and nobility. Stone was used for their construction, while dwellings"live" were built of brick and wood. According to ancient ideas, the deceased also needs a home and food, just like a living one. From these convictions was born the desire to preserve the body of the deceased, or at least his head; complex mummification techniques were gradually developed. Also, statues of the dead were placed in the tomb to replace them in case of damage to the body. It was believed that the soul can enter it and revive it, thereby ensuring the posthumous life of a person. Noble tombs - mastaba - consisted of an underground part, where the coffin with a mummy was kept, and a massive above-ground building, which originally looked like a house with two false doors and a courtyard where sacrifices were made. The house was a brick-lined mound of sand and stone fragments. Then they began to build a brick chapel with an altar. Limestone was used for the tombs of the highest nobility. Of great importance was the construction of royal tombs, where all the advanced technologies and inventions were applied. Remnants of the notion that the spirit of the leader would protect his tribe were transferred to the cult of the pharaoh. Often, eyes were depicted on the tops of the pyramids.

An important stage in the development of royal tombs is the idea of ​​increasing buildings vertically - for the first time this idea arises during the construction of the tomb of the pharaoh of the III dynasty of Djoser (~ 3000 years BC), the so-called step pyramid. The name of its builder, Imhotep, survived until the end of the history of Egypt, as a sage, builder and astronomer, and later he was deified as the son of the god Ptah, and the Greeks compared him with their healer god Asclepius.

The tomb of Djoser opens the way to the creation of a perfect and complete type of pyramid. The first such pyramid was the tomb of the king I Dynasty V Sneferu in Dashur (~2900 BC) - the predecessor of the famous pyramids in Giza (29-28 centuries BC)

The most famous pyramids, located to Giza, were built for the pharaohs of the IV dynasty Khufu, whom the Greeks called Cheops; Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaura (Mykerin). The most grandiose of the three is the pyramid of Khufu (Cheops), it is the largest stone structure in the world: 146.6 m in height, and the length of the side of the base is 233 m. The pyramid is composed of precisely hewn limestone blocks weighing about 2.5 tons each (total there are more than 2,300,000 pieces).

Each of the pyramids in Giza was surrounded by an architectural ensemble: sometimes there were small pyramids of queens nearby. The royal mortuary temple adjoined the eastern side of the pyramid, connected by a covered stone passage with a monumental gate in the valley. These gates were built where the waters of the Nile floods reached, and since. to the east, the fields irrigated by the Nile were green, and to the west, lifeless sands spread, the gates stood, as it were, on the verge of life and death.

The clearest idea of ​​the mortuary temples at the Giza pyramids is given by the remains of the temple at the Pyramid of Khafre (a rectangular building with a flat roof). In these temples, free-standing pillars are found for the first time. The buildings themselves are decorated with a combination of polished planes of various stones.

The tombs of the pharaohs of the 5th and 6th dynasties (2700-2400 BC) are of a different nature. there was a change of power. Now more attention was paid to the design of temples: the walls were covered with reliefs glorifying the pharaoh. It was at this time that palm columns and papyrus-shaped columns, characteristic of Egyptian architecture, appear. There is also a third type of Egyptian columns: in the form of a bunch of lotus buds.

A new type of building appears - the so-called solar temples. An important element of which was a colossal obelisk, the top of which was upholstered with copper. Example: Niuser-ra Solar Temple. It was also connected by a covered passage with a gate in the valley.

Sculpture of this time is represented by mortuary statues in the niches of chapels or in enclosed spaces behind chapels, executed in monotonous sitting or standing poses. The sacred purpose of sculpture, as a substitute for the physical body, led to the early emergence of the Egyptian sculptural portrait. Example: the statue of the nobleman Ranofer from his tomb in Saqqara.

Nevertheless, some sculptors managed to create true masterpieces within the framework of the most severe canons:

Statue of architect Hemiun

Statue of Prince Kaaper from the tomb at Saqqara

Pharaoh Menkaura, goddess Hathor and goddess noma

Statue of Pharaoh Khafre from his tomb at Giza

Statue of Scribe Kai

Sculptors gradually came to the need to refine the masks of the dead, especially in the manufacture of heads or busts of the nobility, while the pharaohs were depicted exaggeratedly: with super-powerful bodies, a passionless look. A special incarnation of the pharaoh was the image of the sphinx - the body of a lion, and the head of the pharaoh. The most famous of all - the Great Sphinx is located at the monumental gates of the pyramid of Khafre. It is based on a natural limestone rock, which resembled the figure of a lying lion. The missing parts were added from limestone slabs.

Separately, you need to consider the statues and figurines of slaves and servants, placed in the tombs for"service" to the dead. These sculptures depicted people engaged in various works, moreover, without any canonical norms.

Girl preparing beer. Statuette from Saqqara, IV dynasty

A large place in the art of the Old Kingdom was occupied by reliefs and paintings covering the walls of tombs and temples. Two relief techniques were used: ordinary bas-relief (a type of relief where the image protrudes above the background plane by no more than half the volume) and incised, characteristic of Egyptian art, where the surface of the stone remains untouched, and the contours of the images are cut.

Architect Khesira. Relief from his tomb at Saqqara

Two wall painting techniques were also used: tempera on a dry surface and the insertion of colored pastes into recesses. The paints were mineral. Murals and reliefs depicted not only scenes of glorification of nobles and kings, they told about rural and handicraft work, fishing and hunting, but at the same time there were scenes of beating non-payers, immediately replaced by scenes of amusement of the nobility. It is in the images of ordinary people that defy the canons that one can trace a change in worldview, in artistic creativity.

During the period of the Old Kingdom, artistic craft was of great importance and development: various vessels, furniture, decorations; kept in touch with real life events.

Art of the Middle Kingdom

(21st century - early 19th century BC)

Frequent predatory wars, gigantic construction work led to the weakening of royal power. As a consequence, in 2400 BC. Egypt broke up into separate regions. In the 21st century BC. a new unification of the country began, there was a struggle between the nomes, the winners were the southern nomes, headed by the rulers of Thebes. They formed the XI dynasty of pharaohs. But the struggle for power still continued among the subjects. Amenemhet I and his successors managed to maintain the unity of the country, a new irrigation network was built (Fayum irrigation facilities). The general economic upsurge contributed to the development of art, the construction of the pyramids resumed. The predecessors of Anemkhet I resorted to a new design of their tombs - a combination of a pyramid with an ordinary rock tomb. The most significant of these is the tomb of Mentuhotep II and III in Deir el-Bahri.

The layout of the pyramids and temples of the XII dynasty completely coincides with the location of the tombs of the pharaohs of the V-VI dynasties, but due to changing economic conditions, the construction of giant stone pyramids was impossible, so the size of the new structures is much smaller, and the building material was raw brick, which changed the method of laying. The statues of the mortuary temples imitate the examples of the Old Kingdom, but there are some differences in local centers, in particular in middle Egypt, where the nomarchs still felt themselves to be the rulers of their regions and imitated the customs of the royal palaces. This is how a new direction in the art of the Middle Kingdom is taking shape, art centers are being formed.During civil strife, there were periods when there was no power of the pharaoh. Faith in the established foundations, and in particular in the afterlife, was shaken, and this was also facilitated by new scientific discoveries. This was reflected in literature (the story of Sinuhet) and art, there is a greater inclination towards realism.

A striking example of new trends are the reliefs and paintings on the walls of the rock tombs of the nomarchs. Particularly noteworthy are the reliefs from Meir depicting ordinary people.

The masters achieved particular success in the depiction of animals in the murals of the tomb of the nomarch of the 16th nome Khnumhotep II in Beni Hasan. Gradually, this experience was positively received in official art and was reflected in royal portraits.

In order to glorify themselves, the Theban pharaohs began extensive temple construction. They tried to install as many of their images as possible in the temples, inside and out, and the maximum similarity was necessary in order to fix the image of the pharaoh in the minds of the people.

Statue of Sanurset III, obsidian, 19th century BC.

Statue of AmenemhatIII, black basalt, 19th century BC.

Statue of AmenemhatIII from Hawar, yellow limestone, 19th century BC.

By the time of the reign of Senurset III, royal power had strengthened, the nobility sought to take positions at the court. Court workshops began to play a huge role. Local creativity began to follow their creativity, more canonical. There is an increase in construction, including pyramids. Example: the tomb of Amenemhat III in Havar, the mortuary temple was especially famous, especially in Greece.

Artistic craft has been widely developed due to the growth of urban life. As before, a lot of dishes were made from stone and faience, metal was processed, and bronze vessels appeared. A new technique has appeared in jewelry - granulation.

Among the discoveries of the art of the Middle Kingdom are the three-nave construction of the hall with a raised middle nave, pylons, colossal statues outside the building. Especially important is the growth of realistic tendencies, in particular in portrait statues.

Art of the first half of the New Kingdom. Art of the 18th Dynasty

(16th-15th centuries BC)

In the 18th century BC. there was a weakening of the central government. The ensuing long conquest of Egypt by nomads was a period of economic and cultural decline. In the 16th century BC. Thebes began the fight against the nomads and for the unification of the country. Pharaoh Ahmes I was the first king of the XVIII dynasty. The victorious wars in Syria and Nubia contributed to the influx of funds and an increase in luxury and grandiose architecture. In the art of this period, the role of pomp and decorativeness, as well as the role of realistic aspirations, increases.

Thebes played a leading role in the art of the 18th dynasty, where the best works of art of this time were created: the Temple of TimeXVIII dynasty, the temple of the god Amun in Thebes - Karnak and Luxor. In Luxor, a new type of temple of the New Kingdom acquired its finished form. The central colonnade was in the form of giant stone papyrus flowers.

Temple of Amun in Luxor

Temple of Amun at Karnak

An important place in the architecture of the 18th dynasty is occupied by the mortuary royal temples located in Thebes on the western bank of the Nile. The tombs were separated from the mortuary temples, they were carved in the gorges of the rocks, and the temples were erected below, on the plain. This idea belongs to the architect Ineya. Temples are becoming more and more monumental. (Temple of Amenhotep III of which only 2 giant statues of the pharaoh have survived:

A special place is occupied by the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Del el-Bahri. Sculptures of external design are the least individual, transmitted only by the most character traits queen's face. The statues in the main chapel reproduce her image more.

From the middle of the 18th period, a new stage began: the severity of forms was replaced by decorativeness, sometimes turning into excessive elegance. There is a general interest in the volume, the transfer of portrait features. The canonicity of the royal statues did not allow to fully reflect all the innovations, this was more clearly manifested in the statues of private individuals.

The development of style in Theban wall painting proceeded in similar ways. The most interesting are the tombs of the nobility, because. the royal ones contain narrowly religious subjects, with the exception of the Hatshepsut temple in Deir el-Bahri. The main images are scenes from life and religious subjects, military themes, feast themes appear. Much attention is paid to movement in the composition. The figures of ordinary people contrast strangely with those of the nobility.

At the same time, Egyptian graphics appeared, drawings on papyri with texts"Books of the Dead". There is a flourishing of craft, multi-colored inlays. The use of a vertical loom made it possible to produce fabrics with tapestry patterns. Plant motifs are especially popular.

The art of the time of Akhenaten and his successors. Amarna Art

(late 15th - early 14th century BC)

As a result of the aggressive wars of the kings of the 18th dynasty and the enrichment of the nobility and priesthood, internal confrontation grew, which culminated in an open conflict at the beginning of the 14th century. BC. under Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who resolved this conflict with a religious reform. He put forward the doctrine, declaring the only true deity of the solar disk under the name of the god Aten. The pharaoh left Thebes and built himself a capital in middle Egypt - Akhetaten, he himself took a new name - Akhenaten, which means"Spirit of the Aten". He actively showed a break with the traditional past, which had a strong impact on art. The rejection of canonical forms changed not only the form of monuments, but also their content. They began to portray the king more often in Everyday life, special attention was paid to the environment. Needed to re-create artistic images, new types of shrines. The first artistic experiences were very unusual, because. masters had to be retrained. However, the lack of a canon had a positive effect.

The reign of the XIX Dynasty was the years of a new political and economic upsurge. The influx of wealth and slaves increased due to external wars, but inside there was still a struggle between the pharaoh, the priesthood and the nobility. Theban art preserves a reactionary desire to return to old traditions, the rulers tried to give more brilliance and splendor to the capital.

The main object of construction in Thebes was, of course, the temple of Amun in Karnak, of the grandiose scale. The mortuary temple of Ramses II, the so-called Ramesseum in Abu Simbel, was also monumental, in the first courtyard of which there was a colossal statue of the king (~ 20m in height).

Sculpture returns to the canonical images of antiquity, more and more external elegance increases. However, they appear secular images pharaoh and queen. The pharaoh is depicted without exaggeration as a muscle, as before, the image of a mighty ruler is conveyed by more realistic means - the correct proportions, muscles peeking out from under the clothes.

Also, the legacy of the 18th dynasty is visible in the reliefs: an interest in the landscape, in individual features, especially ethnic types. But all these new features did not violate the basic traditional conventions.

Among the Theban murals, the murals of the tombs of masters who lived in an isolated settlement in the mountains of the Theban necropolis and represented a closed team, the transfer of position in which went from father to son, stand apart. It was also a religious society, because. participated in religious ceremonies, incl. and the cult of death. They were called"hearing the call."

The further development of the art of the end of the New Kingdom was heavily affected by long wars and the weakening of the economy, as well as civil strife. The 20th dynasty of the pharaohs briefly managed to unite the country, but with the loss of former foreign possessions. A little later, the country broke up into a northern one under the rule of the nomarchs of Tanis and a southern one with its capital in Thebes. Large-scale construction ceased after the death of the second pharaoh of the XX dynasty, Ramesses III. During his time, the temple of Khonsu at Karnak and the mortuary temple with a palace at Medinet Habu were built. The tombs gradually decreased in size, the paintings became standard, the position of the artists fell, which significantly affected the quality of the work.

Late Art

(11th century - 332 BC)

The wars waged by the pharaohs of the New Kingdom delayed development. During the 1st century there were constant uprisings of the population, the struggle of slave owners. Starting from the 2nd c. BC. the state collapsed. In 671 BC Egypt was conquered by the Assyrians, the struggle was led by the ruler of the western delta, who acted in alliance with the Greek cities, Asia Minor and Lydia. After the expulsion of the Assyrians, Egypt was united under the rule of the XXVI dynasty with the capital at Sais.

In times of long breakups, large-scale construction was not carried out, it was resumed only in short periods of unification. At such a time, under the Libyan ruler Sheshank and the Ethiopian pharaoh Taharqa, additions to Karnak were made - the construction of another courtyard with porticos and a giant pylon.

During the 11th - 8th centuries. BC. Thebes and Tanis remained the artistic center. Theban art continued the traditions of the New Kingdom, and artistic craft flourished in Tanis. Sculpture of this time - outwardly elegant monuments. Bronze figurines have become widespread instead of expensive stone.

During the reign of the Ethiopian dynasty in the art world revival began. Example: a sculptural portrait of Pharaoh Taharka (Hermitage) and Ethiopian princesses (The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts).

Statue of Montuemhat, mayor of Thebes

The desire to idealize its history only intensified in subsequent years, especially when Egypt was united under the rule of the conqueror of Assyria, Pharaoh Psamtik I. Trade routes improved and expanded, construction began again, mainly concentrated in Sais. The builders, like everyone else, imitated the ancient art.Archaization affected all areas: literature and religion, politics.

Despite the severe consequences of the Persian conquest (525 BC) and the short period of struggle for independence, Egyptian artists created beautiful monuments. An example is the head of a priest from Memphis.

After the second conquest by the Persians, and then by the Greek-Macedonians (332 BC), Egypt retained political independence under the control of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty, and found the strength to take up art. Temples in Effu, Espe, Dendera, on about. Filet. However, these architectural monuments should already be considered in the context of Hellenism.

The significance of Egyptian culture is great: it is a rich literature (a fairy tale, a story, love lyrics arose), Egyptian science gave us a calendar and signs of the zodiac, the basics of geometry and the first discoveries in the field of medicine, geography and history. This knowledge enjoyed high prestige in the ancient world, and later in the East. The first Greek art was formed under the influence of the art of Ancient Egypt and influenced the minds of young Greek masters.