Asian Influences on Western Civilization
Sarah Swift, Librarian, and John Baron, Social Studies and Language Arts Teacher
Burgess Elementary School, Sturbridge, Massachusetts

 

ART

Art is a key tool for understanding human culture. As visual beings, humans express and represent their ideas and experiences of the world through art. We can learn a great deal about a culture or a country by the art it produces and respects. This is true of modern countries and people, as well as ancient civilizations. A good website comparing the art of various civilizations is available at Timelines of Art History.

 


St. Catherine's Wheel, British Isles, www.balliol.ox.ac.uk

It is also true that, along with trade goods and ideas, artistic ideas have spread from culture to culture over time. Below is a link to a slideshow that points out several ways artistic ideas have spread from east to west, and how those ideas have been changed by the cultures that adopted them along the way.

Click Here for Slide Show

This site was created by Sarah Swift and John Baron at the NEH Summer Institute "Cultures and Religions of the Himalayan Region," held at the College of the Holy Cross, Summer 2006