3100-30BC
Russell, Douglas
Costume History and Style; Chapter 2 pp.11-27
Silhouette
When we look at Egyptian art
for information about Egyptian dress, one immediately tends to assume that
the lines of the clothing are extremely distorted by the formal
angularity and symmetry emphasized by the artist. But the more we study
the information on clothing, the more we are forced to realize that, as in
all cultures, the people will always attempt to look as much like the
stylistic elements stressed in their art as possible. Women today may not
look exactly like the elongated, hat-rack fashion figures drawn in
newspapers and magazines, but they do all in their power to achieve a
close approximation. The same was true in ancient Egypt. Look, for
example, at a bas-relief of funeral ceremonies from the XIX Dynasty now in
the Archaeological Museum in Florence. The figures have a flat, side-view
angularity in position and dress that would lead the viewer to think that
all the items of clothing as well as the bodies are distorted for effect;
but when we realize that these angular clothing lines were actually
possible through the use of starched and pleated linen, we begin to
understand what effort the human spirit will make to look like the human
form created in the arts of a particular culture. The same is true of the
suggested transparency in certain tunics, particularly for women. We know
that the linen was woven into such a thin, transparent texture that the
body was glimpsed as through a pleated veil-a weaving technique unequaled
to this day. Such pleated tunics and skirts fell into fine lines which not
only emphasized the cut of the garment but also clung to the body in
fluid, pleated lines. In Egyptian fashions as in all fashion since, life
reflects art more than art reflects life. ...
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Summary
Egyptian clothing, as with all its other Egyptian arts, was calculated to
demonstrate man’s triumph over nature, and it was this need to reaffirm
human beings’ dominance over the natural and animal world and to secure a
continuity of culture and civilization that produced the angularity,
severity, and often-unnatural textures, lines, and forms of Egyptian
fashion. Nothing was more symbolic of this attitude than the removable
beard of the pharaoh. Normally all Egyptian men were totally clean-shaven
as a statement of their rise to civilization out of a lower, natural,
animal existence, but the pharaoh (shown with an animal’s powerful body in
the Great Sphinx) had the power to add and remove the beard, as a symbol
of animal power, at any time that he ceremonially chose to do so. The same
was true with the heavy use of cosmetics by women; through this means the
noble woman was able to demonstrate her civilized rise above and beyond
that of a human tribal animal. Even the bleached linen worn on the body
represented the ability of humans to remove fabric woven from flax from
its natural color and to make it even more abstract by the use of
starching and pleating. ...
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