[HN Gopher] Why does ancient Egypt's distinctive art style make ...
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Why does ancient Egypt's distinctive art style make everything look
flat?
Author : prismatic
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-07-15 21:17 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.livescience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.livescience.com)
| spockz wrote:
| The "Egyptian history" book I'm reading with my kid states that
| the "Egyptians couldn't draw perspective and therefore flattened
| everything" and continues with that this is the reason we see
| multi storied houses in drawing but not in archeological finds.
|
| Does this ring a bell or is it just elementary school
| oversimplification again?
| slavik81 wrote:
| That sounds reasonable. Until the rules of perspective were
| understood, artists were mostly quite poor at drawing realistic
| scenes. It wasn't until 1415 that the rules of perspective were
| thoroughly described, and the discovery dramatically improved
| the quality of art that was created after.
|
| http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/perspective/histor...
| technothrasher wrote:
| Well, the article linked to implies that the reason for the
| flat aspect of the artwork was that they were more interested
| in strongly conveying themes and concepts than they were
| reproducing what the eye sees. The article compares it to a
| modern comic strip. Whether they "couldn't" draw perspective,
| or were just uninterested, I don't know. I believe it was the
| Greeks in the 6th(?) century BC who were the first to use
| linear perspective in their art.
| alehlopeh wrote:
| Do elementary school kids even understand what perspective is?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I don't know if you're punning or serious here.
|
| If you're serious, you can teach elementary school kids to
| draw with perspective.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes. Not unusual for a first grader to have a basic
| understanding of it. Naming 3d shapes (pyramids, cylinders,
| cubes) is kindergarten level stuff.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Some of them do, some of them don't. I think I first learned
| about it in 3rd grade or so.
| ajuc wrote:
| Kids aren't idiots, they just had too little time to learn
| everything. I've had perspective drawing in art classes in
| elementary school and nobody had problems understanding it
| after 10 minute introduction.
|
| Have you seen the willy coyote cartoon with a road painted on
| a rock? It uses perspective, and kids aged 7 understand what
| happens.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| > Kids aren't idiots, they just had too little time to
| learn everything.
|
| These are wise words right there.
| egypturnash wrote:
| If my memory of carrying around a book on the subject during
| my family's visit to Washington, DC during the Bicentennial
| is accurate, I had learnt some basics of perspective drawing
| at the age of five.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| Reeks of oversimplification and hand-waving explanations. The
| Egyptians clearly understood very advanced geometry and methods
| to measure the world.
|
| Everything the Egyptians did was intentional.
|
| How could they build statues if they could only reason in 2d
| space? That makes no sense.
|
| In a way many of their creations are a combination of
| spacetime(3d and time) accompanied by 2d storytelling as a form
| of narrative much like we write on the internet except maybe
| more comic book like.
| cc101 wrote:
| They used an art technique called fullest aspect (I think). Many
| of ancient Egypt's figures flatten both the front and the side
| views into the same figure. I think that is what you are
| referring to.
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