Isis, Wife of Osiris, holding their son, Horus is an Egyptian statuette depicting the goddess Isis cradling infant Horus on her lap as she breastfeeds him. Isis is wearing a large, elaborate headpiece on top of her and her clothing falls into the typical Egyptian canon of tight-fitting dresses that females statues are shown wearing. This bronze statuette which dates back to 750 BC is about 7.5 inches. Its country of origin is Egypt. Seated Woman Nursing Child is a Greek terracotta statuette of a woman sitting on a chair breastfeeding her child. Although this statue is produced in the early parts of the Greek Hellenistic period, it retains some feature from the Greek archaic period, such as the woman’s hairstyle: two simple braids one draping over each of her shoulders. One of her feet pokes through the ends of her dress. This statue comes from Italy and is dated back to the third century BC. Both statuettes are very similar in subject matter and body position and they contain a variety of lines, and the interconnectedness of the woman and child, how it conforms to the lines of the statutes create unity and consists of similar form. The two have different definitions of balance. Both of the sculptures consist of curved lines. From the top to the bottom, the Egyptian sculpture of Isis consists of curved lines formed by the horns and the circular disks of her headpiece sprouting outwards up into the air. The curvature of the disk and the horns embrace further adds to the
The Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut is from the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, located in Deir el-Bahri, and is dated around 1473-1478 BCE. This statue is 8’ 6’’ tall and is completely made of red granite. The statue shows Hatshepsut kneeling on both knees with each hand holding a sphere. However, Hatshepsut is known as a female ruler, but this statue and including other statues, she is represented as a male ruler. Upon closer inspection, her shoulders are broad, she is wearing a linen headdress, and a fake beard which is typical for a male ruler to wear. Also, the inscription, or hieroglyph, use a feminine form to identify her as a female ruler because there’s was no word for king. Adapting to the visual forms of kingship, the Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut can demonstrate the cultural, religious, and political environment of Ancient Egypt.
The Pair Statue of Ikhui and HIs Wife, Bebi is a statuette fairly small compared to life-size and is from the fifth and sixth dynasty of the Egyptian Old Kingdom around 2465-2323 B.C. It was excavated from a tomb in in Giza. The statuette displays a male and female standing side by side. It measures about less than two feet high. It appears as a relief because of the space between the arms and waists of the figures and sculpted from a block and chiseled away. They stood against a small wall no taller than the male figure but slightly taller than the female figure only to cover a portion of their backs. They had somewhat of a symmetric value. Each side mostly mirroring each other.
This technique, used by Greek sculptors for the head and other parts of the statue began as early as the Archaic Period. ( The period in Greek history lasting from the eighth century BC to 480 BC, post Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period.) The work has many signs of damage and decay, among these are missing body parts such as the capital and the right wing. The surface is worn down, although still shows clear creases and details throughout the texture of the piece. The head, wings, and the drapery were carved separately before the work as a whole was eventually assembled. The wings were attached with no external support and it's a marvel that one is still managing to adhere
Ancient Greek art is something to be admired; the accuracy of the figures, compared to Egyptian art is commendable. The art works show great depths of emotion and detail. The “Grave stele of a little girl” is a beautiful relief of what appears to be a small child holding two birds. The forearm resembles a young child’s arm because it seems that the “baby fat” is still present, but it is strange that the face has less-childish features. The figure is in strict profile, which possibly suggests a Greek sculptor, in addition to the intricate detail and the contrapposto. Egyptian sculptors did not have
Examining the Ancient Egyptian civilization reveals much about the nature of its art. The art was mainly religious in content and purpose and, as the “religious dogma” remained unchanged for nearly 3000 years, so did the art (Piper, 1991: 24). Because Isis and Horus are divine beings, they had to be portrayed “with limited human expression” according to “strict formal conventions, in keeping with their divinity” (Mason, 2007:13). The sculpture is fairly flat on the back side of the throne, for the sake of functionality. It was not “intended to be seen in the round”, but was most probably placed against the wall of a tomb (Ancient Egypt – Myth & History, 2002: 439). In fact, this sculpture was not made
Hatshepsut was the first woman pharaoh ever recorded in history. Although there are a few obvious breaks, this granite sculpture was put back together nicely. Because this piece is so important, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has to be careful of what to light up on the sculpture. This does not look easy because the statue is so massive, but the Met did a good job capturing the face with light, and the top of the orbs. The shadows also reflect how angular this statue really is, and the unrealistic body of the woman pharaoh Hatshepsut.
What makes the sculpture different from others of this time period are two things; the subject matter, in that it depicts no god, nor Pharaoh only a mortal human writing in a mostly illiterate society. Secondly it demonstrates age shown in sagging muscles and rotund belly. Due to this relaxed style we can gather that the subject is not a Pharaoh as it was dishonourable to insinuate that they aged as they were supposed to be gods on earth.
The first thing you notice about sculpture is the texture of it, it feels smooth, like its made of a clay yet it has a lot of depth and value, the skull itself isn’t proportional since it is tilted to
Similar to most Egyptian art, the figures in the stele are drawn with a twisted perspective – the frontal view of their faces and the profile view of their bodies. This is also seen in the relief of “King Assurnasirpal II Killing Lions.” This twisted perspective was common in most Ancient Egyptian art.
The statue of King Sahure and a Nome god is an interesting piece of Ancient Egyptian art ( c. 2500 BC ) that shows signs of Ancient Egyptian culture and beliefs. The statue is a small relief sculpture, meaning the sculptural elements are attached to the solid background of the sculpture and appears to be emerging from the material. The piece clearly depicts two figures side by side, one standing on the left and one sitting on the right (facing foreward). The purpose of this piece was probably to depict a certain symbolic interaction between the two characters.
Her face is empty and has no meaning because it is what women was for at that time. The face of women was not important to keep the family line or the clan strong. Men wanted women who had more female features which they think can make their children healthy and strong. So then, the women’s body on the statue shows bigger breast and hips because that
Ancient Egyptian and Greek statues have many similarities. Hatshepsut in a Devotional Attitude is an Egyptian statue from 1473-1458 BCE. It is almost 8 feet tall and almost 2.5 feet wide. It is made of granite and is a statue of Queen Hatshepsut, the wife of Tutmose III, one of the most dynamic egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty. The Marble Statue of a Kouros (youth) is an Archaic Greek statue from 590-680 BCE. It is a little over 6 feet tall and about 20 inches at its widest. It is the representation of a nude male figure and is made of marble. However, the artists of both the statues are unknown.
The statues, Heyl Aphrodite and Capitoline Gaul, both contain human-like features, but only one shows the ideal woman figure. By observing Heyl Aphrodite, viewers notice her soft, curvaceous figure. Her body is proportional creating balance and harmony. Fabric hugs the goddess’s body, draping over her right breast, while exposing the left, conveying a sense of sexuality. Her lack of eye contact expresses weakness, while her body posture, with the aid of the fabric, shows movement. Merker compares the artwork in her book, when she writes, “The raised right shoulder gives a sense of movement; although there is no torsion, one feels there ought to be and is reminded of the unstable, twisting movement of the Heyl Aphrodite in
In this formal analysis, the subject is the wall painting Queen Nefertari and Isis, located in Nefertaris’ tomb. The painting shows the ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis “leading” the Queen by the hand. Nefertari lived around 1300-1255 BC and was the first and exclusively claimed wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II.
The subject of the artwork is Nefertiti, who was the wife of Akhenaten. In addition to being a wife, Nefertiti was also a queen of Egypt. Nefertiti is posed in a very graceful stance. She looks very calm and put together. Due to the curvature of the very elongated neck, the Bust of Nefertiti is poised into a relaxed pose, while maintaining her eternal beauty at the same time. These features are also noticeable when moving the focus towards the eyes, which are slightly closed enough to see her eyelids in addition to her actual eyes. Her eyes are composed into a very natural state; they aren’t widened as if they are portraying a specific facial expression. Her entire face has a peaceful and very naturalistic look. Although often times portraits in Egypt were made to be exaggerated and never depicted what the person actually looked like, this piece