The article “The meaning of Egyptian-style objects in the Late Bronze cemeteries of Tell el-FarÊ¿ah (South)” by Susan L. Braunstein discusses Late Bronze Age IIB Egyptian-style objects. She provides an extensive and comparative analysis of the database that can be gleaned from the study of burial art of that time. In addition, the article parses the influence of the material culture of the Egyptian style on the creation of the social identity of the inhabitants of Egypt. This article is helpful in my work because it provides an overview of Egyptian burial art objects and discusses why these works were created. This article is peer-reviewed and approved by the scientific community because it is posted by a reputable resource, The University of Chicago Press Journal. The article’s author, Susan L. Braunstein, is a credible writer of scholarly materials on Egypt.
The book “Egyptian Art: Introductory Studies” by Jean Capart explores various aspects of Egyptian art. This work is interesting because it presents an overview of art based on various factors – architecture, history, and Egyptian society. The author also explains the meaning and practical application of Egyptian art from the perspective of environmental factors, which is unusual for this kind of material. For my work, this book is helpful because it presents an overview of Egyptian art from various perspectives. It will help me to use a more extensive and complete information base in my work. The book is a credible source because its author is an experienced Egyptologist.
The article “Egyptians planned their funerals and mummies,” written in 1935, provides a detailed overview of Egyptian funeral art. The emphasis is on why the cult of funerals and death was popular in ancient Egypt. In addition, the author describes precisely how funeral planning took place and how funerary art was created. This article is helpful for my work because it describes the practical application of Egyptian art, specifically the application for ritual purposes. The material is very interesting and extensive. It provides an excellent theoretical basis for discussing Egyptian funerary art in my research. The article is an authoritative source because it was published by a respected scientific publication, The Science News.
“The Enlightenment Rediscovery of Egyptology: Vitaliano Donati’s Egyptian Expedition, 1759-62” by Angela Scattolin Morecroft recounts the collection of Egyptian artifacts assembled in 1759 by botanist and scholar Vitaliano Donati. This collection is one of the oldest and largest systematic collections of Egyptology in Europe. The book is interesting because it tells the story of the collecting and studying of ancient Egyptian art objects. This material is helpful to my work in that it provides an overview and history of finding various Egyptian art objects. Through this book, I will analyze the different art forms better and analyze their historical purpose more accurately. This book is a credible source, and its author is an acknowledged expert on Egyptology.
The article “Funerary Services of the Egyptian Old Kingdom,” by John A. Wilson discusses the cult of funerary art in ancient Egypt. The author focuses on exactly how funeral and burial processes took place and what they were accompanied by. Attention is also paid to funerary art objects, which is helpful for my research. The author describes how various art objects were used in the funerary process. This information provides an extensive basis for my research in the context of practicality in the funerary art of the Egyptians. This article is verified and approved by the scientific community. This conclusion can be drawn from the article’s publication on the Jstor Library’s authoritative source.
I chose a scene from the Book of the Dead on a papyrus from the New Kingdom period for my visual analysis. To begin with, it is worth considering the overall composition. The characters in the image are pretty canonical for ancient Egypt – people, deities, animals, and birds. The proportions of people and animals are perfectly observed; presumably, this was done with the help of a grid, which was previously applied to the surface for painting. There are also hieroglyphs and pictograms on the drawing to make its practical purpose clearer. The ancient Egyptian canon required that each part of the body be depicted to be best seen. This is well illustrated by the image I have chosen – a single figure of a person or God combines viewpoints from different angles. The head, arms, and legs are depicted in the profile. In contrast, the eyes, shoulders, and chest are depicted in full-face, which is also characteristic of Egyptian drawing. In addition, the silhouettes of the figures are outlined, making them more integral. Thus, my sample of Egyptian art is a classic representative of the funerary art genre.
The symbolism of color is also fascinating in this depiction. Because the painting depicts a scene of “God’s judgment” on the dead, the colors were not chosen by chance. Red was associated with the sun-scorched, barren land and meant evil. Green, on the contrary, was the color of hope, rebirth, and youth. Green was also the color of the god Osiris, which confirms the image I have chosen. Beneath the pedestal on which Osiris sits is a block of blue, which symbolizes water and new life. Therefore, the illustration from the Book of the Dead is an example of canonical funerary art of ancient Egypt.
References
Braunstein, S. L. (2011). The meaning of Egyptian-style objects in the Late Bronze cemeteries of Tell el-Farʿah (South). Bulletin of the American schools of oriental research, 364(1), 1–36. Web.
Capart, J. (2018). Egyptian art: Introductory studies. Routledge. Web.
Egyptians planned their own funerals and mummies. (1935). The Science News-Letter, 27(723), 109–109. Web.
Morecroft, A.S. (2018). The Enlightenment rediscovery of Egyptology: Vitaliano Donati’s Egyptian expedition, 1759–62. Routledge. Web.
Wilson, J. A. (1944). Funeral Services of the Egyptian Old Kingdom. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 3(4), 201–218. Web.