Egyptian art in the Days of the Pharaohs

Fülszöveg

Written by one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Egyptian art, this new survey is concerned principally with the fine arts of sculpture and painting, and to a •lesser extent with architecture. Cyril Aldred examines the achievement of the Egyptian artist through three thousand years of pharaonic history, identifying the ^ environmental and reli^gious forces that determined the forms of Egyptian art, and demonstrating that its essentially two-dimensional character, evident as,much in sculpture as in drawing, owed a great deal to the influence of hieroglyphic writing of which it was often an adjunct.
After interludes of political upheaval, the tendeni^y was always for the artist to return to the inspiration of his past. This constant recall of hallowed traditions restored the harmony of the Egyptian world as it had been first created. Yet there were forces, political and religious, that despite all the Egyptian's instincts turned his art into new channels. The majestic... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Written by one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Egyptian art, this new survey is concerned principally with the fine arts of sculpture and painting, and to a •lesser extent with architecture. Cyril Aldred examines the achievement of the Egyptian artist through three thousand years of pharaonic history, identifying the ^ environmental and reli^gious forces that determined the forms of Egyptian art, and demonstrating that its essentially two-dimensional character, evident as,much in sculpture as in drawing, owed a great deal to the influence of hieroglyphic writing of which it was often an adjunct.
After interludes of political upheaval, the tendeni^y was always for the artist to return to the inspiration of his past. This constant recall of hallowed traditions restored the harmony of the Egyptian world as it had been first created. Yet there were forces, political and religious, that despite all the Egyptian's instincts turned his art into new channels. The majestic confidence of the Old Kingdom gave way to the careworn unease of the Middle Kingdom, which in turn was transmuted into the heroic grandeur of the New Kingdom and the introspective withdrawal of Egypt's troubled twilight. Throughout this time, however, the ancient artists maintained a mastery over their materials, and a humanity of approach, that have won the admiration of civilized men ever since, from Plato and the art collectors of Imperial Rome to modern critics looking down longer vistas of art history.
Cyril Aldred
was among the first to graduate in the History of Art at the newly founded Courtauld Institute of Art, London, in 1936, and it is as an art historian that he has studied Egyptology ever since. From 1961 to 1974 he vyas Keeper of the Departmentof Art and Archaeology at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and he has also served as Associate Curator of the Department of Egyptian Art. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His many publications include The Egyptians (1961), Egypt, to the End of the Old Kingdom (1965), Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt Akhenaten and Nefertiti (1212), Jewels of the Pharaohs
(2nd edn, 1978) and Tutankhamun, Craftsmanship in Gold in the Reign of the King (1979).
On the cover: Painted wooden model of an offering-bearer, from the tomb of IVIel<et-re, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes, c. 2000 BC: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Excavations, 1919-20; Rogers Fund, supplemented by contribution of Edward S. Harkness.' Vissza