Tin Box Art Show

The art of Egypt is heavily influenced by spiritual and religious ideas and culture that extends back thousands of years. Dynastic Egypt was one of the first civilizations in the world as defined by the modern concept of civilization. Ancient Egypt was a land of intense and all-pervasive magic.

Egyptians were obsessed with the Afterlife more than they were with this life, even though this obsession belied a deep sensuality. The spiritual and religious ideas of the Egyptians all center around the idea that this life is to be lived in such a way that one makes oneself worthy to be taken by the gods into the next world, the world or land of “millions of years” where there is no aging and people live with the gods for such a long, long time that for all intents and purposes they become immortal.

Many researchers into the spiritual and religious ideas that influence Egyptian art have thus pointed out that ancient Egyptian religion bore a strong similarity to Christianity at least in this way. Of course, the Christian Gospels relate that Jesus and his family somehow had some ties to Egypt, although by that point in history Egypt had long since become an enemy land considered hostile, dangerous, and anti-Jewish. And one of the most important pioneers of the Jewish nations, Moses, came out of Egypt as well. Some researchers believe that Moses was historically the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten.

Even in that renegade Pharaohs name is the world “akh”, which to Egyptian spiritual and religious thinking is one of the five constituent parts of the personality that make up the totality of a being. The Akh in Egyptian religious thinking is the re-united Ba and Ka (two other constituents of a person’s being) that have been brought back together again in the afterlife in the new land of “millions of years”. The five constituent parts of the personality had a strong influence on Egyptian art.

The Akh has been depicted as a hand with the thumb and the forefinger brought close to each other or brought together to depict the complete circle of earthly birth, earthly death, and rebirth in the new land of the Afterlife. Hieroglyphically, the Akh was depicted as an Ibis bird looking to the right, the East, the direction of rebirth, where the Sun arose anew each day. Indeed, the ibis in ancient Egypt was called “the crested akh-bird”.

Originally, Egyptian spiritual and religious ideas held that only the royalty (including the priesthood) could get to the Afterlife; everyone else on earth was just here to serve them and then would perish into blackness when their lifetime was through.

Thus the Pharaohs and other priestly and royal personages would have tomb painters create magnificent murals depicting their life accomplishments and their devotion to the gods (who in ancient Egypt were not truly “gods” as we think of such beings today, but were rather superior beings called NTR, or “neter”, which translates into “guardians” but who also created mankind; “neter” is probably the root of our modern English word “nature”).

Royal tomb painters were thus extremely important people, although they were not always taken into the Afterlife and were sometimes killed to prevent them from working for another. Later on, however, Egypt grew a middle class which also sought the Afterlife, and religious beliefs were modified to accommodate them.

Animals are extremely important to Egyptian art. The well-known scarab beetle, which rolls up balls of its own dung and lays eggs within them, is the symbol of rebirth and the sixth sense.

And a divine creature that is half crocodile and half hippopotamus is depicted as waiting to devour a soul whose heart, when weighed by the goddess Ma’at, is heavier than a feather; these people do not pass over into the Afterlife. Artistically rendered feathers and symbols of flight such as birds like the ibis are also extremely important to Egyptian spiritual and religious ideas.

Mankind has always been attracted to beauty. At no time through the long passage of history has humanity not been expressed through art.

In every corner of the world, in every society, known as civilized or uncivilized, art, as an expression of that society, has flowered.

We can still look with admiration at great, early Egyptian art and at the unsurpassed sculpture and architecture of classical Greece.

In Australia, anthropologists recently discovered, a long gallery of aboriginal art beneath a shaded rock shelf with depictions of the hunt, men and women and native animals. The question was how old was this undiscovered art gallery?

All was revealed when one scientist noticed a now, stone like wasp’s nest covering a section of art work. The once sandy, but now rock hard wasp nest was gently removed in total darkness, so as not to let light enter the covered section. A tiny sample of the hidden area was removed and sent for carbon dating – the answer came back, the gallery was 60,000 years old. 60,000 years ago, men and women were decorating their environment!

Art, in it’s vast range of expressions, has always appeared at the apex of human achievement. It raises humanity, it does not destroy, it uplifts, it does not darken, its music nourishes the soul of humanity, it does not deplete, it unites mankind, it does not separate.

Art, in every form, flourishes today, more than at any other time in history. In the past, art was exclusive; today it is inclusive and is available to anyone who decides to be involved.

One of art’s greatest gifts is its capacity and ability to constantly give. Its resources are infinite. It holds in trust, thousands of years of the greatest artistic talent and freely offers it to all without reserve.

Just like music, with its cornerstones, like J.S Bach, who, we are told by musicologists, is the founding father of all Western music, even the most contemporary owes is origins to Bach. Bach’s great music still gives and gives, even when the recipient never realizes that he is the recipient of the gift.

The history of art, in all its forms does exactly the same thing. Great pictures not only inspire an artist, but they continue to teach and instruct with lessons in composition, perspective and balance.

Every century has had and will continue to have, its “style of the day” and art, like every thing else, is voguish, with its periods of fashion, e.g., rococo, classic, neo classic, cubist, impressionist and revivalist, all available and always ready to bestow.

These periods are usually seen as the birth of new ideas and as with the birth of a child, the infant, or new idea, grows and develops, until it in turn, is overtaken by a fresh, new idea. Art, therefore is a living, breathing form, constantly reborn in all its many facets.

We may not always understand the art of our day, but it is well worth remembering that many of the great names, now revered as masters, were not accepted as such in their day, but were criticized, rejected and certainly unaccepted as artists in their time. The great Dutch painter, Van Gogh, sold exactly one picture, in his lifetime!

If we can imagine “art” as an allegorical figure, a curator of the world’s storehouse of music, pictures, literature, sculpture etc, we would need many more than one life time to see all she has to show us!

Art constantly sets new challenges for all our five senses so let us follow our allegorical guide and welcome her vast wealth.