'Looking at Pictures' is the name of a series of lectures which was delivered recently at the U3A (University of the Third Age), here in central Victoria.
The image below was one of the first we looked at and, since it stimulated a lot of discussion, it seemed like a good idea to put some of it down on (virtual) paper.
Detail of Queen Nefertari being led by Isis. From the Queen's tomb, Egypt.
Queen Nefertari was the first wife of Ramses II; she lived from c.1300 - 1255 BC
What we were looking at specifically was the way in which artists have been interested in Space, whether to a greater or lesser degree. Egyptian painting is extremely interesting because its concern with space is circumscribed to a large extent by the importance, and easy reading, of its religious symbols, themselves intimately bound up with the rights and status of kingship. In this context, 'kingship' may be understood to refer to all free members of the royal household, as well as to the nobility of Egypt and higher-status members of its administration; that is to say, the rich and powerful! Only those groups could afford to have the more or less elaborately decorated tombs which we today associate with Ancient Egypt.
But, for the purposes of our interest, the symbolic content and meaning contained in these paintings are not the principal concern: how the Egyptians conceived of and dealt with space is what we would like to investigate. So, in the image above, the two main 'objects' are representations of the Queen, on the left, and the goddess Isis on the right. Although not clear in our image, Isis is wearing the headdress of Hathor, which is the cow's horns; the lower part of those holds the red sun-disk. The two 'women' seem to be moving from the left of the image to the right, with Isis leading or guiding the Queen by holding her hand. And it is here, in that gesture, that we can begin our understanding of space; because, although the figures are the standard, flattened ones of Egyptian painting, with little or no indication of depth behind the principal figures, within the figures and their relationship, space is indeed perceived.
Isis is holding the Queen's left hand with her right hand: she has grasped it by the palm and the Queen has grasped Isis' hand with her thumb. These two hands therefore overlap and that overlapping implies space, albeit a shallow one. In her left hand, Isis is holding a staff, with her fingers and thumb clearly clutching it; in other words, the staff is held in a space formed by the goddess's hand. If we now turn our attention to the Queen's other hand, her right hand, we discover that it appears to have exactly the same conformation as her left! That is, she seems to have two left hands! Well, what about her feet? Looking at her feet we see that she has two big toes drawn in the same way, which means that she also has two left feet; what should be her right foot has no small toes receding sideways and to the right, and towards us, the viewers: she has only one large toe or, in other words, two left feet. This anomaly is doubly perplexing because, while the two feet indicate by their positions, one in front of the other, that the artist is aware of their natural position in space, he would seem to be confused about the difference between a left foot and a right one, when seen from the same angle! Of course, given the marvellously sophisticated level of their art generally, it is obvious that Egyptian artists understood perfectly well that difference and so the explanation for the two left feet - and hands - must be another.
Noticing again that Isis has both a left and a right hand, it could be that the characteristic of double left-handedness and double left-footedness has a symbolic meaning, perhaps particularly related to the fact that the Queen is in the underworld, or after-life, being guided by a goddess; it may have something to do with their status vis-à-vis each other, and so on. As said earlier, the reasons why something looks like it does is not directly our concern; ours is simply to note the description or representation of space.
The heads of both figures are turned to our right, with the conventional one, full-face eye; from this fact it may be conjectured that their headdresses also are shown facing us, rather than the direction in which the two women are moving. The two horns, especially, on Isis would make more sense turned in the direction in which she is moving but would, as a result, be much more difficult to 'read'. This custom of representing objects, including human ones, in their most easily legible aspect also accounts for other 'odd' positions within the two figures. As just stated, the heads (and faces) are turned to our right but the upper torsos, together with the arms, are, again, seen as if from directly in front; this continues down to about the waist where, once again, the bodies turn to 'go' in the same direction as the heads. That is, from the waist to the feet, the body is shown in profile, this being almost emphasised by the translucent skirt worn by the Queen, through which can be seen the profile position of her legs.
All this suggests that, far from being unable to represent objects as they appear in real space, Egyptian artists were not especially concerned with imitating that part of reality. It would seem rather that the critical qualities they were after were easy legibility of standard signs and symbols, quite possibly containing some religious significance in that very manner of representation, and a clear statement of the hierarchical strata of Egyptian society, with the power of the king (Pharaoh) coming directly from the gods.
One more clue as to the sophistication of Egyptian art - in terms of space - can be seen in the small symbol of an owl situated just below the left hand of Isis: this figure, like those of other animals, is shown in profile - so, easily recognisable - except for the head, which is shown facing us! This fact alone demonstrates that the artist was perfectly well aware of 'real' space, involving as he does, both the side view and the full-front view; psychologically interesting as well, to have that small but powerful animal regarding us as we regard him!
A detail of the fresco showing Queen Nefertari and Isis: the owl under Isis' left hand.
The owl, looking at the viewer, was associated with death in Ancient Egypt.
Perhaps the most obvious indication of a concept of 'real' space is the implied movement of the two figures, across the painted field, from left to right. Movement per se implies change of position and therefore, in this frieze-like structure, transition in space from one point to another. This is so obvious that we might be forgiven for not even mentioning it but, indeed, that movement from one place to another occurs, at least as far as our physical self is concerned, through and in space. In Christian thought, when one dies - the condition represented in our tomb painting - one discards the physical body and exists only as spirit; in La Divina Commedia, Dante several times points up this 'fact', where he notes that the damned souls in the Inferno do not cast shadows, and conversely, that Dante, being still of flesh and blood, makes noise when he dislodges stones and so on (1). It could possibly be argued then that, in the Egyptian picture, where we are dealing as well with the transition of a 'soul' from one condition to another, terrestrial concepts or laws of space do not apply. This is fair enough except that what we have before us is a painted image in our real world and most of the norms applicable to perception of daily reality may be understood to apply in the image, if not in 'fact', i.e. in the Queen's actual transition!
Here, as in many painted images, a dichotomy is set up involving the simultaneity of what exists in the painted world, and what exists in the 'real' world; and sometimes, even within the painted image itself, ambiguities exist which make it even more difficult to reconcile the content of the image with its references to our 'real' world. This power of images was much later developed as a raison d'être in its own right by the Surrealists. However, long before the Surrealists, art had utilised dichotomy, ambivalence and ambiguity to suggest, in particular, Time, and especially when it concerned the era before the advent of Christianity, or Christ's death, and afterwards (2).
1 La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321): Inferno XII, 29-30:
"..... di quelle pietre, che spesso moviensi
sotto i miei piedi per lo novo carco."
("..... of those stones which often moved
under the new weight of my feet".)
2 Numerous examples exist but to quote two:
The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca, where the left side of the landscape is dead or dormant, while the right side is alive and verdant;
The Meditation on the Passion by Vittore Carpaccio, in The Met, NY, where again, the left side is full of dead and dangerous things and the right is full of life and peace.
