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Egypt Sculpture:

Producing the three dimensional world on a two dimensional surface is very different than working with statuary. In a number of cultures, artists have found ways by which to obtain the illusion of the third dimension, adding depth to their work, while in others the two-dimensionality of the drawing surface has been accepted and even exploited. The ancient Egyptians belong to this latter group. Rather than attempting to create the appearance of depth, they instead arranged the objects they wished to depict over the flat drawing surface. Such objects were drawn using their most characteristic and easily recognized aspect, usually in profile, full view, plan or elevation. Because these different views can occur together in the same picture plane, the result is not rendered as though from a single viewpoint. Rather, it is a composite assemblage containing information that can be interpreted by the educated viewer.

The human figure was usually formed from a composite built up from its individual parts. Hence, the head may be shown in profile, though with a full view of the eyebrow and eye set into it. The shoulders of formal figures are most usually shown frontally, while the waist, buttocks and limbs are in profile. Normally, the nipple on male figures and the breast on females are drawn in profile on the front line of the body, while items that lie on the chest such as collars, necklaces, pectorals and clothing are shown in full frontal view on the expanse of the torso framed by the front and back lines of the body. The navel is shown full view and is placed inside the front line of the body at the appropriate level. Prior to the 18th Dynasty, the two feet are depicted identically from the inside, showing the big toe and the arch. Later, the near foot was increasing shown from the outside with all the toes showing.  

Even when the figures on the walls of Egyptian tombs and temples are acting out myths, rituals and historical events, they are nevertheless carved or painted with the stiffness and formality of hieroglyphs.

The ancient Egyptians sought order in their world, and it was also fundamental to their art. Only when the concept of chaos was intended, were figures placed haphazardly on the drawing surface. Otherwise, they were set within a system of registers, the lower border of which acted as the ground line for the figures within the register.

The position of figures within a scene could be determined by the viewer according to several rules. Objects could be overlapped within the register, which means that the object partially covered by another is farther away. Items higher up in the register are further away than those lower down. The hierarchical ordering of society was reflected in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional art by scale. Hence, the king's figure is usually the same size as the gods whom he interacts with, though larger than his queen, children or subjects.

Whether in two or three-dimensions, Egyptian art was usually combined with text. Short captions might describe the figures depicted and the actions taking place, while longer texts included requests for offerings for the dead, hymns to deities, works spoken by deities to the king, etc. The hieroglyphic texts within any scene typically formed an integral part of the whole composition. Because the blocks of hieroglyphic texts was often set against representational elements, the composition would lack balance without them. 

In fact, hieroglyphs were small images drawn according to the principles that underlie Egyptian two dimensional art. Nevertheless, the images often do not resemble the objects that they describe, but are phonetic, representing different consonantal sounds in the Egyptian language. However, other hieroglyphs are logographic, representing literally or metaphorically an object or idea. Interestingly, hieroglyphs can act as determinatives. That is, they are placed at the ends of individual words to "determine" a category. For example, the name of a man may be followed by an image of a man identifying the word as a man's name. However, so clearly connected is art and hieroglyphs that when a figure is identified by its name in hieroglyphs, the expected determinative is usually omitted because the picture the name identifies acts as its determinative. 

Usually, the orientation of scenes in two dimensional art for hieroglyphs and figures was facing to the right. However, it was not uncommon for both to also face left, dictated by the circumstances, or for the hieroglyphs to be written in horizontal lines or vertical columns. Of course, this allowed for considerable versatility and subtlety when combining text with depictions. Usually, hieroglyphs faced the same direction as the figures they refer to, and in fact, the art was intended to be read like an elaborate code much like the hieroglyphic text. 

The mediums with which Egyptian artists worked were varied. One of the most easily obtained was limestone, which composed the cliffs to either side of much of the Nile Valley. Other common soft stone materials included calcite (Egyptian Alabaster), a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, sandstone, schist and greywacke. Harder stones included quartzite (a crystalline form of sandstone), diorite, granodiorite, granite and basalt. Stone was almost always used in royal free standing and rock cut temples and tombs after the earliest periods. It was also used to make statues, stelae, offering tables, libation bowls, vessels and other ritual equipment.

Soft stone, whether cut in place such as a rock cut tomb, or carved into blocks as in free standing temples, was usually covered by plaster prior to being decorated. Paint was sometimes also applied to hard stone, but often it was left visible for its symbolism. Hence, black stone such as granodiorite was representative of the life giving black silt left by the Nile inundation, thus symbolizing new life, resurrection and the resurrected god of he dead, Osiris. Red, brown, yellow and gold were associated with the sun, and so stones of those colors, such as red and brown quartzite and red granite, symbolized the sun. Green stone referred to fresh, growing vegetation, new life, resurrection and Osiris as well, who sometimes appears with black skin and sometimes green.

Limestone and other soft stones were carved with copper chisels and stone tools. Hard stones were worked by hammering and grinding them with tools made of even harder stone together with sand, which is basically quartz, acting as an abrasive. Stone vessels were hollowed out using drills with copper bits, together with an abrasive. These tools were also used to apply details and inscriptions to hard stone monuments. Afterwards, the finished object was polished with a smooth rubbing stone. 

If the stone was to be painted, the surface had to be smoothed and any holes in the stone or joints between blocks filled in with plaster. 

Scenes on stone surfaces were often cut into relief before painting (or when not painted at all). There were two main types of reliefs, consisting of raised and sunk relief. In both, chisels were used to cut around the outlines of figures. Then, in raised relief, the stone of the background was cut away, so that the figures were left standing out from the surface. In sunk relief, it was the figures that were cut back within their outlines, leaving the surface of the background at a higher level. In both methods, the figures were modeled to a greater or lesser extent within their outlines. Traditionally, sunk relief was used on outside walls and raised relief on interior walls, because bright sunlight has the effect of flattening raised relief and enhancing sunk relief. It should be noted that such work could also be applied to plastered surfaces on soft stone. 

In Theban tombs which were often simply painted, as opposed to relief-cut, rock cut walls, the walls were first covered with mud that was then plastered before painting. Treated similarly to soft stone, mudbrick was used in houses, palaces and other public buildings. And like the walls in Theban tombs, the mud was prepared for decoration with a layer of plaster. 

Prior to actually painting the prepared surfaces of stone or plaster over stone or mudbrick, scenes were laid out by first marking off the area to be decorated and then drawing in the initial sketches in red, to which corrections were often made in black, probably by the master draughtsman in charge of the project. Squared grids were introduced at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. Used to assist the artist in obtaining the proper proportions of their figures and often also to lay out the composition as a whole, the grids were drawn out on the surface before the scene was sketched in.  The lines of the grid were either drawn against a straight edge, or more commonly made with a string that was dipped in red paint and stretched taut across the surface before being snapped against it like a modern chalk line. 

The sketches were drawn with brushes, similar to those that were used by scribes. They were made from fine reeds that were trimmed at one end to an angle and chewed or split to fray the fibers. For the actual application of paint, thicker brushes were made from fibrous wood such as palm ribs, or from bundles of twigs tied together that were than beaten at one end to separate the fibers and make a course brush. 

A bundle of brushes wrapped round with string used for making grid lines

Pigments for paint came primarily from minerals that occur naturally in Egypt and the surrounding desert. White was usually made from calcium carbonate (whiting) or calcium sulphate (gypsum). However, huntite, which was already in use during the Middle Kingdom, and which became common during the New Kingdom, produced a more intense white. It was frequently used to paint white areas, such as clothing, so that it would stand out against the less white background of calcium carbonate. 

Black was produced from one of several forms of carbon, most commonly soot or charcoal.

Ochre (iron oxide) could produce a range of colors from light yellow to dark brown depending on the level of hydration. It was frequently used for reds and yellows.

During the New Kingdom, realgar was also used for red, but is unstable in light, and has often degraded over time to yellow. Orpiment was used from the Middle Kingdom onward to obtain a very bright yellow that was used to simulate gold. However, it fades in light to a dull off-white so that its effect is often lost. Jarosite was also used to produce a pale yellow. The artists used different yellow pigments side by side, showing that they were not mere substitutes for each other.

Blue was sometimes provided from azurite (copper carbonate), which over time becomes green as it changes to malachite, another form of copper carbonate. However, Egyptian blue was more common, which consisted of a compound made from heating quartz, ground malachite and calcium carbonate together. Different shades of blue were obtained according to the way in which the resulting compound was ground for use, since the finer the grain the paler the blue. Green rather than blue could be produced if the proportions of malachite and calcium carbonate were varied. However, green was more frequently made from naturally occurring malachite. Sometimes, the pigments were mixed together to make different colors prior to application. For example, black might be mixed with white to obtain gray, or red and white to make pink.

Pigments were prepared by grinding them on a hard stone mortar before mixing them with a medium such as plant gum or animal glue.

Paint was laid on in flat washes, pigment by pigment, so that painters mixed as much of one color as they needed, painted in all the appropriate areas, and then moved on to another color. However, colors could also be painted over one another in layers to obtain different color effects. The final stage of painting was to outline figures and add interior details with a fine brush. Many details in relief work and on statues were often only added in paint and not cut into the stone. 

No discussion of stone art would be complete without reference to Ostracons, rock fragments that were used for various purposes. They were generally discarded fragments, which were frequently used to draw plans and sketch out drawings. However, some of the most interesting artwork ever produced in Egypt were recorded on their small surfaces, usually by craftsman, but also by anyone else. They were the scratchpads of ancient Egypt, used by the common man to do the ancient equivalent of doodling. As such, there were no real rules that applied and so we find a completely unique art form known perhaps no where else in Egypt other than perhaps the graffiti drawn on the faces of cliffs.