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Hieratic: The Egyptians drew people
who were more important larger than those considered unimportant. Therefore
the Pharoah was painted as the largest, followed by the high priest and so on.
The basic conventions of Egyptian figure representation can be seen on the Panel of Hesire below. He is a high official from the court of King Zoser. Thr figure's swelling forms have been modelled with greater subtlety and its proportion have been changed to a broad-shouldered, narrow hipped ideal.
The artist uses the conceptual approach rather than he optical representing what he knows to be true of the object and showing its most characteristic parts at right angles to the line of vision.
This conceptual approach expresses a feeling for the constant and changeless aspect of things and lends itself to systematic methods of figure construction.
Erwin Panofsky:
"...With its more significant lines permanently fixed on specific points of the human body, the Egyptian network (of equal squares) immediately indicates to the painter or sculptor how to organize his figure: he will know from the outset that he must place the ankle on the first horizontal line, the knee on the sixth,.... and so on... It was , for instance agreed that in a (lunging) figure.. the length of pace, ...should amount to 101/2 units, while this distance in a figure quietly standing was set at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 units. Without too much exaggeration, once could maintain, that, when an Egyptian artist was familiar with this system of proportion was set the task of respresenting a standing, sitting or striding figure, the result was a foregone conclusion once the figure's absolute size was determined..." Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts ( Garden City, NY: double day, 1955 pp58-61)
(source:Gardiner H: Art Through the Ages, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers, San Diego Eighth edition 1976)
Champollion J., The World of the Egyptians, Minerva, Geneva, 1971
Burke E., D Kruse D., Mirams S.,, Aspects of the Past, Oxford Uni Press, Melbourne, 1999
Chadderton R & E Chadderton., TheTime Detectives, Nelson, Melbourne, 1985"
Garden G., Life BC, Heinemann, Richmond, 1985)
Gardiner H: Art Through the Ages, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers, San Diego Eighth edition 1976
Materials: Roll of paper at least wide and long enough to draw full body size, acyrlic paints
Students are to be given photocopies of the canon of proportions and are to write down all the characteristics and features of an Egyptian representation of a person.
Students will draw a portrait of one of their class mates and then adjust the portrait to match the Egyptian canon.
These will be painted in acrylics using Egyptian symbolic colour schemes : Blue - lapis lazuli - Nile, Green - fertility, carnelian - Sun/desert, white - death, black - mouth - wisdom.
The outlines of images can be cut out when dry and put up for display.
Activity Sheet 1 | Activity Sheet 2 | Worksheet 1 | Worksheet 2 | Egyptian Lesson Idea 1 | Egyptian Lesson Idea 2 | Associated Web Links |