More Ancient Precision

This time in relation to the statue of Ramasses in Luxor. I visited the site back in 2012 had a great time looking at all the sculptures and temples. Also visited the Valley of Kings and few other places. But there is something that stood out for me as I looked at the sculptures and statues. I could never quite put my finger on it or explain exactly what the feeling was that I got when when standing in front of the statues, particularly when looking at the depictions of faces. It’s taken years, many books and lots of videos, but i finally know what it is. As someone that loves art, I have a great appreciation for the gap between what is real and how “real” is represented. If you take a room full of artists, and get them all to sketch the same person’s face, none of the sketches will look the same. And that’s because of the gap between what is real, and how reality is perceived and represented by the individual. Whether it’s style, varying ability, passion or a combination of some or all, the artist touch lays in that gap. So much so that one can recognise an artists work by that difference…this is common knowledge. The first strange thing is that when one looks at the sculptures from the Old Kingdom, there is no divergence in style across thousands of depictions of faces on sculptures. It is as though the exact same sculptor created them all. Obviously this would have been impossible, so one is left having to believe that there was one particular style and it was never deviated from. That very same style was passed down from generation to generation incredibly accurately and produced works that are virtually identical in artistic expression. I find this massively intriguing. Next, there is the symmetry present in these works. From curved edges running on 3 axis to minute details, the symmetry is staggering. There are videos available online that show how pictures of the faces of some of these statues are split in half with one half flipped and superimposed over the other, and the symmetry is perfect. Not an easy thing to accomplish when you are talking about 3D object sometimes built to large scales. Finally there is the the geometry present in the works. Those of you that have ever tried your hand at art will remember how you learned to draw a face using simple shapes like circles and triangles. These sculptures all contain this very same type of geometry but incorporated into sculptures and statues as opposed to a 2d picture on a page. To date, there are no other sculpted works predating the industrial revolution that do this when it comes to natural forms. Not only did the Old Kingdom Egyptians do this but they did it incredibly eloquently. Often using only 2 circles to create a face. Doing this by hand requires a knowledge of mathematics and geometry that is well beyond what the ancient Greeks could muster. So, I finally know why i got that strange feeling when looking at these sculptures. It’s because they are like no others I have ever seen. When looking at a representation of a human face, our brains don’t expect perfectly symmetrical features looking back at us. As observers of art we never expect to see mass uniformity in style across hundreds of different works created by different hands. It’s bound to bug the subconscious and leave you feeling like you’re not observing “normal” art. That’s my story for the day. Thanks for helping me kills some time
Do you see it too?

Imagine being so entitled that you chuck soup on a priceless painting. As far as i’m concerned that’s a crime worthy of firing squad treatment.