Egyptian art: Fishing in the swamps on the edges of the Nile River from the tomb of the astronomer Nakht Sixth Dynasty (New Kingdom, ca. 1400 BC)
Egyptian art comes from African art
The earliest Egyptian artists clearly learned their art from even earlier African artists. But, thanks to the Nile River, a strong state government, and being in a good spot for trading with India and West Asia, Egypt was richer than other parts of Africa. By about 3000 BC artists were able to work longer and harder and make bigger, fancier pieces of art than other African artists. Egyptian art got more and more complex.
Early African art
Egypt in the Stone Age
Old Kingdom Egyptian art
All our Ancient Egypt articles
All our Africa articles
West Asian art influenced Egyptian art too
Another thing about Egypt being closer to West Asia than any other part of Africa was that Egyptian artists were able to trade ideas and skills with West Asian artists. Slowly Egyptian artists figured out how to build big buildings like the Pyramids, how to make glass and metal, how to use a pottery wheel, and how to carve big stone statues that could stand up on their own. Artists came from far away, even by boat from Crete, to do wall paintings for Egyptian houses.
Minoan painting on an Egyptian house from the Second Intermediate Period
Mesopotamian art
The Pyramids in Egypt
The invention of glass
The pottery wheel
Early African pottery
Egyptian stone sculpture
Middle Kingdom Egyptian art
Egyptian art: An ancient Egyptian family
New Kingdom art is looser and less precise
But by about 1500 BC, in the time of the New Kingdom, the Pharaohs and other rich Egyptians wanted more and more art, and they couldn’t really afford to have their art so carefully made. Some of the art became loose and sloppy. Or, maybe that’s just the style that people liked in the New Kingdom.
New Kingdom Egyptian art
Minoan and Mycenaean art
Bronze Age timeline
After 1000 BC, Egypt was poorer and there was less Egyptian art.
By about 1000 BC, though, Egypt’s government had collapsed and Egypt became much poorer than it had been before.
Third Intermediate Period
Persians in Egypt
Soon the Persians conquered Egypt, and then the Greeks and the Romans. Egyptian artists continued to work, and they did interesting mixes of their own art with the styles of each of these conquerors, but they didn’t have the time or the money to make the big, beautiful buildings, paintings, and statues they had made before.
Learn by doing: Drawing your portrait
More about Old Kingdom Art
Egypt’s art comes back – the Islamic period
Bibliography and further reading about ancient Egyptian art:
Eyewitness: Ancient Egypt, by George Hart. Easy reading.
Ancient Egyptian Art, by Susie Hodge (1998). Shows kids how Egyptian art relates to Egyptian religion and culture.
Hands-On Ancient People, Volume 1: Art Activities about Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Islam,by Yvonne Merrill and Mary Simpson. Art projects for kids, though the directions are really aimed at teachers or parents.
The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (Yale University Press Pelican History of Art), by William Stevenson Smith and William Kelly Simpson (revised edition 1999). The standard for college courses.
Egyptian Art, by Cyril Aldred (1985). Another standard.
This is an instructive page. It is of some interest to note that in most paintings and some sculptures it appears that the perspective of the ancient Egyptians had not obtained the technique of rending a side profile very well. Hence, the body is portrayed in a twisted manner. Cognitively speaking, one must wonder whether the perception of ancient Egyptians also saw the world in a “twisted” fashion. From a developmental Anthropological and Psychological interest, this suggests a different type of brain structure… at least in this singular representation.
Sorry, no it doesn’t. Ancient Egyptians were developing the art of painting while nobody else was even attempting it, so yes, their stuff does look earlier, because it *is* earlier. But no, we don’t have to wonder whether ancient Egyptians had some inherent brain difference or eye difference. They didn’t; that’s evolutionarily impossible. And we ourselves also draw distorted bodies – think of Picasso, or El Greco, or Matisse. Art is not the representation of what things look like to our eyes; it’s a representation of what things look like to our souls.