If you observe ancient Egyptian paintings, it is easy to notice that they are all drawn in a style that we later call 2D.
In 1986, the band The Bangles sang about “all the ancient paintings in the tombs,” where the figures depicted were “walking like an Egyptian.” Although not an art historian or Egyptologist, musician Liam Sternberg was referring to one of the most prominent features of ancient Egyptian visual art – depicting people, animals, and objects on a flat 2D surface.
Why did the ancient Egyptians do this? And was ancient Egypt the only culture to create art in this style?
Drawing any object in three-dimensional form requires a specific viewpoint to create the illusion of perspective on a flat surface. Drawing an object in two dimensions (height and width) requires the artist to depict only one plane of that object. Highlighting just one plane, it turns out, has its own advantages.
John Baines, an honorary professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford in the UK, told Live Science: “In painted representation, outlines convey the most information. Everything is easier to recognize when it is clearly defined by lines.“
Most ancient Egyptian paintings are depicted in a 2D style.
This means that when painting on a 2D surface, the outlines are the most critical content, even though many ancient Egyptian paintings still contain various details of the objects. According to Baines, they focused heavily on clarity and comprehensibility.
In short, depicting in 2D allows for simpler and more understandable images, making them easier to grasp.
According to Baines, in many artistic traditions, “size corresponds to importance.” In mural art, royalty and tomb owners are often depicted much larger than the surrounding objects. If an artist used three-dimensional perspective to represent the scale of humans in relation to the foreground and background, it would contradict this principle.
2D storytelling art bears similarities to modern comics.
Another reason for depicting multiple objects on a flat 2D surface is that it supports visual storytelling.
Baines explains that the painting art of ancient Egyptians can be compared to modern comics. There were common principles at the time, such as writing being done and read vertically, while paintings were presented horizontally. The captions for this “comic” form were in hieroglyphs. He also noted that the content of the paintings was not about real events but often generalized or idealized ideas about life.
However, not all forms of painting in ancient Egypt were entirely 2D. According to Baines, “Most paintings were placed within an architectural context.” Some works on tomb walls included bas-reliefs or a type of carving.
In the tomb of Akhethotep, a court official who lived during the Fifth Dynasty around 2400 BCE, we can see two scribes (in the image below) whose bodies were sculpted on the flat surface of the wall.
As Baines explains, “The relief also mimics the surface of the body, so you can’t say it’s just flat drawings” because “they have texture and surface details beyond the outer outlines.“
The aforementioned bas-relief of two men is three-dimensional.
This 2D style of painting was not only popular in ancient Egypt but also spread to Syria, Mesopotamia, the Maya, and even later medieval European painting. Although ancient Greek and Roman painting are exceptions, Professor Baines notes that the 2D painting tradition was quite common, effective, and didn’t require much alteration.
