The painting art of ancient Egypt is a bright pearl in the ocean of world painting art, which has written an immortal chapter in the history of early human painting art development. The Nile River, which has flowed since ancient times, has given Egypt the most abundant gifts. The longest river in the world has given birth to ancient Egyptian culture, which is a model for the development of early human culture and shines brightly in the history of human civilization. Great buildings condensed by this ancient culture-pyramids, temples, obelisks, palaces, etc. Together with the sculptures and paintings attached to it, it constitutes a rich embodiment of ancient Egyptian art and its immortal spirit. The art of painting in ancient Egypt explains the political, social and life scenes of the Pharaoh dynasty in ancient Egypt from a unique perspective, which has profound historical and cultural connotations. As an important part of ancient Egyptian culture, it has extremely precious historical and historical value in the history of world cultural and artistic development. It has made a special contribution to the development of human culture and art, and its history is so heavy: when it bears the profound accumulation of thousands of years of history and culture, when the Pharaoh dynasty is about to decline, ancient Greek art, known as the cradle of western civilization, begins to stumble forward with the stereotype of ancient Egyptian art, and its influence is so extensive: in the early art of ancient West Asia, ancient Greece and ancient Rome, it was influenced by the painting style of ancient Egypt. It is the most typical painting art in the early development stage of the world painting art, and its fate is so sad: it did not mature in the long years of imprisonment, but suddenly disappeared from history in the pursuit of eternal ideas.

With the development of its mother culture, ancient Egyptian painting art has formed its own unique characteristics in reflecting the will and spiritual pursuit of the dynasty ruling group centered on Pharaoh. Five thousand years of immersion has made the painting art of ancient Egypt add many magical colors when expressing its specific artistic connotation in a unique style. In the face of ancient art, when we unveil its simplicity, tranquility, profundity and mystery, it will appear in a concise and energetic form. The painting art of ancient Egypt is deeply impressed by its saturated bright colors, elegant and quiet temperament, and exaggerated and delicate description. It has a wide range of subjects and rich contents, including scenes of Pharaoh holding ceremonies, sacrifices, fighting and hunting activities and daily life, as well as a wide range of contents of servants and slaves in music and dance, celebrations, farming and fishing and hunting. Therefore, a comprehensive and accurate interpretation of ancient Egyptian painting art will not only help us correctly understand and grasp the characteristics and ideological connotation of this ancient painting art, but also provide us with practical reference for analyzing and reflecting on its rapid demise from glory.

First, the basic characteristics of ancient Egyptian painting art:

The painting art of ancient Egypt has functional characteristics. Under the rule of the Pharaoh dynasty for nearly three thousand years, its artistic form showed the functionality of serving the needs of the rulers. In the world's earliest country that practiced hierarchical slavery, the control and restraint of pharaohs, royal aristocrats, bureaucratic aristocrats and temple slave owners were very strict. In ancient Egypt, the highest standard of painting art was not the pursuit of artistic perfection. Instead, it completely obeys and embodies the thoughts and will of the rulers, pursues the beautification of the mausoleum environment, idealizes the image of Pharaoh, and depicts the integrity and functionality of the underground palace for the dead. "Just like people's funeral concepts in China during the Qin and Han Dynasties, Egyptians are a nation that committed suicide and died heavily." Note 1 People attach great importance to their own affairs. "Egyptians believe in' eternal soul' and believe that after death, as long as the body is well preserved, the soul can get eternal life." Note 2 Therefore, pharaohs and nobles always spend a lot of energy to build tombs, paying special attention to and caring for the preservation of the body and the decoration of the tombs. It is for this reason that there will be mummies, a unique product of Egypt, and a unique and magnificent pyramid building in the world. Its scale and the difficulty of construction technology shocked the world. Most of the art forms in ancient Egypt were expressed around the mausoleum buildings. Obviously, these art forms are not produced for the appreciation of the living, but for the spiritual pursuit of the dead, creating a comfortable, luxurious and magnificent underground palace for the dead. In terms of tomb decoration, ancient Egyptian painting art mostly appears in the form of murals. Therefore, the description "shows the luxurious life of the tomb owner before his death, and the scene of servants engaged in farming and animal husbandry is obviously secular." Note (3) Its content reflects the owner's idealized pursuit of the afterlife and his description of totem belief. Decorating graves in this way can make the interior look gorgeous and full, beautify the environment and highlight its function of serving the dead.

In ancient Egypt, another feature of painting art was its grandeur and completeness in form. The painting art of ancient Egypt is attached to the huge pyramids and magnificent temple buildings, which shows that the rulers of the royal power are eager for great success and pursue magnificent and gorgeous forms to fully show the sacredness and supremacy of the royal power. Huge pyramid tombs and temple buildings, huge statues of Pharaoh, etc. It reflects the theme of the apotheosis of Pharaoh and the worship of kingship. In order to show the eternity and stability of the ruling kingdom and the majesty and courage of the Pharaoh, the rulers of the royal power often rely on art forms such as painting and sculpture to set off their lofty and majestic momentum and entrust their eternal pursuit. A series of art forms around the construction of pyramid tombs and the decoration of temple buildings mostly reflect the ruler's arrangement for the afterlife and his ideal will to realize permanent rule. For example, the shape design of the pyramids not only expresses indestructible and immortal thoughts, but also expresses their eternal thoughts. Inside the pyramid, there are luxuriously decorated and exquisitely carved coffins, gold humanoid coffins inlaid with precious stones, lifelike statues of real people, all kinds of gorgeous reliefs, murals and household utensils, and the coffins inlaid with gold and jade contain the mummy of the Pharaoh, which shows the artistic style of ancient Egypt pursuing the unity of external grandeur and internal grandeur and nobility.

The most striking feature of ancient Egyptian painting art is stability and stylization. In the history of world art, no country's art can follow the same law and remain stable and stylized for a long time after thousands of years of dynasty rule. Specifically, the ancient Egyptian painting art has the following six characteristics in stylization:

1, "Frontal Method": a stylized and stable law. The reliefs and murals in ancient Egypt have the same formula-the "forehead method" rule. The so-called "forehead method" means that when representing characters, the head is forehead, the eyes are forehead, the shoulders are forehead, and the characters below the waist are forehead. The above expressions are all used to deal with numbers.

The front contour of a person's head is generally clear and definite, and a high nose and a convex and concave chin, neck, eyebrow arch and forehead can best reflect a person's facial contour. Eyes are positive, because positive eyes are the most vivid and typical, which can occupy more space on the face in the picture and are more eye-catching and perfect; People's shoulders are the most typical front. Ancient Egyptian painting used the shoulders on the front to represent the characters, which made the characters form a dynamic effect of light body rotation, thus making the characters' images more changeable and the movements of their arms more clear and complete. Turn to the side below the waist to make the image rotate beautifully again; As a side, the foot can show complete and typical foot characteristics. The above-mentioned fixed expression techniques are the general characteristics of the positive law of ancient Egyptian painting. This feature has been handed down from generation to generation in ancient Egyptian paintings that lasted for thousands of years and has not changed much.

2. Features of planarization and horizontal strip arrangement. Ancient Egyptian painting has the characteristics of plane arrangement in composition, and there is no perspective in the picture, which is very similar to the scattered perspective in China's early painting. They arrange the pictures in horizontal lines, and divide the pictures with horizontal lines to form a plane arrangement effect, which makes the contents of the pictures clear and clear at a glance, thus giving full play to their functions.

3. The characters are arranged according to their position and position, and the composition is rich. In ancient Egyptian painting, characters are usually arranged in proportion and composition position according to their status. Pharaoh's figure is the largest in the picture, and the proportion of followers and servants is small. Arranging it in the corresponding position of the picture to fill in the blank of the picture can better highlight the noble position of Pharaoh, and at the same time enrich the picture with filling method in composition, leaving no blank, making the picture full of the beauty of change.

4. Single-line flat painting is characterized by pure saturation, beauty and harmony. A fixed color plan is a remarkable feature of ancient Egyptian painting. In ancient Egyptian paintings, men's skin is mostly ochre red, women are light brown or light yellow, hair and eyebrows are black, and clothes are mostly decorated with white folds. Using these simple colors and flat painting lines to form a number of color blocks is very clear, concise and harmonious.

5. The expression of decorative meaning and the characteristics of image planarization. It is another feature of ancient Egyptian painting to flatten the image with the expression of decorative meaning. Ancient Egyptian painting has the characteristics of realism in image description, but the characteristics of planarization are more obvious. For example, people's skin and headdress, clothing and decorations are all painted in flat colors; Plane treatment, decoration, induction and organization are also used in the pleats of eyes and hair, headdress, necklace, clothing and even clothing. These unique processing methods make the ancient Egyptian painting form its own unique decorative significance, simple and pure, giving people a unique sense of mystery and beauty.

6, the content reflects the characteristics of concentration. Because the ancient Egyptians believed in death, their imagined life after death was very close to the world, so the contents displayed in their pictures reflected the wonderful combination of religious belief and secular life. They built the tomb into a palace, decorated it with gorgeous murals and exquisite reliefs, recreating the luxurious life scene of the deceased before his death, so that the soul of the deceased could find his grave and body smoothly. Therefore, in the content of painting themes, most of them reflect life scenes, with a wide range of themes, from the conquest and hunting of pharaohs and nobles to the ritual of offering sacrifices to gods, and even farming, fishing and hunting, feasting, singing and dancing, just like a long historical scroll of ancient Egyptian folk life.

Second, the defects of ancient Egyptian painting art:

There are many characteristics of ancient Egyptian painting art, which is undoubtedly a rich picture scroll with special artistic value and historical value in early human painting art, but from the perspective of artistic development, its artistic value is far less than its historical value in terms of its influence and contribution to the development of human painting art, and the ancient Egyptian painting art greatly restricts and limits its own development and reduces its aesthetic significance because it serves the stylization and functionalization needed by rulers. Just like a meteor in the night sky, although brilliant, it eventually disappeared from the development of human art and left no deep impression. Compared with its influence on human beings in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, natural science, law and literature, the painting art of ancient Egypt is obviously dwarfed.

Mainly in four aspects:

(1) The painting art of ancient Egypt is only a tool attached to the Pharaoh ruling group, and its vitality is limited. The essence of art should be to express people's pursuit of beauty, to express their own aesthetic feelings and activities, to express the author's inner world, thoughts and aesthetics, and to integrate with the culture of the times. This is contrary to the wishes of the royal rulers, and only requires art to be a vassal of their ruling thoughts and will, rather than an activity with independent aesthetic significance. There are also vivid and realistic works with high artistic value in the painting art of ancient Egypt, such as Goose in Medum, Feeding Antelope and Wild Cat in Papyrus. There are vivid descriptions of swimming fish, birds and running cows. However, these plastic arts only appear as foil and decoration attached to tombs, temples and other buildings, and rarely exist as independent artistic styles and ideological forms. It serves the absolute authority of the Pharaoh's autocratic ruling group, and to some extent has the color of deterrence and intimidation. It is not appreciated by ordinary people, nor is it known and mastered by ordinary people. Therefore, this kind of art, which is divorced from the people and used only for the special purpose of the privileged class, fundamentally determines that it will inevitably embark on a sad development path under the strong imprisonment of the dynasty rulers: it will continue with the existence of the kingdom and disappear with the demise of the kingdom.

(2) The stylization of ancient Egyptian painting art limited its appeal. In the course of three thousand years' development, the painting art of ancient Egypt rarely maintained the characteristics of stability and stylization. The old, rigid and rigid creative techniques greatly reduce the appeal of painting art, and the characterization has little lasting charm. Although during the reform of the New Kingdom, the Amana art in ancient Egypt was a flash in the pan, with a short breakthrough, such as the statue of Queen Nafititi and other rare masterpieces. The vast majority of ancient Egyptian paintings have always maintained a fixed pattern and conservative rules, and their aesthetic value has been greatly reduced. Undeniably, ancient Egyptian painting did have a glorious history in the early stage of world art development, and its rich materials, great achievements and long time are unparalleled in the art history of all countries in the world. However, it is an indisputable fact that ancient Egyptian painting art has little influence on the development of world painting art, and it is difficult to find traces of ancient Egyptian art inheritance during the formation and evolution of the world art system. Although the painting art of ancient Egypt was deeply imprinted in the cradle of western art-the "archaic period" of the development of ancient Greek art, the ancient Greek art, which advocated nature, realism and pursued free individuality, soon abandoned the rigid ancient Egyptian style and embarked on the development road of pursuing the true meaning of art, compared with Macedonia? With the successive invasions of Greeks and Romans, especially the occupation of Arabs, the ancient Pharaoh's ruling building finally failed to hold on, decayed and collapsed ... The painting art of ancient Egypt, with its mystery and loneliness, quickly disappeared into the world of mortals. It was not until the19th century that Europeans visited this magical land again, and the mystery of ancient Egyptian art was gradually brushed away by western archaeologists and re-recognized by the world.

(3) The exaggerated style and techniques of ancient Egyptian painting weakened its due charm. Ancient Egyptian art abides by the wishes and requirements of the Pharaoh's ruling group, and often uses exaggerated techniques of great contrast, strong contrast and even disproportionality to render characters. Many bas-reliefs, papyrus paintings and other works are prominent dignitaries, often allowing dignitaries to occupy a lot of space in the picture, while slaves or servants are only used to fill the blank of the picture. Similar situations are common in sculpture works. In the legs of the colossus of Pharaoh, which is tens of feet high, there are many figurines that set off his queen or children. The proportion varies greatly, and the proportion of the human body is not harmonious: the limbs are too long, or the fingers are even. Although these expressive techniques used to highlight the important position of characters may contain some magical and majestic meanings, this peculiar technique does not meet the aesthetic requirements and it is difficult to bring people beautiful enjoyment.

Generally speaking, no matter what kind of plastic arts works, they should give people imagination and artistic conception of taste, so that people can get the greatest aesthetic feeling in their imagination and taste of beauty and get the greatest appreciation and satisfaction. If all kinds of artistic images are filled disproportionately, it will only hinder people's thinking and imagination. Excellent works of art should have the characteristics of high conciseness, distant artistic conception, distinctive personality and skillful techniques, and be used most skillfully.

In the painting art of ancient Egypt, what is lacking is the reasonable and perfect combination and application of various artistic elements. No matter sculpture, bas-relief or papyrus painting, they basically show such characteristics: the paradigm is old, the depiction is blunt, the color is fixed, and there is no changing outline. Looking at this plastic art that has made a great splash in the world history of more than 3,000 years BC, and facing many ancient works that seem to give people the same feeling, we can easily draw the conclusion that ancient Egyptian art is undoubtedly magnificent, including many exquisite pens, but from the aesthetic and pure artistic point of view, its overall artistic level and artistic value are not high, which is also the fundamental reason why this art lacks vigorous vitality and far-reaching influence.

(D) The conservatism of ancient Egyptian art hindered its own development. The decline of ancient Egyptian art from glory is largely due to the conservatism of its creation. Perhaps it is the special geographical conditions that make ancient Egypt such a long and narrow country, which thrives on the Nile: the north is separated by the Mediterranean Sea, the south is covered with steep highlands made of igneous rocks, and the east and west are separated by broad deserts. This relatively closed geographical environment makes the ancient ruling kingdom rarely invaded by foreigners, which makes it conservative and closed. As Europeans have commented, in all aspects of life in Egypt, ... we can see a strong conservatism, which is embodied in art and fully illustrates this point.

First, art is strictly controlled. In ancient Egypt with strict hierarchy and strict rule, art could only be controlled and used by a few people. Ordinary people hardly get the opportunity to master ancient Egyptian characters, let alone the right to pursue art, and those craftsmen who master painting and carving skills are firmly controlled by the rulers. Art is limited to specific occasions (tombs, temples, etc.). ) to be applied. According to the specific requirements of the rulers (praise the rulers, pray, can not go beyond the traditional concepts and models. Even the improved art advocated by Pharaoh Akhenaten, Almana Art, only made some innovative attempts at ancient Egyptian art, which was not tolerated by the stubborn and conservative ruling group and was quickly strangled and strangled with all its strength. This so-called "art", which is only allowed to be mastered by a few people and created in a fixed mode, has been severely bound and restricted, and will never have room for free development, even deviating from the style of art itself. Therefore, some western scholars believe that the word "art" did not exist in ancient Egypt in a sense. Note (4) This determines that once the ruling kingdom is completely overthrown, this kind of art, which is not supported by the people, will lose its social foundation for survival and inheritance and eventually disappear.

Secondly, the creative concept is conservative. The main idea of artistic creation in ancient Egypt is the dead or gods of Pharaoh rulers, and its intention is to express the worship of gods or the wishes of rulers. It helps the dead realize their desire to watch the soul and realize eternal life. Ancient Egypt was a country that paid more attention to death than to suicide. From Herodotus' History and ancient Egyptian documents, we can see that the ancient Egyptians had a very firm belief in the gods and the afterlife. People believe that as long as we publicize the virtues of the deceased before his death and protect his body from interference and destruction, we can re-enter the world and gain eternal life. It seems that the application of ancient Egyptian art is only in tombs, temples and sacrificial temples. It is not to create the beauty of the world, and it doesn't even want to be seen by the world or appreciated by human beings. Obviously, the creative concept of ancient Egyptian art is limited to praying for God to protect or protect the quiet world of the dead, so its creative mode is varied. It is not surprising that creative thinking is conservative and closed. The development of art is inseparable from creative freedom, spiritual pursuit and public participation. Without these basic requirements, the hope of self-development is either to seek fish from the edge of the tree or to do the opposite. This is also the internal reason why ancient Egyptian art is finally difficult to continue or even be forgotten.

Third, the artistic technique is conservative. After long-term production and social practice, the ancient Egyptians gradually formed their own artistic style and tradition as early as the ancient kingdom period, and determined some basic rules of artistic creation and expression. In the eyes of ancient Egyptians, the image of a plane can also be transformed into a three-dimensional object under the influence of magic. Therefore, when portraying characters, special emphasis is placed on the clarity and integrity of the outline of the characters. In terms of artistic techniques, I prefer to use primary colors such as brown, yellow, red, white, black and green to express people. The color of the picture is fixed and simple, and the composition lacks light and dark changes. Only a few pictures showing birds and animals can show some textures of fur color through the difference of color depth. This stable artistic technique not only loses the style and law of art itself, but also gradually deviates from the constantly developing and mature aesthetic ideas and concepts, which also makes the painting art of ancient Egypt lose.

The painting art of ancient Egypt is an integral part of the world's precious cultural heritage. From its unique style and unchangeable characteristics, it still shows the philosophy, unique culture, social life and way of thinking of ancient Egypt to the world, and shows the wisdom and national spirit of ancient Egyptians. However, after a long period of development, ancient Egyptian art has neither developed into a realistic system of western art nor evolved into a freehand system of oriental art. People pay more attention to its historical value and cultural relics value, and its artistic form with typical formal beauty in a specific period, rather than its artistic value.

The greatest enlightenment from the interpretation of ancient Egyptian art is that the development of any art can not be separated from the mother culture on which it depends. With the evolution of ancient Egyptian culture, ancient Egyptian art has become the embodiment of the spiritual pursuit of ancient Egyptians and an important part of ancient Egyptian culture. Although imprisoned by the ruling group of Pharaoh, the style and characteristics of ancient Egyptian art lacked aesthetic feeling and soul, but it adapted to the living environment of the mother culture and survived for 3 thousand years. During the Ptolemy dynasty ruled by Greece and Rome, the ancient Egyptian culture supported the existence of Coptic art, which still has a strong artistic style of ancient Egypt. However, after Egypt was conquered by Arabs, the traditional culture of ancient Egypt was completely abandoned, and the painting art of ancient Egypt, which relied on its mother culture, was forgotten and became a mysterious object to be solved and studied by future generations.

In view of this, the interpretation of ancient Egyptian art, which died because of abandoning the mother culture and accepting foreign culture, should be of certain reference significance for some phenomena that we are divorced from national traditional culture and are keen to use scientific and technological means and modern methods to "create art" today!