Art In Egyptian Era Essay, Research Paper
In the Egyptian era there were many art forms that were done and sculpted. Seated Scribe is one of these Egyptians sculptures. It was done in 2400 B.C.E and was done in limestone by subtractive sculpting. The colors that are used in this sculpture are very plain and bland. You can notice that the color is wearing away at the sculpture because there are blotches where the paint has started to chip away. The sculpture is physically accurate of a middle-aged man because you can see the definition of the extra fat on his body and you can tell that he has some intelligence because of the way that he is presenting himself and that he is ready to write. The man is sitting on a square piece of stone and it seems as though he is about to jot a few notes down or write a letter. You can see that he is holding something that looks like a writing pad of some sort and you see his writing utensil in his left hand. The actual pose of the man is very stiff, very perfect. The Man is sitting with good posture and he does not let his back slouch one bit. It seems to be an uncomfortable position for the man.
The artist wants us to see that the man in the pose is beginning to write a story about what he is observing. The man is sitting outside on a rather warm day and he is observing the Pharaoh and how he is treating his people. The man is about to take some notes so that his mind will not draw a blank when he goes to writing the actual story about the Pharaoh. The man is very intelligent and very wise. People come to him when they need advice or answers to a problem. He is trusted by all because he is the writer that the Pharaoh trusts. The man is also admired by all because he is one of the few who can read and write. Many people did not have this type of advantage during these times.
A more modern sculpture was done in 440 B.C.E by a Greek sculptor and it is entitled the Doryphorus Spear Bearer. The sculpture was also done with subtractive sculpting done in stone. The sculptor uses a naked man figure and makes his body look perfect. The figure is sculpted into a fine S-curve of the body. The man?s left knee is bent which puts the weight on his right foot. This makes his left hip and shoulder rise to form this S-curve. The man is looking to the right off into the distance like he is in deep thought. His body is exaggerated because there are hardly any men that have the perfect body like this man does. There is no fat that is noticeable because he is pure muscle. You can see every definition of is body. You see every line of his muscle definition and every line of his body parts. The sculptor made this man look very life like. On his left hand you see that he must have been holding something at one time, but because the sculpture was lost at one time, the object that he was holding was lost somewhere over time. The title of the piece leads us to believe that the object he was hold is a spear.
This guy seems to be an egotistical man. He knows that all the women want him, and all the men wish that they could be him and have the body that he has. He is a young man in his mid-twenties. He has just got back from hunting and he is rather proud of himself because he has done a ?man?s game? and he has done is successfully. He has just returned and the people around him stare at him with envy. He looks away over the crowd in boredom because this always happens to him anytime that he returns from an adventure. In the distance and over the crowd he spots a woman that he cannot keep his eyes off of. He notices how beautiful she is and how much he would like to make her happy and become hers. Then the woman disappears in the crowd and he cannot fin her and he keeps looking as his eyes wonder back and fourth, but he see no one that looks like his mysterious woman.
Next we are taken way into the future to sometime during 1501 to 1504. A world-renowned sculptor by the name of Michelangelo sculpted David, again using subtractive sculpting with marble. Michelangelo sculpts a naked man and makes his body perfect. He too uses the relaxed position of the S-curve where all of his weight is on his right leg and his left knee is bent which cause his left hip and shoulder to rise. The sculpture is very defined. You can see every definition of his body. David?s head is turned to the left and he is focused on something. You can see the defined lines of where his head is turned. His body is very over exaggerated because his body is perfect; there is not one place where you see fat on his body. His arms are longer than normal arms too. Michelangelo makes David look large and in charge. You see that David is carrying something over his left shoulder. People can assume that the thing that is over his shoulder is his slingshot because of the biblical story of ?David and Goliath? where David killed Goliath with his slingshot.
Many people know the story of ?David and Goliath? and how David killed Goliath with his slingshot at this point, it is after the big event and David has just won. He is excited for himself but at the same time he is exhausted because this fight has taken much of his energy. The people around him all want to take a look at he marvelous David who has just slain Goliath. He is trying to relax by putting hie weight on his right foot and he is trying to make himself feel comfortable. All David is thinking about is how he will soon be able to leave the crowd and be alone where he can relax and just be himself.
We are now taken into the 20th Century and we are shown a painting called Naked Man painted sometime between 1991and 1992 by Lucian Freud. The first reaction when shown this painting is disgust. You see an old man who is fat and wrinkly. There is no muscle on his body, just fat rolls. Then you see the man?s butt crack. He is sitting on what seems to be a small bench with a white cushion over it. The background is very plain and does not stand out in anyway. There is a dingy white sheet that is hung over a wall and that is place in front of the man. His bench is sitting on some red-orange carpet. It looks like the man is in an apartment studio because you can see that there is a passageway behind the white sheet. He is sitting down and he is leaning over. However, the painting make you want to reach out and just touch it because it looks so life like and so real. It seems to be that the man?s body is soft and comfortable. His body seems so soft and comfortable that a small child could fall asleep on the man and never wake up. Freud makes the man look textured almost like he is real. The man?s head is slightly turned to the left side as if he is looking at something in which he has in front of him. We are unable to see it because his back is towards us.
The story to the man is simple, he has just gotten out of the shower and he is relaxing. He is taking a break form his go go go life. The man is looking at something on his body, like a mark that he has found, but he does not know how it got there. So he is examining it. He is getting ready to go out so he does not want anything to go wrong and he thinks that if one thing goes wrong, the whole night could be ruined. Even though this mark will not be noticeable to anyone, just by him knowing that it is there will make him uneasy and up tight. He is already self-conscious about the way he looks but one more thing wrong with him could be enough to break him.
The most apparent similarity of each of these figures is that the artist/sculptors of each figure did their figure in the nude. There were no clothes on any of the figures and the artist bared to show all. The Seated Scribe and Naked Man are similar because they both are of men who are older and have more experience with life. Both of the men were physically done correct according to real life. The artist/sculptor made the men true to size of how an older man would look. Doryphorus Spear Bearer and David are very much alike. The are almost identical. They both are of men who have the perfect body. Both of the sculptors over exaggerated how the human body is supposed to look. They gave these men great bodies that people would be so envious of. In reality, bodies like these do not show up very often.
The best figure out of each of these is David. It is the best because he really is perfect. The sculpture is beautifully done and it is done with passion. The body is perfect in every way possible. There is not a part of this figure that normal. It is done to the maximum extent. It shows the type of man that women want and the type o body that men only dream of. Michelangelo makes gives a whole new meaning to the word perfect. He not only uses it, but he defined it in his sculpture of David.
The least favorable figure out of these four is the Seated Scribe. This figure does not so anything for me. It does not just stick out in my mind like David does. It just sits in the back of my mind waiting to be forgotten. It is not one of my favorites because it is of an older man and it does not have a real point to it. This figure is just there, out in the open waiting to be released.
The poses of the women that we have discussed earlier are very different than these male figures. In the women figures, you saw the nude women, but it was hard to make out the body of the women and there was no definition of any parts of their bodies. In these male figures, everything is defined and everything stands out. Two of the sculptors made the men look like they were gods. While the other sculptor and artist made the men true to size, but gave then some definition. The women poses were far from defined. You could barely make out any part of their body definition. The artist did this because maybe they thought that the woman?s body was not to be seen in a way that it would expose a woman in a bad way. Maybe the sculptors of the male figures did not think that the male figure was such a bad thing, so they decided to make is worth the while of people everywhere.