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Art Review - The Statue of Kharfe

 

            Prehistoric art gives us a clue and understanding about early human life and culture. The development of writing system and advanced civilization gave rise to the development of more defined and real form of art. "Egyptian artist mostly followed a set of fairly strict convention based on conceptual principles rather than on the observation of the natural world" (Stokstad and Cothren 51). Two such sculptures embodying these prehistoric and ancient Egyptian eras, in a different but similar ways, are the sculpture of Woman from Willendorf and Sculpture of Khafre. The sculpture of Woman from Willendorf found about 24,000 BCE in modern day Austria (Stokstad and Cothren 6). The Sculpture of Khafre found about 2520-2494 BCE at Valley temple of Khafre, now displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (Stokstad and Cothren 59). The Venus of Willendorf is a naked figure with 11 cm in height, whereas Khafre is clothed seated figure with 168 cm in height. They both are human sculptures made up with stones yet posses different style of work. The Venus of Willendorf is carved from limestone and it is red in color, while the sculpture of Khafre is made of anorthosite gneiss, which is valuable, extremely hard and dark color imported stone from Nubia (Stokstad & Cothren 58). The sculpture of Khafre shows importance and power of a king considering the highest quality of stone used (Davis, Art History).
             The statue of Venus exhibits its female characteristics like pendulous breast, round belly with a deep navel, wide hips and buttocks with tiny legs. These characteristics are mainly associated with fertility and childbearing. The statue has no face but has stylish carved head. The statue of Khafre represents a man wearing royal traditional attire that includes a short pleated kilt, and a royal linen head scarf. It has distinct masculine features that includes exhibition of upper body strength, masculine features, and also has a small beard as a symbol of royalty.


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