The Sculpture of Khafra was carved for his valley temple near the Great Sphinx in Giza. King Khafra is seated on his throne; the base is carved with the symbol of an intertwined lotus (representing Upper Egypt) and papyrus (representing Lower Egypt), meaning a united Egypt. At the base of his head the god Horus, depicted as a hawk/falcon protects him with his wings and indicates his divine status as the son of Re, while lions, symbols of regal authority form the throne’s legs. As king of the Two Lands of Egypt, Khafra wears a simple kilt of the Old Kingdom and a linen headdress (nemes) that covers his forehead and falls in pleated folds over his shoulders. He is also shown wearing a false beard symbolic of his royalty. Not a 'true' portrait of the king but an idealized version of him with characteristic inclusions of identity, the figure has great compactness and solidity, with few projecting or breakable parts; the legs are attached to the slab by stone webs, and the pose like those of statues in Mesopotamia, render the figure so that it is appreciated either in frontal or profile view. The hardest stone was used to make the statue to ensure permanence, in this case diorite which was imported 400 miles away in the south, in Nubia, that also produces a rare optical effect. When illuminated by sunlight entering from the temple wall openings, the stone glows a deep blue, the celestial color of Horus, and filling the space with a blue radiance. There was great difficulty in working with granite or diorite and using bronze tools was a necessity, which also made it very expensive to create; much of the finishing was done by abrasion.
Rendered in a more relaxed, life-like fashion, this sculpture of a Seated Scribe was found near the tomb of a government official named Kai, and so, may be a representation of Kai himself. This sculpture was created for a tomb at the necropolis in Saqqara as a body substitute or provision for the ka, or life force/soul of the deceased individual represented here just as the sculpture of king Khafra did. Carved from limestone, color still remains on the sculpture as it was customary for stone sculptures to be painted. The color additions create an amazingly life-like image although the Seated Scribe is not meant to be a portrait but rather depicts a conventional image of a scribe. He holds a papyrus scroll in his lap and, at one point, he most likely held a writing implement (now gone) in his left hand, as seen in the pose as if he is ready to write. This work is a lively representation of a man whose function was to serve the king in the spirit world as he had in life. The face is strikingly alive, while his paunchy physique lacks the idealized proportions found in representations of royalty and nobility. Since Egyptian society was mostly illiterate, a scribe was of a higher social status and therefore the image makes reference to his success; he could afford to eat well and rely on subordinates to do the physical labor. Usually, we find in the history of art that formality is relaxed and realism is increased when the subject is a person of lesser importance, especially in portraiture. Old Kingdom sculptors produced statues of royal figures as well as less prominent individuals in Egyptian society. As in relief sculpture and painting, so too, in free-standing sculpture in-the-round, a canon of proportions was used in rendering the ideal proportions of the human form. Artists relied on guidelines for designing the human image beginning in the Fifth Dynasty (ca. 2500 BCE) with a grid superimposed over the human image to achieve the ideal relationship of proportions to each of the body parts. With the ideal proportions established through a mathematical formula, artists could depict a human portrait at any scale. This system of proportion and idealized representation lasted for thousands of years. For this assignment, I ask that you compare these two sculptures, Sculpture of Khafra and Sculpture of Seated Scribe, representing the human figure in Old Kingdom Egypt, ca. 2500-2400 BCE. Make note of at least one similarity and one difference between these two works. Base your comparison on your observations and describe using terms and language we apply in class. Consider all elements represented in these works, in the article above, and the label for points of comparison.. Post your observations by 11:59 pm, Sunday, October 15, 2023. (20 pts) |
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