Strouhal, Eugen. Life of the Ancient Egyptians. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
This book gives a detailed account into the everyday life of an Egyptian in ancient Egypt. Although there are only a couple of chapters devoted to the artists and craftsmen, I still found it very interesting and helpful to my study to be familiar with the society in which they lived and worked. There are also many beautifully composed and colorful photos of the artwork throughout the book to support the text and help the reader clearly understand the author's ideas. I've decided to take slide photos of these and use them in my presentation in April.
The two chapters that were most helpful to my study were Craftsmen at Work, and Immortality through Art. In Craftsmen at Work, Strouhal turns away from describing the products of the artists and focuses the reader's attention to the conditions under which they lived and worked. He also gives the reader insight into the methods and tools that the Egyptian craftsmen used. He stresses that artists collaborated in teams to produce quality art. His theory is that the workshops and tools that the artists worked in were owned by the ruling class and because the artist worked in an environment where many craftsmen were concentrated, they never had a personal ownership of the tools and materials used, or the artworks they produced. He gives the description of the artist as an 'employee of royalty, priesthood, and aristocracy'. Although the artists did not have a social status of their own, they would assume the social status of the workshop that they worked in. Strouhal also says that the drawback of monotony was outweighed by the consistent quality produced in Egyptian art. The concentration of an artist's skills in one area improved the quality of work with perfection in its finest details.
He explains that a single piece of artwork may have passed through the hands of several craftsmen, to include the Overseer of Craftsmen, before it was completed and ready for shipment to the temple. At the temple, the High Priests would administer cleansing rites to the artwork for its final placement within the king's tomb.
The chapter goes on to describe other forms of crafts covering stone tool and vessel makers, pottery and glass workers, carpenters and cabinet makers, leather tanners and saddlers, spinners and weavers, smelters and metal workers, and jewelers. These areas, although interesting, were not important to my study of the human form in Egyptian art.
The chapter Immortality Through Art was tremendously helpful to my study. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the tools and techniques of the artists. The author then explains that Egyptian artist used the same tools as the artisans of similar crafts. Sculptors used the same techniques as the stone mason, painters as the scribes, and metal sculptors the same as the metal smiths. They were both trained similarly with one skill not taking precedence over the other. Strouhal again says that the artist did not work alone, but was part of a collective effort by many craftsmen.
The chapter continues with detailed descriptions of how each particular craftsman conducted his work. This information was drawn from wall paintings depicting artists at various stages of progress in their work and from evidence in the work themselves. An example is the use of a string grid by the line draughtsman to produce exact proportions of the figure. There are excellent photographs illustrating the red grid lines that remain on unfinished sections of the wall reliefs from the Tomb of Horemheb. These photos also illustrate the methods of the relief sculptor as well who stopped working in the middle of the relief sculpture.
I found this book very helpful to my study, both visually and literally. I also found the work interesting to read and enjoyable to look at as a whole. The most enjoyable features were the frequent, great photographs and examples throughout the work.
Eugen Strouhal is the Curator of Pre-history and Antiquity at the Naprstek Museum, Prague, and is the Director of the Institute of History of Mecidine, Charles University. Werner Foreman is an award-winning photographer with over sixty collaborated works with other authors. He has devoted his life to documenting tribal societies and great civilizations of the past.