The art of the ancient world, such as Ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome, and Mesopotamia, share similar and vastly different aspects in terms of culture, religion, economy, and political beliefs. Each ancient civilization depicted their artwork in a unique type of way that distinguished their social aspects/culture and religion differently from other civilizations. Through formal analyses of each artwork from the different civilizations I previously mentioned, we can learn about the religious beliefs and in general, the atmosphere of the society at the time. In this summary, I will be comparing artwork from ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and Egypt.
First, ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and Egypt did not share the exact time periods but they all share similar characteristics in their art works. Mesopotamia is recorded to be the first ancient civilization, then Egypt, then Greece/Rome in terms of time. A vast majority of Egyptian culture, hierarchy, and religion is borrowed from the ancient Mesopotamians. For example, most of their artworks portray religious figures/divine beings and concepts such as the underworld/afterlife and God/king/pharaoh. Also, both ancient civilizations built special temples for their divine rulers and Gods. A specific example that depicts this religious aspect on ancient Egypt is the Weighing of the Heart Ceremony Painting. In the ceremony, Anubis, a powerful figure for this process, weighed the heart of the passerby and the feather of Ma’at. This drawing also depicts several other divine figures and creatures such as a croco-hippo-leopard creature, Ammut, who devours the impure hearts, Osiris, God of the underworld, a jackal-headed figure, Anubis, and others. This drawing shows how important the afterlife process/religion was to the ancient Egyptians. Also, The Palette of Narmer depicts the importance and devotion towards divine leaders (pharaohs). King Narmer is depicted much larger than the nearby figures of animals which qualitatively makes him physically more powerful and God-like. Similarly, in The Standard of Ur, from ancient Mesopotamia, there are several workers and one ruler who is physically larger than the others. The devotion towards size of the divine rule emphasizes the importance of these kings and Pharaohs of their respective ancient societies/hierarchies, hence why specialized temples (ziggurats in Mesopotamia and pyramids in ancient Egypt) were built to preserve the bodies of their kings.
When transitioning into the Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, we see a vast majority of differences in terms of style of art, culture, economy, and religion from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. However, ancient Greek and Roman art share a plethora of similarities in terms of style. One of the many differences that distinguishes Ancient Greek art and ancient Egypt/Mesopotamia is the style/approach of art. The ancient Greeks based their artwork on a humanistic approach, which Humanism in Ancient Greece states that every thing in the universe revolves and focuses on mankind rather than Gods and Goddesses. This is the opposite approach followed in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia; they heavily focused their artwork on religion. One prominent example of humanism in Ancient Greek art is the Doryphoros by Polykleitos. We see a very realistic/life-like sculpture of a ripped man. This is also different from the very still figures such as the figure of Kouros in ancient Mesopotamia. Furthermore, both Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures depicted very realistic and life-like figures of males and females who were naked. This was frowned upon in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations and regarded nudity as an embarrassment. The Greeks and Romans had no problem sexualizing males and females.
These three ancient civilizations share a lot of differences and similarities in their artworks. These differences and similarities can help art historians analyze the religious, cultures, and economical aspects of each ancient society.
