![\"Sowing](\"http:\/\/earthcolours.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Sennedjem_SowingPlowing-in-the-Fields-300x238.jpg\")
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Sowing & Plowing in the Fields, Tomb of Sennedjem, Deir el-Medina<\/p>\n
Ancient Egyptian paintings survived the lapse of time relatively well due to the dry climate. The\u00a0wall paintings and painted reliefs tell us a great deal on the life and culture\u00a0of the Old, Middle and New Kingdom. Ancient Egyptian artists depicted not only life but expressed some deeper meaning with symbolic use of colours and objects.<\/p>\n
Colour Symbolism in Ancient Egypt<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Egyptologist Richard H. Wilkinson has provided symbolic associations for\u00a0 <\/span>the 6 basic ancient Egyptian colours of white, black, red, blue, yellow and green:<\/span><\/p>\n white represents ritual purity, sacredness, southern Egypt (\u201cwhite Crown\u201d) and can be associated with white sacred animals;<\/span><\/p>\n black represents night, death, resurrection and fertility;<\/span><\/p>\n red represents life and regeneration, anger, death and destruction;<\/span><\/p>\n blue represents the heavens, the primeval flood, the Nile river, and the god Amun-Re;<\/span><\/p>\n green represents life, growing things, and resurrection; <\/span><\/p>\n and\u00a0<\/span>yellow represents the sun, the eternal, and can be associated with the flesh and bones of the gods.<\/span><\/p>\n Materials of Ancient Egyptian Painters\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Both wall paintings and painted reliefs had layers of plaster underneath which was applied\u00a0over mud brick or stone.\u00a0<\/span>Once the surface was made ready, the artist would draw grid lines in red pigment dust to\u00a0properly proportion the figures and lay out the scenes. Paints were made by mixing the\u00a0pigments with a plant or animal based glue to make a medium able to attach to the walls. Pigments were mostly ground minerals. White was often made from gypsum, black from carbon, reds and yellows from iron oxides, blue and green from azurite and malachite, and bright yellow (representing gold) from orpiment. Not all the colours survived the time in their original shade. Recent research has shown that the green\u00a0objects that were thought to be painted in \u201cnatural\u201d green could have actually been painted a light blue which degraded into green in time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"