The massive "Egyptian Renaissance" by Mahmoud Mokhtar marks the nationalist period in Egyptian art history.

Introduction

In popular culture around the world, the words “Egyptian art” refer to the ancient art of the pharaohs, with its massive tombs, thick horizontal planes, gilded surfaces and elaborate expressions of life after death

But like every other place in the world, Egypt changes; even as its past flows into the present, it accumulates new experience – and its contemporary art shows it.

In fact, Egypt’s ancient period was followed by 2000 years of major historical experience. It came in the form of encroachment, invasion and colonization by those who coveted Egypt’s unique economic, geographic and political position, namely Persians, Greco-Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Hindus, Chinese, Africans, and Europeans.

Among all the effects they had on Egypt, one was to link art and philosophy of the East and West; usually leaving artistic Egypt the richer for their presence.

Fortunately, the core of Egyptian identity remained solid. It’s hard to know why: perhaps it’s because peasant farmers, the fellaheen, still guide water from the Nile to their small fields; perhaps the rhythms of the earth and man have stabilized the civilization—with the fellaheen sending their children to the cities where they continually renew traditional values.

Priests preserved sacred art in their temples; Muslims and Copts translated their faith onto walls, boards and canvases; the fellaheen painted their beliefs on wagon sidings and water pots.

Today’s Egyptian artists are doing the same.

They are in the process of making their art meaningful by struggling with the images of globalization and somehow, through experiment, failure and success, bringing it within their own rich, massive tradition.

Here's a brief history of the influences on Modern Egyptian Art

Folk art burbles today on this cart from Alexandia.

Egyptian Folk Art

By and for peasants and laboring people, Egyptian folk art has been a perennial source of identity and inspiration for Egyptian artists. In times when the appreciation of fine arts and crafts was weak – say, during Ottoman times -- folk art kept Egyptian aesthetic traditions alive. When the nation suffered blows to its ego, folk art offered a stronghold of traditions and values.

Because folk artists rely on locally available, natural and/or recycled materials, and because their products are usually practical, “crafts of necessity”, their aesthetic qualities can be overlooked. But Egyptian folk art is rich in symbolism, bright color and lavish ornamentation

While not as susceptible to social and political fashion as fine art, folk art is affected by the cultures it encounters. So Hellenistic influences appear in the folk art of the Delta, African influences in Nubian Egypt, and Bedouin influences in Sinai and at oases along the Libyan border.

Ancient Egyptian Art

Ancient Egyptian civilizations ebbed and flowed for over 2000 years but people's preoccupation with life after death never disappeared. Roughly a replay of life on earth, focus on the afterlife drove the artists to provide realistic depiction of earthly objects. They used durable materials so that the simulated comforts would survive the journey beyond the grave and they provided statues of servants to take care of them.

With striking geometric style and keen detail, scenes of domestic, military, hunting, and ceremony civilize the walls of the tombs. Human figures proceeded with head in profile and bodies facing front (frontalism); while alive looking, they rarely suggested actual movement.

These stylistic elements conveyed stability and endurance -- both major values; a fact underscored by their perserverance throughout the ancient period.

Greek, Roman and Coptic Art

For six centuries (1100-500 BCE), there were active artistic ties between Ancient Egyptian and European civilizations. Greeks and Romans developed a deep appreciation of ancient Egyptian aesthetics eventually embedding its architectural and artistic styles in their own art forms. The reverse was also true. In Alexandria, from 400-100 BCE particularly, Egypt’s public architecture, textiles, pottery, paper and glass, acquired distinctly Greek characteristics.

Coptic Christian Paintings (Including Icons)

 

 

Islamic Art

Fatimid artists used Egyptian human and animal motifs. And, while their artists maintained the abstract quality of their traditional art, their stylized figures were lively, illustrating the creativity and ingenuity of their craftsmen.

The Mamluks (1250 to 1517 CE) were next to rule Egypt. As master-traders from the Mediterranean to the Far East, they harvested a broad swath of cultural riches, making Mamluk time one of tremendous artistic and architectural activity.

Paradoxically, given the complexity of their sources, Mamluk styles were more monumental and geometric -- like those in Ancient Egypt -- and less ornamental than those of the Fatimids. A comparison of the Sultan Hassan and the Azhar mosques illustrates the difference.

Mamluk art, especially inlaid metalwork, woodwork, and textiles, came to be prized throughout the Mediterranean Basin and well into Europe. Its enameled and gilded glassworks made a pronounced impact on the Venetian glass industry. Glorious examples of their mausoleums, madrassas, and minarets are visible today in Old Cairo.

Ottomans defeated the Mamluks in 1517, bringing Egypt’s hearty creative life to an abrupt halt. For almost three hundred years, the Ottomans exploited Egyptian agriculture, drained its economy by taxation and starved its fine art and crafts traditions, transporting its craftsmen, artists, and artifacts to Constantinople.

Folk artists kept the creative tradition of the country alive.

Fatimid caliphs appreciated art and exchanged works with artists across the Arab world. They commissioned and publicly displayed statues of famous men. The sculptures were followed (during an interlude of Tulunid rule) by public paintings of singers, royals, and government officials (disproving the popular belief that Islam forbids depiction of human figures).

Western Art

Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 military expedition to Egypt lasted only three years, but its army of Orientalists -- scientists and scholars -- produced Desription de l’Egypte, a 23-volume attempt to record everything about Egyptian history and civilization.

This monumental mirror on Egyptian life and culture was a significant trigger in the country’s artistic recovery. Muslim religious clerics of Al Azhar University energized the new direction of Egyptian art by their enthusiastic support of the Orientalists (while resisting military occupation), ultimately helping them exhibit their work and set up their teaching studios. The clerics would become major patrons of a Eurocentric Egyptian art in both Cairo and Alexandria.

In his turn, the famous Arab historian, Ibn Khuldun (1332-1406), publicly praised the French portraits of Azhar clerics, as well as new representations of the prophets and their miracles. Rather than condemn the use of human images as irreligious, (as more conservative Muslims may do), he described the images as “thought-provoking.”

Still, the high point of Egypt’s liaison with French art was yet to come.

Mohammed Ali Pasha (1769-1849), launched Egypt’s recovery from its lethargic Ottoman years by inviting European architects and artists to build mansions and palaces, make paintings and sculptures, and teach art to the daughters of the nobility. He requested French proposals for modernizing the country, including the establishment of a school of fine arts; he sent groups of students to the continent to study French art and sciences.

Following him were the Khedives Tawfik and Ismael, who ruled Egypt in the last half of the nineteenth century. Extreme Francophiles, they promoted Orientalist artists and European art styles at every opportunity. Prince Youssef Kamal followed their lead in the early twentieth century, building a School of Fine Arts modeled after the French Ecole des Beaux Arts.

There students focused exclusively on neo-classicism and Italian impressionism. (They learned about Ancient Egyptian art in European academies, where the discovery of Tutankhamon’s tomb had bred an Egyptomania.)

The School of Fine Arts was supported by Egyptian national leaders, women’s groups, intellectuals, and reassured by the official endorsement of Egypt’s chief cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, Muslim clerics. Islam, he said, had no prohibition on paintings and sculptures of the human figure; they did not pose a danger to religious belief and were, in fact, excellent avenues to greater knowledge. He described his visits to the museums of France and Italy in the late 1800’s and the pleasure he took from viewing their rich symbols and images.

Soon members of the Egyptian royal family and aristocratic Francophiles became patrons and collectors of art works. Being socially and politically conservative nationalists, they shunned those Orientalist works that emphasized imaginary violence, nudity, and degrading poverty and assembled collections more reflective of Egyptian life.

Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Bey, who arranged many of the purchases, was an influential political figure and, with his wife, a major art collector. Their collection of 18th and 19th century European art treasures, including works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Lautrec, Pissarro and Rodin, can be seen today in the Mr. and Mrs. Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil Bey Museum in Cairo.

Khalil Bey put down the foundations for the Friends of Art Society, Cairo Annual Art Salon, and Museum of Modern Art.

Nationalist Art

The monumental sculpture Nahdet Masr or Egyptian Renaissance by Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934), a prominent Egyptian sculptor, now stands opposite the Cairo University Bridge as a monument to the beginning of Egypt’s modern era.

Funded by a nationwide drive and unveiled in face of resistance from Britain and the Egyptian Royal Palace, Nahdet Masr marks Egypt’s 1919 uprising against British colonialism: the moment when Egyptians reclaimed their national pride and Egyptian artists embraced their national heritage.

Artists immersed themselves in indigenous traditions. They studied the work of Coptic artists, who had maintained

Internationational Modern Art

The Art and Freedom Group (1946 ),including painters Ramsis Yunan (1914–66), Fu’ad Kamel (1919–73) and the brothers, Kamel (1917–72) and Hassan (1923-1987) el-Tilmsani, employed Surrealism to criticize the country’s social and political corruption. All Trotskyites, they opposed Nazism and, in support of artistic freedom in Europe, adopted the slogan “Long Live Degenerate Art.”

Also during the 1940s, Hussein Youssef Amin (1903-1984), led an influential movement that highlighted the role of art in social commentary, criticism, and change; Hamed Sa’eed (1908-2006), Yossef el-Affifi (1902-?), and Saed el-Khadem (1913-1987) used traditional Egyptian styles in their Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

In 1952, the nation finally became fully its own. A group of young army officers overthrew King Farouk and ultimately forced the British to end their occupation of Egypt. During the 1950s, the plastic arts developed along the lines of Realistic Socialism and the Surreal Metaphysical.

Posted July 2009

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