Egyptian Wall Fragments

The earliest Egyptian art is very different from that of the pyramids and temples of the Pharaonic period.  To understand most of the Egyptian artwork that we see in museums and books, we must understand that elite Egyptians, mostly for specific functions, produced it and that it was an integral part of their worldview.  It is important that we understand the purpose of the artwork, or the concepts that shaped it, because a lack of such information has often led people to unfavorably compare it to the art of other cultures.  Egyptian art was not intended to merely imitate or reflect reality, but to replace and perpetuate it.
Producing three-dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is very different from working with statuary.  In a number of cultures, artists have found ways by which to obtain the illusion of the third dimension, adding depth to their work, while in the others the two-dimensionality of the drawing surface has been accepted and even exploited.  The ancient Egyptians belong to this second group.  Rather than attempting to create the appearance of depth, they instead arranged the objects they wished to depict over the flat drawing surface.  Such objects were carved or drawn using their most characteristic and easily recognized aspects, usually in profile, full view, plan or elevation.  Because these different views can occur together in the same picture plane, the result is not rendered as though from a single viewpoint.  Rather, it is a composite assemblage containing information that can be interpreted by the educated viewer. Limestone and other soft stones were carved with copper chisels and stone tools to produce these wall fragments.  Hard stones like sandstone were worked by hammering and grinding them with tools made of even harder stone and sand, acting as an abrasive.  Even when the figures on the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples are acting out myths, rituals and historical events, they are nevertheless carved or painted with the stiffness and formality of hieroglyphs.  The ancient Egyptians sought order in their world, and it was also functional to their art.  Only when the concept of chaos was intended, were figures placed haphazardly on the drawing surface.  Otherwise, they were set within a system of registers, the lower border of which acted as the ground line for the figures within the register.  For example, the wall fragment on the left, showing five heads representing the prisoners of war, their hair being grasped by an unknown figure.  On the bottom of their heads, another six figures are depicted running away in different directions.
Whether two or three-dimensions, Egyptian art was usually combined with text.  As in the picture above, some hieroglyphics are visible on the top portion of the wall fragment.  Short captions might describe the figures depicted and the actions taking place, while longer texts included requests for offerings for the dead, hymns to deities, works spoken by deities to the king, etc.  The hieroglyphic texts within any scene typically formed an integral part of the whole composition.  Because the blocks of hieroglyphic texts were often set against representational elements, the composition would lack balance without them.  In fact, hieroglyphs were small images drawn according to the principles that underlie Egyptian two-dimensional art.  Nevertheless, the images often do not resemble the objects that they describe, but are phonetic, representing different consonantal sounds in the Egyptian language.  However, other hieroglyphs are logographic, representing literally or metaphorically an object or idea.  Interestingly, hieroglyphs can act as determinatives, since they are placed at the ends of the individual words to determine a category.
Usually, the orientation of scenes in two-dimensional art for hieroglyphs and figures was facing to the right.  However, it was not uncommon for both to also face left, dictated by the circumstances, or for the hieroglyphs to be written in horizontal lines or vertical columns.
Scenes on stone surfaces were often cut into relief before painting or when not painted at all.  There were two main types of reliefs: one consisting of raised relief, the other of sunken relief.  In both types, chisels were used to cut around the outlines of figures.  Then in raised relief, the stone of the background was cut away, so that the figures were left standing out from the surface.  In sunken relief, it was the figures that were cut back within their outlines, leaving the surface of the background at a higher level.  In both methods, the figures were modeled to a greater or lesser extent within their outlines.  Traditionally, sunken relief was used on exterior walls and raised relief on interior walls, because bright sunlight has the effect of flattening raised relief and enhancing sunken relief.