The Palette of King Narmer is a very small, flat 64 centimeters tall, shield shape palette that is believed to be used for holy ceremonies. Sculpt from smooth leveled siltstone. The siltstone is a soft yet dim color of gray. Small in scale, the palette is created with numerous intriguingly beautifully detailed carvings, and illustrations that fully decorate both sides. These detailed carvings take up most of the negative space of both sides of the foreground, and middleground. While the negative space is adequately filled with the cared illustrations, the flat composition lacks true depth of field or deep space.
The top of the palette is garnished with what looks to be the illustration of two horned beast. Place on the very top or the Palette on the left and right top, this is also repeated on the back as well as the front. This creates a balance and symmetrical design. In the center of the two horned creatures is the emblem of Narmer's name symbolically illustrated in a form of a serekh, adding to the symmetry. The horned anamorphic beings' heads are illustrated in an unusual front angle, instead of the usual, Egyptian profile art style of illustrating heads, and faces. "
The animal's heads are drawn from the front, which is rather uncharacteristic of later Egyptian art"("The Ancient Egypt Site." The Ancient Egypt Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 11Feb. 2014.). The Narmer Palette shows slight alterations of style from other works of art from that era. Within the carving itself, Narmer is illustrated, and positioned in an uncharacteristically, by strategically being placed in the center of the image, while illustrated to be larger, when compared to the rest of the composition, and illustrated figures.
The creative , and imaginative elements, are greeted with contrasting textural surfaces. The integration between the palette's smooth siltstone surface, and the contrasting raised relief, ancient carvings, completes this bittersweet stylized, contrasting textualized theme. The revised back side "... is taken up by a finely carved...raised relief showing a king, undoubtedly Narmer, ready to strike down a foe whom he grabs by the hair. This pose would become typical in Ancient Egyptian art. He wears a short skirt, an animal's tail and the crown that at least in later times was associated with Upper Egypt: the White Crown"("The Ancient Egypt Site." The Ancient Egypt Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.). The palette of King Narmer is more than simply a work of art. It is a blend of artistic creativity, mixed with the function of recording the history of King Narmer. Revealing, Narmer's rise to power as well as share the narrative of how Egypt was united.
The palette of King Narmer: Ekphrasis Analysis
The palette of King Narmer is more than a lucid and exerted aesthetic construction. An engaging, intriguing composite of shape, color, and form,while delighting the aesthetic senses, this dynamic, blend of both beauty and symbolism, is able to intimately share a powerful narrative. A dynastic and dramatic tale of an uncharacteristically chaotic journey of one man's excursion into power, all the while uniting Egypt. A poignantly, contrary, contrast between her land, and her art, she has been habitually known for her Monumental, and epically extensive scope and size. Ancient Egypt exudes the expression of human creative skill and imagination.
Her sweet, enhanced, fabricated, works can be appreciated for their emotional power from its impacting beauty. She is divine, rich with dynastic, lineages and genealogies. Her art is rich with historical legacies, and greatness. Egypt's artistic connection to its royalty, as well as the spiritual world. Created a brew, full of rich, diverse and intricate, history. The art that she creates became an established, and prosperous, melody of visual beauty. While Ancient Egyptians were able to accentuate these, grand scale ideals into their art, ironically the Palette of King Narmer is very small, and flat in scale. At only 64 centimeters tall, it small stature and uniquely detailed decorations, caused scholars to believe that this palette was utilized for rituals, and ceremonies.
Prosaic, two-dimensional compositional structure, and exclusion of depth of field or deep space, makes up the simplistic configuration. The Narmer Palette is differentiated aesthetically, when observing Narmer's positioned deployment within the Palette imagery. Placed in the center of the imagery, while clearly being illustrated to be colossal in stature and size in comparison to the other illustrated statures, proposes an eminems diverse artistic deliberation to the symbolism. Smooth elemental surface, combined with the course indentations of ancient flawed assertion, creates a bittersweet, agreement,when creating the textural surface. Comprehensively, a unique alternative to the well known stylized theme, as ancient Egyptian culture was consumed with directive ritualistic conduct.
