Art and Society

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how different cultures see the world in different ways and how religion, society, and even politics, shape our views and give form to our human environment. In particular, it explores how society?s ideals are often reflected in its sculpture. It looks at how the Greeks represented people as they ought to be and the Egyptians as gods. It shows how, for the Egyptians, the world was an unchanging pageant set into emotion each day by a god on Earth and how forms were stereotyped and individual characteristics were replaced by symbols of status and class. In contrast, it shows how the philosophical Greeks, ever-striving for the perfect world, placed gods on the same footing as men and depicted both as physically perfect specimens, coolly detached from their surroundings.

From the Paper:

"Ancient Egypt was a fundamentally religious society. The axis of its world turned on the will of a god-king who endlessly re-enacted the drama of his father the sun's journey across the sky and through the underworld. Life after death was central to Egyptian belief, as was the necessity of preserving the body intact. A world so regulated and repetitive required an art that expressed order and stability. The canons of Egyptian society and its art are aptly displayed in the towering Colossi of Rameses at Abu Simbel. Here as in all depictions of the king, individual characteristics count for little. ?The greatness of the Egyptian gods [is] represented by the images of the divine king and his family.? In each of the four identical statues, the Pharaoh is represented as a majestic giant, his hands resting calmly by his sides as he sits motionless on his eternal throne."

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