Barron's: Chapter 3 - Egyptian Art

Question 1

Essential Knowledge

Answer 1

• Egyptian art was created around ideas concerning eternity, the afterlife, and rebirth
• Funerary objects dominate, including large-scale sculptures, stone architecture, and tomb artifacts-all in the service of the god-like pharaoh
• strict Egyptian stylistic formulas are applied to the gods and pharaohs; they clearly show others to be subordinate and lacking in idealization

Question 2

Time Period

Answer 2

• 3000-30 B.C.E.
• Old Kingdom: 2575-2134 B.C.E.
• New Kingdom: 1550-1070 B.C.E.

Question 3

Narmer Palette

Answer 3

• 3000-2920 B.C.E.
• slate
• Egyptian Museum, Cairo
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Symbolism
  
  • Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
  • Cotsiogo, Hide Painting of a Sun Dance
  • Ruler’s Feathered Headdress

Question 4

Seated scribe

Answer 4

• 2620-2500 B.C.E.
• painted limestone
• Louvre, Paris
• Old Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Human Figure
  
  • Shiva as Nataraja
  • Great Buddha from Todai-ji
  • Abakanowicz, Androgyn III

Question 5

Great Pyramids

Answer 5

• 2550-2490 B.C.E.
• limestone
• Giza, Egypt
• Old Kingdom period
• tombs of pharaohs Menkaura, Khufu, and Khafre
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Commemoration of Ruler and Country
  
  • Taj Mahal
  • Houdon, George Washington
  • Terra-Cotta warriors

Question 6

Great Sphinx

Answer 6

• 2500 B.C.E.
• limestone
• Giza, Egypt
• very generalized features, although some say it may be a portrait of Khafre, whose pyramid stands behind the Sphinx
• carved in situ from a huge rock, symbol of the sun god
• body of a lion, head of a pharaoh and/or god
• sphinx seems to protect the pyramids behind it
• originally brightly painted to stand out in the desert
• cats are royal animals in ancient Egypt, probably because they saved the grain supply from mice
• head of the Sphinx badly mauled in the Middle Ages
• fragment of the Sphinx’s beard in the British Museum

Question 7

Menkaura and His Queen

Answer 7

• 2490-2472 B.C.E.
• greywacke
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Old Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Royalty
  
  • Lindauer, Tamati Waka Nene
  • Wall Plaque from Oba’s Palace
  • Augustus of Prima Porta

Question 8

Temple of Amun-Re and Hypostyle Hall

Answer 8

• 1550-1250 B.C.E.
• sandstone and mud brick
• near Luxor, Egypt
• New Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Houses of Worship
  
  • Lakshamana Temple
  • Santa Sabina
  • Great Mosque, Isfahan

Question 9

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

Answer 9

• 1473-1458 B.C.E.
• sandstone
• near Luxor, Egypt
• New Kingdom period

Question 10

Queen Hatshepsut with Offering Jars

Answer 10

• 1473-1458 B.C.E.
• red granite
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• New Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
  
  • Nio guardian figure
  • Staff God
  • Lamassu

Question 11

Akhenaton, Nefertit, and Three Daughters

Answer 11

• 1353-1335 B.C.E
• limestone
• Egyptian Museum, Berlin
• New Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Genre Scenes:
  
  • Vermeer, Woman with a Balance
  • Courbet, Stone Breakers
  • Stele of Hegeson

Question 12

Innermost COffin of King Tutankhamun

Answer 12

• 1323 B.C.E.
• gold,enamel, semiprecious stones
• Egyptian Museum, Cairo
• New Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Commemoration
  
  • Sarcophagus of the Spouses
  • Moai
  • Ndop

Question 13

Last Judgment of Hu-Nefer

Answer 13

• 1275 B.C.E.
• painted papyrus scroll
• British Museum, London
• New Kingdom period
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons: Scrolls
  
  • Night Attack on the Sanjo Palace
  • Bayeux Tapestry
  • Bing, A book from the Sky

Question 14

amarna style

Answer 14

• art created during the reign of Akhenaton, which features a more relaxed figure style than in Old and Middle Kingdom art

Question 15

ankh

Answer 15

• an Egyptian symbol of life

Question 16

axial plan

Answer 16

• a building with an elongated ground plan

Question 17

clerestory

Answer 17

• a roof that rises above lower roofs and thus has window space beneath

Question 18

engaged column

Answer 18

• a column that is not freestanding but attached to a wall

Question 19

ground line

Answer 19

• a base line upon which figures stand

Question 20

hierarchy of scale

Answer 20

• a system of representation that expresses a person’s importance by the size of his or her representation in a work of art

Question 21

hieroglyphics

Answer 21

• Egyptian temple that has a roof supported by a dense thicket of columns

Question 22

in situ

Answer 22

• a Latin expression that means that something is in its original location

Question 23

ka

Answer 23

• the soul, or spiritual essence, of a human being that either ascends to heaven or can live in an Egyptian statue itself

Question 24

mastaba

Answer 24

• Arabic for “bench” a low, flat-roofed Egyptian tomb with sides sloping down

Question 25

necropolis

Answer 25

• literally a “city of the dead” a large burial area

Question 26

papyrus

Answer 26

• a tall aquatic plant whose fiber is used as a writing surface in ancient Egypt

Question 27

peristyle

Answer 27

• a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a courtyard

Question 28

pharaoh

Answer 28

• a king of ancient Egypt

Question 29

pylon

Answer 29

• a monumental gateway to an Egyptian temple marked by two flat, sloping walls between which is a smaller entrance

Question 30

register

Answer 30

• a horizontal band, often on top of another, that tells a narrative story

Question 31

relief sculpture

Answer 31

• sculpture which projects from a flat background. a very shallow relief sculpture is called a bas-relief

Question 32

reserve column

Answer 32

• a column that is cut away from rock but has no support function

Question 33

sarcophagus

Answer 33

• a stone coffin

Question 34

stylized

Answer 34

• a schematic, non-realistic manner of representing the visible world and its contents, abstracted form the way that they appear in nature

Question 35

sunken relief

Answer 35

• a carving in which the outlines of figures are deeply carved into a surface so that the figures seem to project forward