“[A] combination of geometric regularity and keen observation of nature is characteristic of all Egyptian art. We can study it best in the reliefs and paintings that adorned the wall of the tomb. The word ‘adorned,’ it is true, may hardly fit an art which was meant to be seen by no one but the dead man’s soul. In fact, these works were not meant to be enjoyed. They, too, were meant to ‘keep alive’…

“[L]ooking at them for the first time, one may find them rather bewildering. The reason is that the Egyptian painters had quite a different way from ours of representing real life. Perhaps this is connected to the different purpose their paintings had to serve. What mattered most was not prettiness but completeness. So they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle. They drew from memory, according to strict rules which ensured that everything that had to go into the picture would stand out in perfect clarity. Their method, in fact, resembled that of the map-makers than that of the painter…

“Everything had to be represented from its most characteristic angle… It must not be thought that Egyptian artists thought that human beings looked like that. They merely followed a rule which allowed them to include everything in the human form that they considered important. Perhaps this strict adherence to the rule had something to do with their magic purpose. For how could a man with his arm ‘foreshortened’ or ‘cut off’ bring or receive the required offerings to the dead?”

Ernst H. Gombrich, “Chapter 2: Art for Eternity,” The Story of Art, 15th edition