Egyptian art and sculpture extend from prehistory to the time of Alexander the Great and the conquering of Egypt by the Greeks, then the Romans. The earliest recorded Egyptian art is a depiction of a human face at Merimde Beni Salam, during the Neolithic period, which extended from 7000 to 4500 B.C.
Egyptian art comes in two forms, paintings and hieroglyphs, both of which follow similar themes and patterns. Above all else, the ancient Egyptians seems to have favored continuity and symbolism, both of which are recurring themes in paintings and the hieroglyphs that often accompanied them. Just as paintings and hieroglyphs are linked in Egyptian art, bas reliefs--where images are cut into stone and then painted--act in many ways as a link between Egyptian painting and sculpture.
The forms of Egyptian artwork were heavily regulated. Similarity of proportion and artistic style was maintained over generations by dividing paintings into rows of equal size and designating sets of these rows for the head, body and legs of the figure. Egyptian art depicts people and animals in the most characteristic pose, the intention seeming to be to convey the idea or purpose of the image at first glance.
The size of the depiction in Egyptian sculpture is thought to have been a representation of the subject's status. For example, the statue of Nikare and his family, commissioned circa 2420 B.C., depicts Nikare as a giant figure, dwarfing his wife and child. Similarly, statues of the Pharaohs are always larger than life while statues of high-ranking officials are life size.
The Egyptian art and sculpture that is most commonly displayed in museums or books is thought by Egyptologists to be linked with the idea that the art can "perpetuate" the life of the person it is depicting; hence its common use in funerary rites. However, many examples of decorative pottery also exist, indicating that while the Egyptians used art for a mostly functional purpose they were not adverse to enjoying decoration for its own sake.