Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Download this course

Share this free course

Art and life in ancient Egypt
Art and life in ancient Egypt

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

8 Conventions of Egyptian art

In this section you will look at key conventions of Egyptian art, and why Egyptian artists followed those conventions. Here is a simple activity to begin your exploration.

Activity 2 What does Egyptian art look like?

Study Figure 27, and then make a list of some (say, half a dozen) instances of what you think are key features of the Egyptian ‘style’.

Characteristic Egyptian art: Rameses III before the gods of Memphis, from the Great Harris Papyrus
© Trustees of the British Museum
Figure 27 Characteristic Egyptian art: Rameses III before the gods of Memphis, from the Great Harris Papyrus (EA 9999.43)

Answer

Here are some things you may have observed:

  • mixing of human bodies with animal heads or, less frequently, animal bodies with human heads
  • ixing of frontal and side views, for example, side views of legs and feet with frontal views of the body, side views of the head with frontal eyes
  • a lack of modelling, resulting in a flattened, cut-out effect
  • an overall effect of stasis in the individual image, and when several are taken together, an effect of unchangingness.