HOME | DD

Description
Now, I could spend page upon page writing about how Bastet and Sekhmet started out as two rather similar gods, how they were both lions to begin with, and how the unification of upper and lower Egypt lead to their divergence, and Bastets slow transition into new more protective tasks and a new softer cat visage… But I have already done so… and I am loath to repeat myself, so anyone wishing to read about this can do so right here .

When drawing these Egyptian gods I tend to find myself thinking of this art teacher of my elementary school career. She would pull forth ancient Egyptian artwork on a regular basis… not out of special interest. No. Her main point was always how “wrong” they were. How their eyes were placed at the sides of their heads, how any woman would have one breast in profile, and one pointed at the viewer, and so on, and so forth. Now, this is interesting from a perspective of art history. After all, who is to say for certain to which degree this wasn’t a stylistic choice, rather than a lack of perspective understanding?
That was however not what she meant.
That was never what she meant.

You see, to her, wrong was wrong, and as far as I could tell there was only one right way.
What this way was, however, I never found out.

She was the type to call a painting ugly, because the student had made a single “mistake”.
These were minuscule little things, of the type any child would do.
Like making a clear outline around clouds for instance.
Real clouds, of course, doesn’t have outlines.

This is the point where I would reiterate that we were all children.
And this class was not an elective.

Artistic licence be damned.

The thing is… she didn’t know art history. At all. Even if you tried to make a nod to something historical, and told her so, she would deny that history happened, and then criticise your work, not on its own merit, but on the basis of historical details, which you put in on purpose. These details were wrong according to her modern view, and therefore they could never be right. (That thing which they did in the Middle Ages, it is on my ineffable list of mistakes, why did you do that thing? No I don't care that you wanted it to look old/ that you wanted the wood to show trough/ that these are the colours that would be used in a certain setting. )

We suffered under this lady well into adolescence, which one may understand from the above…
It didn’t limit itself to stylistic choice either…

On her list of neuroses which she couldn’t stand, could be named examples such as, but not limited to:
- mixing watercolours in the lid of the box. (Potentially staining the plastic which would be the end of the world…)
- Using the wrong scissors. (which were the right scissors? I have no idea…)
- Pushing too hard on the pencil.
- Not pushing hard enough on the pencil.
- Rotating the piece of paper wile drawing.
- Not magically being able to mix the whole colour wheel out of cobalt blue, carmine red, and yellow ochre. (“What do you mean, “these aren’t the primaries”?”)
- Etc
- Etc.

I have it on good authority that the only way to excel in her eyes was to toss any kind of creativity out the window, and go with safe boring choices.
What she knew was not art, but rather craft. Not that there is anything wrong about the crafts, but if one attempts to judge a piece of art by the standards of craft… well.

One could ask oneself how anyone could still find joy in drawing after her class. That being said, I think most of us understood even at a young age, that she was not to be taken too seriously. She did after all spend an exorbitant amount of time, at regular intervals, criticising the ancient Egyptians for drawing wrong. As if they had personally offended her.

You will notice, on my drawing, both breasts are pointed in the same direction.

Description
Now, I could spend page upon page writing about how Bastet and Sekhmet started out as two rather similar gods, how they were both lions to begin with, and how the unification of upper and lower Egypt lead to their divergence, and Bastets slow transition into new more protective tasks and a new softer cat visage… But I have already done so… and I am loath to repeat myself, so anyone wishing to read about this can do so right here .

When drawing these Egyptian gods I tend to find myself thinking of this art teacher of my elementary school career. She would pull forth ancient Egyptian artwork on a regular basis… not out of special interest. No. Her main point was always how “wrong” they were. How their eyes were placed at the sides of their heads, how any woman would have one breast in profile, and one pointed at the viewer, and so on, and so forth. Now, this is interesting from a perspective of art history. After all, who is to say for certain to which degree this wasn’t a stylistic choice, rather than a lack of perspective understanding?
That was however not what she meant.
That was never what she meant.

You see, to her, wrong was wrong, and as far as I could tell there was only one right way.
What this way was, however, I never found out.

She was the type to call a painting ugly, because the student had made a single “mistake”.
These were minuscule little things, of the type any child would do.
Like making a clear outline around clouds for instance.
Real clouds, of course, doesn’t have outlines.

This is the point where I would reiterate that we were all children.
And this class was not an elective.

Artistic licence be damned.

The thing is… she didn’t know art history. At all. Even if you tried to make a nod to something historical, and told her so, she would deny that history happened, and then criticise your work, not on its own merit, but on the basis of historical details, which you put in on purpose. These details were wrong according to her modern view, and therefore they could never be right. (That thing which they did in the Middle Ages, it is on my ineffable list of mistakes, why did you do that thing? No I don't care that you wanted it to look old/ that you wanted the wood to show trough/ that these are the colours that would be used in a certain setting. )

We suffered under this lady well into adolescence, which one may understand from the above…
It didn’t limit itself to stylistic choice either…

On her list of neuroses which she couldn’t stand, could be named examples such as, but not limited to:
- mixing watercolours in the lid of the box. (Potentially staining the plastic which would be the end of the world…)
- Using the wrong scissors. (which were the right scissors? I have no idea…)
- Pushing too hard on the pencil.
- Not pushing hard enough on the pencil.
- Rotating the piece of paper wile drawing.
- Not magically being able to mix the whole colour wheel out of cobalt blue, carmine red, and yellow ochre. (“What do you mean, “these aren’t the primaries”?”)
- Etc
- Etc.

I have it on good authority that the only way to excel in her eyes was to toss any kind of creativity out the window, and go with safe boring choices.
What she knew was not art, but rather craft. Not that there is anything wrong about the crafts, but if one attempts to judge a piece of art by the standards of craft… well.

One could ask oneself how anyone could still find joy in drawing after her class. That being said, I think most of us understood even at a young age, that she was not to be taken too seriously. She did after all spend an exorbitant amount of time, at regular intervals, criticising the ancient Egyptians for drawing wrong. As if they had personally offended her.

You will notice, on my drawing, both breasts are pointed in the same direction.