Egyptian Art

Essay by lilbird0015Junior High, 8th grade May 2006

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For over three thousand years the Egyptians restricted themselves to a specific set of rules as to how a work of art in three dimensions should appear. Egyptian art was very symbolic and a painting or sculpture was meant to be a record of as the result of subtle changes, not an altered plan of art or its role in society.

The great buildings of the past are built of stone. Stone quarries supplied the large blocks of granite, limestone, and sandstone that were used for building temples and tombs. Architects planned carefully as building was done without mortar, so the stones had to fit precisely together. Only pillars were used to sustain short stone supports.

At the temple of Karnak, a ramp of adobe brick that leads to the top of the temple wall. These ramps were used to allow workmen to carry stones to the top of structure and allow artists to decorate the tops of walls and pillars.

Pillars were built in the same way. As height was added, the ground was raised. When the top of the pillar was completed, the artists would decorate from the top down, removing ramp sand as they went.

As soon as a pharaoh was named, construction on his tomb had started. Tomb building continued throughout his life and stopped only on the day on which he died. As a result, some tombs are very large and finely decorated, while other tombs, like that of King Tutankhamen, are small because he ruled as a pharaoh for such a short time.

The architecture was based upon perpendicular structures and inclined planes since there was no structural assistance except the strength and balance of the structure itself. For this reason, the square and the plumb-line were very important tools in.

One of the...