Monday, October 19, 2009

Ancient Egyptian Decoration as seen by Owen Jones

Illustration: Ancient Egyptian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

All of these images are taken from The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, which was published in 1856. Therefore we are seeing Ancient Egyptian design, ornamentation and decoration through the eyes of a mid-nineteenth century Englishman and so we should perhaps be cautious as to what conclusions Jones draws as to the place that Egypt holds in the history of decoration.

However, much of what he writes does still hold true as far as the facts concerning decoration are concerned. Jones was in awe at the staggering antiquity and longevity of the style. After all Egypt as a culture and as an entity, was ancient when Rome was still in its youth. Above all he was in awe of the civilization's dogged continuity despite all outside pressures, to maintain an integrity and individuality of purpose that makes the culture of Ancient Egypt so singular to us today.

Illustration: Ancient Egyptian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Much of Ancient Egyptian decoration and ornamentation was derived from the flora and fauna that was often peculiar to the Nile. Much of their design and pattern work was also relatively insular and was very often identified only with Egypt and the Nile and on the whole, was not part of a larger regional culture.

Jones made the acute observation that the flora and fauna that the Egyptians portrayed in their decorative work, although representational, was not such that it reached the point whereby a lotus for example, could be plucked. There was, he noted, no attempt through shading or any other artistic style, to produce the effect of three-dimensions. The representational aspect of the decorative work was always held in a subservient position, so that it was a tool to aid decoration not the other way around.

Ultimately, it was pattern and colour that became the specific items that made the Ancient Egyptian style what it was. Whether it was to be used within the context of internal or external architecture, furniture and other domestic items, or indeed personal adornment, pattern and colour were paramount.

Illustration: Ancient Egyptian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Jones also observed that there was little change within the overall style of decoration within Ancient Egypt, although he did note that the older the culture got and the weaker it became, the less defined and correct the style. This could well have been due to the influence of outside elements that took advantage of Egypt in its later stages when it had lost much of its power and status and was at the mercy of Greek and Roman merchants and traders who tended to set the agenda as far as tastes and styles were concerned. However, in its earlier and more robust persona Jones saw the unchanging nature of Egyptian culture, and through that its national decorative style, not as one of weakness as in that of a static and unbending culture, but more that of one that was immune to the shallow requirements of a culture led by fashion and short term gratification. This was often noted in the mid-nineteenth centuryas being one of the major criticisms of the Roman Empire, which was taken as a reflection of his own Victorian culture, but could equally be seen as a reflection of our own twenty first century obsession with short-term novelty fuelled by fashion.

Illustration: Ancient Egyptian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Many of Jones decorative examples of Ancient Egyptian work were copied from burial tombs and this is where we get many of our preconceptions of Egypt being a culture that was obsessed with the dead. However, these images do not portray a funereal style of gloom and despondency, but in fact one of a culture that revelled in beauty, colour, texture, light, music and dance. It was because life in Egypt was so vibrant and vital, that many wished to carry that life forward into the next world. By producing the vibrant colours and pattern work that was so much a part of the burial decoration theme, along with powerful snapshots of life lived along the Nile, it seemed as if the culture was trying to animate this zest for life in order to encourage it into lasting beyond the grave. So in fact Egypt could be seen as a culture that wanted to prolong the good and full life that they believed they were unique in possessing, by their occupancy of Egypt and the Nile and that rather than a culture that embraced death and all its formal rhetoric and ritual, they wanted to keep what they had for eternity.

 Illustration: Ancient Egyptian Ornament from Owen Jones The Grammar of Ornament, 1856.

Jones did a great service in helping to open the Victorian mind to the perception of Egypt as one of great contrasts of colour and pattern, one that emphasised the vitality of life and living, through the range of plates that he illustrated in The Grammar of Ornament. Rather than seeing Ancient Egypt as a land and culture that was coloured by the different shades of sand and stone, he helped propel Egypt into the modern Victorian world, where the Egyptian style was to see a revival, not always accurately admittedly, but again part of the living world rather than that of the dead.


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