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Egyptian painting. The ancient Egyptians began painting about 5.000 years ago. They developed one of the first definite traditions in the history of the art. Egyptian artists painted on the walls of temples and palaces, but much of their finest work appears in tombs. Like other early peoples, the Egyptians believed that art was a magical way of transporting things of this world into a world people entered after death. Egyptian artists decorated tombs with frescoes showing persons and objects related to the life of the dead. Egyptian artists painted according to strict rules that hardly changed for thousands of years. The figures they drew look stiff. The heads of people in the painting always face sideways. The shoulders and body face to the front, and the feet paint to the side. Important persons are larger than the other people.

Artists painted tombs only for the benefit of the gods and the souls of the dead. The tombs were scaled and beautifully colored frescoes were intended never again to be seen.

Cretan painting. About 3000 B. C. - while Egyptian civilization was flourishing - another great civilization was developing on the island of Crete. The Cretans, a seafaring people, often came into contact with the Egyptians. The Cretans adopted some elements of Egyptians art, including the Egyptian way of drawing human figure. But the Cretan style

did not have the sti ffness of th e Egyptian st yle Cretan paintings are lively, and the figures in them seem to float and dance. More important. Cretan pai nters, unlike the Egyptians, were interested in life in this world. They used paintings to decorate buildings instead of concealing the paintings in tombs. Thus, Cretan art became a bridge between Egyptian art, which emphasized death, and ancient Greek and Roman art, which dealt with life.

Gree k painting. The ancient Greeks made greater achievements in architecture and sculpture than in painting. Nearly all surviving Greek paintings appear on pottery. The Greeks made beautifully shaped pottery and painted it with scenes from everyday life and from stories about their gods and heroes.

Greek artists of the late 600's and the 500's B. C. Painted black figures on naturally red pottery. This method became known as the black figure style. A painter named Exekias was a master of the style. About 530 B. C. Greek artists developed the red figure style, the reverse of the black figure style. These artists painted the background of their pottery in black and let natural red show through to form the figures. The red figure painters, like the Greek sculptors of the same period, created extremely lifelike figures. This “ ideal sty le” became the chief quality of the so-called classical art of the Greek and Romans.

Greek sculptors made realistic figures and indicated emotion by facial expression or bodily pose. This was the style copied by Roman sculptors and relearned by Renaissance sculptors. It serve d as the basic style for European sculpture until the late 1800's. The Greeks thought of their gods as being like people, and sculptors portrayed gods as people in such works as the “ Greek God Poseidon” or “ Zeus” . They showed people as godlike beings. The earliest important classical sculpture appeared on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The high point of the classical style is generally considered to be the sculptures on the Parthenon in Athens. Sculptures decorated sarcophagi with reliefs. Portrait sculpture also began during this period.

We know more about Roman painting than Greek painting because a wider selection of Roman paintings has survived. Roman artist

were strongly influenced by the Greeks. They gave the figures in their paintings the same lifelike quality. Roman artists added to the reality of their works by painting convincing illusions of depth, shade, shadow and reflected light. Some of the best examples of Roman painting have been Found in the ruins of the city of Pompeii. The house of two brothers named Vettius contains frescoes portraying stories about lxion, a mythical hero. These frescoes consist of elaborately designed painted panels.

Roman sculptures. The finest work of Roman sculptors was probably their mass-produced portrait sculpture. To meet the large demand for portrait busts, the Romans developed a set of standard symbols for hair, eyes, nose, and mouth. A student learned to carve by reproducing these details accurately, rather than by copying a living model. Art schools used this method of teaching until as recently as the 1940's.

The Romans were deeply religious, and many reliefs from altars show ceremonies or symbolic stories. A famous example of such sculpture is the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) in Rome.

The Romans also were particularly interested in showing historical events, a theme that the Greeks had avoided. Reliefs of commemorative arches and columns tell the story of complete military campaigns. The best-known columns are Trojan’s Column and the Column of Marcus Aureoles.

Oriental painting, the painting of Asia, has three main branches — Indian, Chinese, and Islamic.

Indian painting, is primarily religious art. Indian painters create their works to help the people communicate with their gods. Their main subject include gods and stories about the gods and holy people. Indian artists paint on manuscripts of holy texts, on banners and wallhangings, and on walls. They direct all the elements of their pictures toward increasing the religious experience of the viewer. Every object and figure in their paintings has a specific meaning. Gods are usually portrayed as red and fierce in order to show their great power. Their many arms let them display all the symbols of their power at once. The god appears warlike and full of motion, which shows that he can conquer his enemies. The artists do not attempt to show gods and the other figures in real space. All the figures seem to float in a heavenly atmosphere. They are seated on clouds or lotus plants. Clouds and a ring of flame — which symbolize the universe — encircle the chief figure and fill the background with swirling movements and color.

Chines painting. The major Chinese religions al stressed a love of nature. Partly as a result, tree major kinds of subject matter dominate

Chinese painting. They are birds and flowers; figures; and landscapes of the countryside, mountains, and sea. Chinese landscape painters tried to create a feeling of union between the human spirit and the energy of the wind. water, mist, and mountains. Such pictures express the Chinese belief that there is an inner harmony and balance among all things in the world. Chinese painters use black ink that could produce different tones and a brush that could many kinds of lines. Artists created many paintings in black ink only. Even when they added color, the ink drawing remained the basis of the design. The Chinese paid more attention to the brushstrokes than to the subject matter. Most surviving Chinese painting are painted on silk or an absorbent paper. Many artists painted on walls or a large screens. All these paintings require special study. The artist intended their works to be examined only if the viewer had time to enjoy them without distraction.

In China, painters, like poets and scholars, were considered persons of learning and wisdom. Chinese paintings were closely associated with poetry. Many Chinese paintings combine certain objects, such as a particular bird or flower, because the objects are associated with a famous poem.

Chinese painters produced many great landscapes painted on long scrolls. The viewer unrolls the scroll slowly from right to left, revealing a continuous succession of scenes of the countryside. These hand scrolls are in a uniquely Chinese art form. Appreciation of them requires much patience and thought.

Xia Gui and Ma Yuan created a style of idealized landscapes that greatly influenced Chinese and Japanese painting.

Human figures were also important in Chinese painting. Artists painted portraits of both real and imaginary people. They painted scenes that illustrate stories and historical subjects. Many paintings show the elegant, refined life at court. Some of these pictures show furniture and decorations in great detail. Others have a plain background. All these paintings are remarkable for a delicacy of line.

Japanese painting is included in the tradition of Chinese painting because Japan's art was greatly influenced by China's. However, the Japanese changed the Chinese styles to suit their own taste. The Japanese use of the color and abstract design had transformed the art into a new form of expression. Japanese artists were interested in the time and place in which they lived. Their paintings show their fondness for storytelling as well as for art that appeals to the emotions and the senses.

From the 1500's to the 1800's, Japanese artists painted in a style that strongly emphasized color and design. These artists were called decorators. The decorators omitted detail from their pictures and stressed only outlines. They applied their color evenly with no shading. The decorators often added gold leaf to their paintings for an effect of luxury. The finest decorative paintings were pictures of nature, particularly animals, flowers, and landscapes.

Throughout most of its history, Japanese painting has reflected the taste of the upper classes. But the Japanese style most familiar in the West is an art of the common people. The style is called ukiyo-e (the floating world). The floating world is a world of pleasure and entertainment, and of great actors and beautiful women.

Islamic painting is primarily the creation of beautiful books through calligraphy and illustration. Calligraphers copied texts in elegant handwriting, and artists added illustration to increase the beauty of the books. Calligraphers copied the texts of Koran, the Islamic holy book, on pages that were then covered with gold leaf. Early Islamic artists decorated the pages with complicated patterns because their religion prohibited the making of images of human beings and animals. However, as time passed, many Islamic artists — especially those living in Persia - began painting human and animal figures.

In addition to the Koran, Persian artists illustrated collections of fables, histories, love poems, and scientific works. These illustrations have jewel — like color, the most important element in Islamic painting. The artists did not try to portray the real world, but instead tried to create a luxurious, ideal setting to delight the eye and simulate the imagination.

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