Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 3- Sculpture

The sculpture of the ancient Egyptians followed many of the same strict rules as the paintings and carvings. Since most of the sculptures showed pharaohs or gods and were expected to help in the afterlife, it makes sense that the Egyptians would take the art form seriously.

Sculptures never showed illness. They never showed injury or deformity. These things had no place in the afterlife which was supposed to be just like life—if things were always perfect. The sculptures usually showed the pharaoh, sometimes with animal-formed gods, sometimes with family, sometimes holding offerings to the gods. The pharaoh always wore a peaceful expression and stood (or sat or knelt) in a confident pose that made him look young and strong.

The sculptures were also very well finished and perfectly polished. In the 1000s BC, the power of the pharaohs weakened and the quality of the statues worsened. The sculptures were still pretty spectacular (and huge), and the quality of the early centuries of Egyptian sculpture eventually returned.
Because the sculptures of rulers were often several stories tall, scaffolding had to be used. The Egyptians tied sturdy reeds together to create wide ladders. The sculptors could stand on the ladders to reach the middles and tops of the sculptures. Using chisels and wooden mallets, teams of sculptors chipped away at blocks of stone to create sculptures.

Other sculptors then worked on smoothing out the stone. They created sandpaper by pressing sand between a rock and the sculpture. The sculptor would rub until the sand had all fallen away, then added more and continued. You can imagine that this would take a long time if only one person worked on it. This is one reason why Egyptian sculptors worked in teams.
When the sculpture is smooth and perfect, the sculptors carved the name of the pharaoh into the back of the sculpture.
There were, of course, smaller sculptures made for the tombs of other Egyptians, but they weren’t as large or well-finished as those created for the pharaoh.

More Egyptian art to come! Check back tomorrow.

EDITED TO ADD: Part 4- Amarna Art, Part 5- Fayum Portraits

Return to main page.

Faberge Eggs

In celebration of Easter, I thought it would be fitting to post about the master of egg decorating, Peter Carl Faberge. He created art in many forms but this article will focus only on his famous Faberge Eggs.

Many people collect “Faberge eggs” but, unless they are millionaires, they are not collecting the ones that Peter Carl Faberge and his studio created from 1885 to 1917. Those eggs are very hard to get and some have sold for nearly 10 million dollars! While modern “Faberge eggs” are beautiful works of art, I will only talk about those 69 eggs that Peter Carl Faberge himself had a hand in designing and creating.

The first egg was made as an Easter surprise for the wife of the Russian Tsar (ruler) Alexander III. From the outside, it looked like a regular egg. It was made of white enamel with a little band of gold around the center. The egg could be opened and inside was a golden yolk. When the yolk was opened, there was a gold hen sitting in a golden nest. Inside the hen (yes, the hen opened, too!) was a necklace with a little ruby egg and a diamond crown. Sounds like a nice Easter gift to me!
The Tsar’s wife loved her egg and from then on Alexander III gave her a custom-designed Faberge egg for Easter each year. When Alexander III’s son, Nicholas II, became tsar, he continued the tradition. He had Faberge create eggs for his wife and his mother each year at Easter.

Faberge made about fifteen eggs for wealthy collectors but the rest were made for the Russian royal family.

Shown above is the Blue Serpent Egg. Notice the Roman numerals around the upper part of the egg. The serpent’s head points to the time.

Next is the Azova Egg (above). I love the idea of a ship in an egg.

Look at the little carriage that came inside the Coronation Egg (above).

How gorgeous is the Lilies of the Valley Egg? Faberge designed it because he knew the Empress loved lilies of the valley, her favorite jewels were pearls, and her favorite color was pink. Wouldn’t you love someone to design an egg based on your favorite things? I think mine would be made of polished opal nestled in a base of tiger lilies. What would your Faberge egg look like?

Below are two more eggs that I really liked, The Clover Egg and the Peacock Egg.
The eggs of Peter Carl Faberge are worth millions of dollars. Faberge’s grandson, Theo Faberge, began making eggs in the second half of the 1900s. His were not one of a kind like those of his grandfather. Theo made a few hundred of each of his designs and sold them to the public. Each of his eggs is worth several thousand dollars, far less than Peter Carl Faberge's. Theo’s eggs are not as ornate and do not have as many pieces.

On Monday I’ll post more about the art of the ancient Egyptians. Until then, enjoy you weekend and your Easter. And for those of you on spring break (like me), enjoy your time off from school!

Return to main page.

Ancient Egypt Art, Part 2- Carvings

Ancient Egyptians sometimes decorated tombs and monuments with carvings called reliefs. Yesterday you read about how they created paintings. The process of creating relief carvings was very similar.

A thin layer of plaster was spread over the wall, polished, and smoothed. An apprentice then marked the wall with a red grid pattern and copied the image from a piece of papyrus, carefully keeping the same proportion. At this point, the wall was ready for carving. The sculptor used a large, wooden mallet and a copper or bronze chisel to make the carving.

There were two types of reliefs: raised reliefs and sunken reliefs. When creating a raised relief, the sculptor chiseled away the parts of the stone around the image. This made the image stand out, like the one shown below.

To create a sunken relief, the sculpture carved away the image, leaving the background higher than the picture. An example is shown below.
Egyptians often combined the two styles when decorating tombs and monuments, as in the example below. The pharoahs were done in raised relief and the hieroglyphics around them were done in sunken relief.
When the carving was complete, the wall was whitewashed before the natural, Egyptian paints were added.
Stay tuned for more about Egyptian Art.

EDITED TO ADD: Part 3- Sculpture, Part 4- Amarna Art, Part 5- Fayum Portaits

Return to main page.

Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 1- Painting

This will be the first post in a series on ancient Egyptian art. Today, I’ll focus on paintings.

Not just anyone could paint the pictures that appeared inside ancient Egyptian tombs and monuments. Those paintings were extremely important and had to be done perfectly because they were meant to help the dead in the afterlife.

Painters usually worked as teams with one master craftsman overseeing the work of several apprentices. First, a grid was drawn on a piece of papyrus. Then the image was drawn on top of the grid. In ancient Egyptian art, each figure had to be a specific size. For example, a grown man was always 19 squares from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head.

Egyptian art was standardized. Not only were certain figures always the same number of squares tall and wide, but the there was a formula for the way to draw figures. When you look at Egyptian paintings (and carvings) you’ll notice that the face is always sideways, the upper body always faces forward, and the legs and feet face sideways. This is not a natural position. You’ll also notice that the one eye that shows is always painted on the side of the face. The Egyptians wanted to show only the most important parts of the body and they wanted to show those parts in the most attractive way. They painted the eye on the side of the face so it could be shown looking straight out. Feet don’t look like feet from straight on so the Egyptians painted them from the side.

When the drawing was perfect, a thin layer of plaster was spread over the area to be painted. It was sanded and smooth until it was shiny. Some of the apprentices would then use cords dipped in red paint to create a grid on the wall. The image was then painted onto the wall in red paint by the apprentices. They had to be careful to paint the figure exactly the way it looked on the papyrus. The master craftsman corrected the pictures in black before the apprentices filled in the figure with colored paints.

Egyptians used only eight colors, all mixed from natural materials likes rocks and plants. The colors have stayed bright in some place because the sun doesn’t reach the inside of tombs to bleach away the paints.

Sometimes paintings were done on papyrus scrolls instead of on walls. The figures still followed the same formulas.

Check back tomorrow for the next post in this series on Egyptian art!

EDITED TO ADD: Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 2- Carvings, Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 3- Sculpture, Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 4- Amarna Art, Ancient Egyptian Art, Part 5- Fayum Portraits

Return to main page.

Aubrey Beardsley

Yesterday you read about illustrator and stained-glass artist, Harry Clarke. Today’s post is about the illustrator Clarke was most often compared to, Aubrey Beardsley.

A note to parents: This post is completely kid-friendly but be aware that other articles you’ll find about Beardsley probably will not be.

Aubrey Beardsley was born in England in 1872. His artistic talent was obvious even when he was a young boy. He was mostly self-taught, though he did study art at the Westminster School of Art.

In 1892, Beardsley illustrated his first book, Morte D’arthur by Thomas Malory. This included 300 illustrations and decorations such as the ones shown below.

The next year an article was published about Beardsley in the journal, The Studio. The article included some of his illustrations and because of this he was hired to illustrate Oscar Wilde’s Salome. Beardsley became friends with Wilde and the two were linked in people’s minds from then on.

Beardsley became the art editor of a periodical, The Yellow Book. It was very successful but did not share the values and beliefs of society in 1890s England. When Oscar Wilde was arrested and sent to jail, Beardsley was fired from The Yellow Book and it was forever changed.
Beardsley briefly worked for another, smaller publication before illustrating more books including Theophile Gautier’s Mademoiselle de Maupin and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.

In 1898, at only 25 years old, Beardsley died of tuberculosis. He had always been sick and weak and his body had finally had enough.

As I mentioned earlier, many compare Harry Clarke to Beardsley but I think they are very different. Clarke’s illustrations are creepy. Beardsley’s are certainly strange, but I wouldn’t call them creepy. I think the pictures have different feelings. What do you think?

Return to main page.