The Use of the Self in Ancient Egyptian
and Classical Greek Cultures

Lecture of Hans Georg Brecklinghaus
at the 6^th International Congress on the F.M. Alexander Technique
Freiburg/Germany in August 1999

More than any other people of antiquity or of modern times the
Egyptians owned a sensory perception of balance: order by balance.

Gregoire Kolpaktchy 1

The concept of the human being which includes the spiritual, mental, and physical use of the self, is mirrored in the fine arts of every culture. This is true not only in terms of content and gesture, hut also in terms of movement style and body structure. I want to explain and substantiate this statement with reference to the cultures of Ancient Egypt and of Classical Greece. I published my findings in a book 2, and I would like to present a rough overview of the material  and some interpretations.

    In my analysis I have used the structural approach of Dr. Ida Rolf, the founder of the Rolfing method of Structural Integration of the human hody. I am sure that you will be able to translate this model into terms applicable to the Alexander Technique.

    The structural point of view defines structure as the relationship between the parts of the body and as the relationship between the body as a whole and the gravitational field of the earth. If the body parts of a standing person are aligned vertically (see fig.1, right), the inner central axis of the body coincides with the vertical direction of gravity. lt is a precondition that the counterforce, i.e. the resistance of the ground, can be fully used for an upward lift in the hody. In this case of an optimal body structure, gravity and antigravitational force create an equilibrium of forces, and almost no muscular effort is required to stand upright.

    Optimal or not, a person‘s structure manifests itself in movement, as well as movement manifesting itself in structure. Body structure is the solidified result of repetitive movement and postural patterns, and vice versa: body structure is the individual frame which defines those postures and movements which are possible for a given person.

    With this in mind let‘s take a look at examples of Egyptian art which I will contrast with works of art of classical Greece.

    Depictions of people pacing - like the High Priest Ranofer (fig.2) - were frequent subjects of Egyptian sculptures, paintings, and reliefs.

fig. 2: High Priest Ranofer, statue (appr. 2500 B.C.)

    Structurally taken, the main segments of Ranofer - with the exception of the thorax, which is slightly tilted back - are in a horizontal position, vertically arranged around the midline.

    Pacing persons were often shown in a peculiar, “artificial“ posture in between standing and walking. The heel of the posterior leg remains on the ground. This leg and the upper body remain in a nearly vertical standing position. The anterior leg is moving forward. lt is longer than in anatomical reality in order to reach the ground. This is a situation of transition, a moment which combines the posture of standing with the movement of walking. It may be understood as the combination of polarities: static posture and action, immanent movement and actual movement.

    The famous painting of a female ancient Egyptian dancer (see fig.3) is an example of more dynamic movement. A sense of ease emanates from the portrayal, created by the extension mode of movement.

fig.3: Female ancient Egyptian dancer

    The whole body is reaching backwards, showing the intended direction of movement, but a second direction is also present: the body uses the resistance of the ground and transmits the kinetic energy from there. There is a connection between the extremities passing through an open and long transit between lumbars and sacrum. Shoulders and back keep their full length and width.

    In archaic times Greek artists took Egyptian statuettes as models for their own works. But typical Greek deviations from an economical structure are to be seen already at that time: the forward tilted pelvis and sacrum, the extreme and highly tensed anteriority of the lower lumbars and a kyphotic thoratic spine. One example is the Young Man from Samos (fig.4).

fig.4: Young Man from Samos 530 B.C.

    Later, in the classical period, Greek artists moved away from the simple forms and developed more complex forms with particular aesthetic elements. This included segmental rotations, counterrotations, tilts, and intrasegmental torsions. However, we have to distinguish postural elements like the side-tilt of the girdles caused by the phenomenon of one leg bearing the main weight of the body (standing leg) and the other leg taking no weight (free leg) - we have to distinguish such postural elements from actual structural deviations. So we have a mixture of structural aberrations and chronically poor posture. An example is the Greek Girl (fig.5)

fig.5: Greek Girl (470 B.C.)

    Differences of posture and structure in Egyptian and Greek art are also apparent in the genre of sitting persons.

    Many examples of Egyptian art show people working or playing sports and games. The sculpture of a brewer (2450 B.C.) presents a figure working in a ,,folding“ manner. Knees, pelvis and trunk are balancing each other. Front and back have an equal length, they are open and wide. Ankles, knees and hips remain flexible. There is a fine transition of strength from the ground up to the middle and from there into the arms. The perceptual orientation is directed into the surrounding space as well as rooted in the ground.

fig.6: Ancient Egyptian brewer (2450 B.C.)

    There are other examples of sculptures of people working which express this kind of good movement pattern. The typical gracefulness and ease of Egyptian persons working or playing are due to the extension mode of movement.

    Egyptian artists worked with an elaborated set of rules, the so called canon. One aspect of this canon is of special interest for us. In paintings and reliefs a person was always represented with a frontal shoulder girdle and with the pelvic girdle in profile - that means the depth of the pelvis and the breadth of the shoulder girdle were shown. This representation is called aspective.

    The aspective is a structural order in space, and is defined by the three axes of extension: the vertical (extension up and down), the horizontal (movement to the sides) and the saggital axis (movement forward). Each axis has tensional properties, and the relationship between the three axes is ruled by the right angle.

    Comparing more than 200 sculptures and more than 350 paintings and reliefs, I came to the conclusion that Egyptian art shows only a few deviations from the structural ideal.

    In contrast, Greek sculptures, reliefs, and paintings very often show severe deficiencies in terms of structure and movement. Most of the time the pelvis is in an anterior tilt with a sharp bend at the transition between pelvis and lumbar spine. Frequently the thorax is collapsed and the chest constrained. The outer layers of muscles are usually overdeveloped. On the other hand the Greek artists introduced perspectival representation, the phenomenon of weight-bearing leg and free leg, and the more refined drawing and sculpting of anatomical details into fine art. In addition, they were the first people to show individuals expressing particular emotions related to their personal situations.

    How did valued and well-used principles of an integrated body find their way into Egyptian art? And what caused Greek artists to develop their own style?

    We know that ontstanding sages and physicians like the famous Imhotep (living 2600 B.C.) had great skill in massage, treating dislocations, and restoring the tonus of the pelvic diaphragm following childbirth. Nevertheless, those medical papyrii which have been preserved do not prove the existence of a theoretical knowledge about structure.

    But we do know that the leading artists in Ancient Egypt observed bodyshape and characteristic movement patterns very precisely. Furthermore, there is evidence that the people of ancient Egypt actually used economical movement patterns.

    Lutz Weber, a student of sports from Cologne, has written a diploma dissertation on the Egyptian technique of rowing. His experiments prove that Ancient Egyptian paintings show exactly how the Egyptians rowed (fig.7). 3

fig.7: Ancient Egyptian rowing style

    Here is a summary of his description of a sequence of rowing in Ancient Egypt: The rower is standing on both feet and pulls the oar by using his own weight. Meanwhile he is slowly coming into a sitting position. At the end of that movement one leg is moved back to render possible a supported sitting down/standing up movement by using the resistance of the ground. Bending from the hips and supported by his legs he brings the oar back into the starting position.

    There must have been an intuitive knowledge of what economic structure and movement is about. But this discovery did not satisfy my curiosity completely. My supposition was that the exploration of Egyptian consciousness and spirituality, the study of the Egyptian attitude to the world and the human being, would provide me with more profound answers. And that was indeed the case.

    The source and function of art in Ancient Egypt were essentially religious. Art was mainly a magic tool. Sculptures of the Pharaohs and divinities in temples preserved the spiritual power for people. The Egyptian word for sculptor was ,,one who gives life“.

    The education of artists took place in the House of Life, which was also the place of education for medical doctors and stood under the guidance of the priesthood. Therefore the House of Life was a manifestation of the still existing unity of religion, science and art.

    Sculptures of the god of artists and of creation in general, Ptah, are frequently shown standing on a pedestal which depicts the hieroglyph of the goddess of cosmic and earthly order, called Maat.

    That is: the base of art was Maat, the personification of cosmic and earthly order. To accomplish this order in spiritual issues, in politics, and in daily life was the most important moral rule for the Egyptians; and the outstanding part of the cosmic order in the Egyptian consciousness was the principle of balance. The value and significance of balance may be found in all areas and levels of Egyptian life. Therefore the image of a human being in art also had to be in congruence with the cosmic principle of balance. For the Egyptians it was not important to show individual characteristics of a person, but to meet the essence of the human being. And this essence included the balanced shape of the human body. In Ancient Egypt language the word for essence was the same as that for shape.

    For the Egyptians, vertical and horizontal relationships were an expression of cosmic order, for which they used the symbol of the sun orbit. The sun god in the morning (in the east) was called Chepri, at high noon (in the south) he was named Re, in the evening (in the west) his name changed into Atum, in the night (in the north) his name was Osiris.

    The sages used this model as a paradigm for analogical descriptions of physical and metaphysical relationships. Geometry and especially the right-angle were used as a kind of symbolic language for their knowledge, built not by intellectual logical thinking but by inspiration, imagination, and analogical thinking, which were the basis of human consciousness at those times.

    One example: the relationship between matter and spirit was represented by a vertical polarity. The material world was understood as a manifestation of the spirit, originating during the process of an ,,in-folding“ or involution. And the evolutionary process was seen as the unfolding of a spiritual human self.

    This relationship between matter and spirit was expressed additionally in a horizontal polarity between form and meaning. For the Egyptians, form and shape were full of spiritual meaning or wisdom. And vice versa: meaning was function, and expressed itself by the shape of matter, by structure.

    In the Egyptian world of symbols, the vertical was of great significance. The Ancient Egyptians experienced the cosmic force of the sun in the process of being upright. And although they didn‘t speak explicitly about gravity, they were aware of the gravitational and antigravitational forces in polarity. It‘s striking that they introduced the base line in reliefs and pictures and the pedestal in sculptures as an illustration of the fact that human beings have to settle a matter with gravity.

    There is another point which is also impressive. In Egyptian thinking one aspect of the human being, the Ka of a person (fig.8) - in the European tradition of esoteric thinking it‘s called the ethereal body - is responsible not only for the shape, the form of the person, but also has the function of keeping the person upright.

fig.8: The human Ka

    There was a wide range of metaphysical considerations which the sages in Egypt associated with verticality, horizontality, and depth. To mention only a few: the already mentioned vertical stood also for the polarity of the inner being of the self in the world, being spiritually centred, honest, and so forth; the horizontal stood for the doing of the self in the world; and depth stood for a special aspect of doing, for entering the material world. The simultaneous presence of standing and striding expressed the balance of the self between being and doing.

    This simultaneity is a moment of doing in the presence of being. In addition, this peculiar representational mode reflected the Ancient Egyptian belief that they came from the timeless space of the spiritual level, at the same time entering the level of the physical world in time.

    The transition from the culture of Ancient Egypt to the culture of Classical Greece was a fundamental change in thinking and in mental orientation. The Greeks no longer felt themselves embedded in the cosmic order, as the Egyptians still did; instead, they confronted the material world and their own subjectivity. To understand the world and themselves they developed logical, rational thinking, which created in art a method of seeing in ,,perspective“ , based on a split between the subject and the object. This became possible by the development of the consciousness of the ,,I“.

    It was the time of individual heroes like Prometheus, Heracles, Odysseus, etc. The spiritual theme was ,,know yourself“ (the motto at the entrance of the Apollonion mysteries at Delphi). The fate of an individual person became an important topic in art. Emotional expression was portrayed, and the body mirrored personal biography. Degenerations of the body structure and random movement patterns were visible components of the individual subject.

    The Greek tried to escape from the cosmic order in favour of a subjective, self-willed existence (like Prometheus rebelling against the gods). In Greek art of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the representation of the human body changed: the limbs of the body broke out of the axial order and randomness was introduced. Patterns of compensation were developed to keep the body in a sufflcient balance.

    The phenomenon of the weight-bearing leg and the free leg is a good example of the introduction of compensatory balance, which replaced balance around a vertical line. The leg taking no weight (free leg) tries to free the body from gravity - from a law of cosmic order - by shifting the weight to the other leg. The Greeks tried to find their balance by fighting against gravity, which is a part of cosmic order on earth. But of course they could not win this fight: the weightbearing leg and the free leg are a compromise.

    The transition from Egyptian to Greek art is also a transition from intrinsically dominated movement to an extrinsically dominated one. The representation of overdeveloped, extrinsic musculature is typical for strongly war-minded cultures like that of Greek antiquity, in contrast to comparatively more peaceful cultures like ancient Egypt.

    The Greeks took big steps forward in the development of human consciousness and of fine art. But whenever you go forward you leave something behind, you abandon or lose something. The Greeks lost the feeling and the artistic expression of the higher order and of the economical movement of the human body. They partly lost that portion of the self which is greater than the personal ego.

    This becomes more visible nowadays, because today we as human beings don‘t want to lose the achievements of the ancient Greeks but we are trying to regain some of the qualities the ancient Egypts had. Those qualities are: nonlinear, analogical, and intuitive thinking, a refined body awareness, less attachment to our ego - to sum it up: a transformative kind of use of our self.

    Works of art like statues influence us at a conscious and a subconscious level. They influence kinaesthetic feelings, the emotional approach to life and our spiritual approach. In that sense the representational mode of human bodies in the fine art ofAncient Egypt can be used as an extensive and versatile symbol for our evolutionary way of growing upright in both the physical and spiritual sense. Therefore these presentations of body-structures can be understood as an educational ideal and a useful subject for meditation and for analogical thinking in our time.
 

References

1) Gregoire Kolpaktchy, French Egyptologist.
     Quote from: G. Kolpaktchy (ed.), The Egyptian Book of the Dead,
     Bern 1970, p. 47. (zurück zum Text)

2) Hans Georg Brecklinghaus , The Human Beings are awoken, you have set them
     upright. Body Structure and Conception of Man in Ancient Egyptian Art and
     the Present Day, Freiburg/Br. Dec. 2002  (zurück zum Text)

   3) Lutz Weber, Versuch einer Rekonstruktion der ägyptischen
     Rudertechnik in der18. Dynastie, Cologne, 1978 (zurück zum Text)

On the author:

Hans Georg Brecklinghaus is Dipl. Päd. and Certified Advanced Rolfer and Rolfing Movement Teacher.
He has practised Rolfing in Freiburg/Germany since 1983 and is the author of Rolfing: What it achieves, how it works and whom it helps (2001), and of: The Human Beings are awoken, you have set them upright. Body Structure and Conception of Man in Ancient Egyptian Art and the Present Day (Dec. 2002)

 e-mail                                                           www.rolfing-praxis.de

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