The Relationship of the ancient Egyptian artist with authority and its impact on his artistic production

According to the foregoing, it is clear to us that the ancient Egyptian artist committed to artistic rules and laws which had been set by priests. But we noticed some cases in which the artist attempted to search for methods and techniques to express about his creation, as well as he expressed about his worldly topics in completely freedom, as long as this was away from the supervision of the central authority and priests. Foreword: The ancient Egyptian art throughout its history considered a religious art for serving the religious beliefs, especially belief in resurrection and immortality. And also all the works of tombs and ancient Egyptian temples such as; sculpture, photography, small arts and architecture had been under the direction and care of kingship. Most of the time there was a supervisor artist considered commissioner of the authority. This was appeared in the architectural collection of king Zoser in Saqqara, which had been established by his minister Imhotep and also in Hatshepsut’s temple which had been built by the minister Sinmunot. The art was flourished and shrank according to the political and economic conditions, and also the extent of the stability and power of the central authority of the ruling system in ancient Egypt. “Artists were usually from male and learned art when they were children” ( Jeremy Smith , 2007, p. 159) .The respect of executor artist and his work according to that system was a reason behind deny the characteristic of creativity where some of the western critics considered him didn’t deserve the nickname of (artist).”considering sculptors and painters inseparable from other furniture makers and potters” (Philippe de Montebello , p. 53) Figure (1) But this was a wrong concept where the ancient Egyptian artist tried a lot to express about his creativities within this framework without contradicting with the rules and standards of the beginning of the ancient Egyptian civilization. If we took into account the artist’s success in finding his chance to produce a kind of earthly art that had been distinguished by popularity in which his creative energies had been exploded away from Priestley’s supervision and of the ruling authority this vagueness would completely deny. In this art, the stones that we saw in Deir al-Madinah in Luxor (taybah), which there was ridicule on the ruling king and violation of his prestige in it. It also came to impudent on the idol god as well as the formal religion. Authority in a verbal meaning considers control and dominance (mastership and power) (Dictionary of meanings). But the traditional meaning may varies from society to another and from political traditions to others. Despite the many opinions about this concept, they sometimes contrasted with each other and may also clash. “ in spite of the great interest and flowing use to the concept of authority in the framework of studies and sociological researches, we noticed clearly the overlaps in its uses which sometimes had been considered alternative to other terms and concept such as: kingdom, government, power, puissance and dominance” (Sheikha, Pugarari) . The Egyptian regime was a royal and based on the concept of the king only had all powers and turned to some ministers and employees of the administrative apparatus of kingdom in managing the country affaires. The priests’ legends added a great religious touch to the set where it was believed that the gods were the first to rule on earth. After the idol Setekh killed his brother the idol Osiris, and after the long struggle between Setekh and Horus everything ended with the triumph of the last that ascended to heaven at the end leaving the king (pharaoh) as procurator and prophet to him. So the king was regarded as from the descendant of god and authorized by Horus as well as considered him an embodiment of it on the earth. “Considering him the king of Egypt, he was the son and prophet of the gods that he offered them sacrifices as ancestors like what any ordinary one made. Thence, he was the first priest of every god in the country, so he had to perform the obligatory rituals to the gods, which had been impossible in time and place. Therefore, the king assigned his children or his senior staff as representatives for him in provinces and he only performed his religious duty towards the capital’s god .thus the priests’ status was derived from their representative on the qualified royal authority, and they were performed the daily religious rituals in all country in the name of the pharaoh king” (Douma, Francois, 1998, p. 511) .the idea of the king entrusted the members of his family to the role of the first priest which was prevailed in the ancient state ,was only a kind of spiritual control over the countries and handed all authorities to him. This also reflected a state of unity and overlap between the political and religious authorities. so, this research focused on clarify the relationship of the ancient Egyptian artist with authority and its impact on his artistic production from the beginning of the old kingdom to the end of the new kingdom by using the reading of some artistic works