Many years ago when I was in China I observed an art class. In their paintings and sculpture they were imitating classic subjects from the ancient Greco-Roman world. They also had copies of paintings by Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci, and Rembrandt (among many others). I saw Chinese playing the piano and the guitar, and admiring the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.
While I love the amazing paintings of Chinese artists, and I have thoroughly enjoyed concerts where they played traditional Chinese instruments (like the erhu for example), it struck me that the art and music of Western Civilization is admired, studied, and copied all over the world.
Giotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, DaVinci. Caravaggio, Titian, Canova, Bernini. Rembrandt, Brueghel, Durer, Vermeer. Gainsborough, Homer, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, Seurat, Toulouse-Latrec.
Bach, Vivaldi, Handel. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Strauss, Hayden, Dvorak, Tschaikovsky. Puccini, Verdi, Bizet. Gilbert and Sullivan. Gershwin. George M. Cohan. Rogers and Hammerstein. Lerner and Loewe. Andrew Lloyd Webber.
This is a minuscule list. If I had more time, i could fill up several more blogs with the names of amazingly talented artists, architects, and musicians from Western Civilization who have blessed the world. Does this mean that somehow people in Europe or America are genetically superior than others in order to produce such beauty as the art represented in this short list?
Not at all. All this blog is about is showing that Western Civilization has indeed blessed the world and such contributions should be appreciated and celebrated.