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For other uses, see Western culture (disambiguation).

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, based on the correlations of ideal human

proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in
Book III of his treatise De architectura

Plato, arguably the most influential figure in early Western philosophy, has
influenced virtually all of subsequent Western and Middle Eastern philosophy and
theology
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization,
Occidental culture, or Western society, includes the diverse heritages of social
norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems,
artifacts and technologies of the Western world. The core of Western civilization,
broadly defined, is formed by the combined foundations of Greco-Roman civilization
and Western Christianity.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] While Western culture is a
broad concept, and does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical
confines, it generally relates to the cultures of countries with historical ties to
a European country or a number of European countries, or to the variety of cultures
within Europe itself. However, countries toward the east of Europe are sometimes
excluded from definitions of the Western world.

Western culture is characterized by a host of artistic, philosophic, literary and

legal themes and traditions. Christianity, primarily the Catholic Church,[10][11]
[12] and later Protestantism[13][14][15][16] has played a prominent role in the
shaping of Western civilization since at least the 4th century,[17][18][19][20][21]
as did Judaism.[22][23][24][25] A cornerstone of Western thought, beginning in
ancient Greece and continuing through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is the idea
of rationalism in various spheres of life developed by Hellenistic philosophy,
scholasticism and humanism. Empiricism later gave rise to the scientific method,
the scientific revolution, and the Age of Enlightenment.

While traditionally shunned as a mainspring of Western civilization in favour of

early Aegean cultures, the Phoenician city-states stimulated and fostered Western
civilization.[26] The expansion of Greek culture into the Hellenistic world of the
eastern Mediterranean led to a synthesis between Greek and Near-Eastern cultures,
[27] and major advances in literature, engineering, and science, and provided the
culture for the expansion of early Christianity and the Greek New Testament.[28]
[29][30] This period overlapped with and was followed by Rome, which made key
contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization.[31]

Western culture continued to develop with the Christianization of European society

during the Middle Ages, the reforms triggered by the medieval renaissances, the
influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of
technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and
philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers),[32][33][34] and
the Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing after the fall of Constantinople
brought classical traditions and philosophy.[35] This major change for non-Western
countries and their people saw a development in modernization in those countries.
[36] Medieval Christianity is credited with creating the modern university,[37][38]
the modern hospital system,[39] scientific economics,[40][41] and natural law
(which would later influence the creation of international law).[42] European
culture developed with a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism,
mysticism and Christian and secular humanism.[43][page needed] Rational thinking
developed through a long age of change and formation, with the experiments of the
Enlightenment and breakthroughs in the sciences. Tendencies that have come to
define modern Western societies include the concept of political pluralism,
individualism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Age movements)
and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human
migration.

Terminology
Further information: Western world

Map of the Western world, based on Samuel P. Huntington's 1996 Clash of

Civilizations.[44] In turquoise are Latin America and the Orthodox World, which are
either a part of the West or distinct civilizations intimately related to the West.
[45][46][47]
The World of Civilizations: Post-1990", map from Huntington's Clash of
Civilizations (1996) indicating the world's postulated nine major "civilizations":
Western, Latin American, Orthodox, Islamic, Sinic, Buddhist, Japanese, Hindu, and
African.
"The West" as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. There is some
disagreement about which nations should or should not be included in the category,
when, and why. Certainly related conceptual terminology has changed over time in
scope, meaning, and use. The term "western" draws on an affiliation with, or a
perception of, a shared philosophy, worldview, political, and religious heritage
grounded in the Greco-Roman world, the legacy of the Roman Empire, and medieval
concepts of Christendom. For example, whether the Eastern Roman Empire
(anachronistically/controversially referred to as the Byzantine Empire), or those
countries heavily influenced by its legacy, should be counted as "Western" is an
example of the possible ambiguity of the term. These questions[which?] can be
traced back to the affiliatory nature of Roman culture to the culture of Classical
Greece, a persistent Greek East and Latin West language-split within the Roman
Empire, and an eventual permanent splitting of the Roman Empire in 395 into Western
and Eastern halves. And perhaps, at its worst,[citation needed] culminating in Pope
Leo III's transfer of the Roman Empire from the Eastern Roman Empire to the
Frankish King Charlemagne in the form of the Holy Roman Empire in 800, the Great
Schism of 1054, and the devastating Fourth Crusade of 1204. Conversely, traditions
of scholarship around Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid had been forgotten in the
Catholic west and were rediscovered by Italians from scholars fleeing the 1453 fall
of the Eastern Roman Empire.[35] The subsequent Renaissance, a conscious effort by
Europeans to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of the Greco-Roman
world, eventually encouraged the Age of Discovery, the Scientific Revolution, Age
of Enlightenment, and the subsequent Industrial Revolution. Similarly, complicated
relationships between virtually all the countries and regions within a broadly
defined "West" can be discussed in the light of a persistently fragmented political
landscape resulting in a lack of uniformity and significant diversity between the
various cultures affiliating with this shared socio-cultural heritage. Thus, those
cultures identifying with the West and with what it means to be "western" change
over time as the geopolitical circumstances of a place changes and what is meant by
the terminology changes.

It is difficult to determine which individuals or places or trends fit into which

category, and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and
arbitrary.[48][49][50][page needed] Globalization has spread Western ideas so
widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects
of Western culture. Stereotypical views of "the West" have been labeled
"Occidentalism", paralleling "Orientalism"—the term for the 19th-century
stereotyped views of "the East".

Some philosophers have questioned whether Western culture can be considered a

historically sound, unified body of thought.[51] For example, Kwame Anthony Appiah
pointed out in 2016 that many of the fundamental influences on Western culture -
such as those of Greek philosophy - are also shared by the Islamic world to a
certain extent.[51][need quotation to verify] Appiah argues that the origin of the
Western and European identity can be traced back to the 8th-century Muslim invasion
of Europe via Iberia, when Christians would start to form a common Christian or
European identity.[51][need quotation to verify] Contemporary Latin chronicles from
Spain referred to the victors in the Frankish victory over the Umayyads at the 732
Battle of Tours as "Europeans" according to Appiah, denoting a shared sense of
identity.[52]

A former, now less-acceptable synonym for "Western civilisation" was "the white
race".[53]

As Europeans discovered the extra-European world, old concepts adapted. The area
that had formerly been considered the Orient ("the East") became the Near East as
the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for
the first time in the 19th century.[54] Thus the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895
occurred in the "Far East" while troubles surrounding the decline of the Ottoman
Empire occurred simultaneously in the Near East.[a] The term "Middle East" in the
mid-19th century included the territory east of the Ottoman Empire but west of
China—Greater Persia and Greater India—but is now used synonymously with "Near
East" in most languages.

History
Further information: History of Western civilization
Part of a series on
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The earliest civilizations which influenced the development of Western culture were
those of Mesopotamia; the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely
corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and
southwestern Iran: the cradle of civilization.[55][56] Ancient Egypt similarly had
a strong influence on Western culture.

Phoenician mercantilism and the introduction of the Alphabetic script boosted state
formation in the Aegean and current-day Italy and current-day Spain, spawning
civilizations in the Mediterranean such as Ancient Carthage, Ancient Greece,
Etruria, and Ancient Rome.[57]

The Greeks contrasted themselves with both their Eastern neighbours (such as the
Trojans in Iliad) as well as their Northern neighbours (who they considered
barbarians).[citation needed] Concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of
the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the West were formed by
the concepts of Latin Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire. What is thought of as
Western thought today originates primarily from Greco-Roman and Christian
traditions, with varying degrees of influence from the Germanic, Celtic and Slavic
peoples, and includes the ideals of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Reformation
and the Enlightenment.[58]

The West of the Mediterranean Region during the Antiquity

Alexander the Great
While the concept of a "West" did not exist until the emergence of the Roman
Republic, the roots of the concept can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Since
Homeric literature (the Trojan Wars), through the accounts of the Persian Wars of
Greeks against Persians by Herodotus, and right up until the time of Alexander the
Great, there was a paradigm of a contrast between Greeks and other civilizations.
[59] Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves (in the
formulation of Aristotle) as something between the advanced civilizations of the
Near East (who they viewed as soft and slavish) and the wild barbarians of most of
Europe to the north. During this period writers like Herodotus and Xenophon would
highlight the importance of freedom in the Ancient Greek world, as opposed to the
perceived slavery of the so-called barbaric world.[59]

Alexander's conquests led to the emergence of a Hellenistic civilization,

representing a synthesis of Greek and Near-Eastern cultures in the Eastern
Mediterranean region.[27] The Near-Eastern civilizations of Ancient Egypt and the
Levant, which came under Greek rule, became part of the Hellenistic world. The most
important Hellenistic centre of learning was Ptolemaic Egypt, which attracted
Greek, Egyptian, Jewish, Persian, Phoenician and even Indian scholars.[60]
Hellenistic science, philosophy, architecture, literature and art later provided a
foundation embraced and built upon by the Roman Empire as it swept up Europe and
the Mediterranean world, including the Hellenistic world in its conquests in the
1st century BCE.

Following the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world, the concept of a "West"
arose, as there was a cultural divide between the Greek East and Latin West. The
Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire consisted of Western Europe and Northwest
Africa, while the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire consisted of the Balkans,
Asia Minor, Egypt and Levant. The "Greek" East was generally wealthier and more
advanced than the "Latin" West.[citation needed] With the exception of Italia, the
wealthiest provinces of the Roman Empire were in the East, particularly Roman Egypt
which was the wealthiest Roman province outside of Italia.[61][62] Nevertheless,
the Celts in the West created some significant literature in the ancient world
whenever they were given the opportunity (an example being the poet Caecilius
Statius), and they developed a large amount of scientific knowledge themselves (as
seen in their Coligny Calendar).

The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, one of the best-preserved Roman temples

The Roman Empire (red) and its client states (pink) at its greatest extent in 117
AD under emperor Trajan

The Roman Empire in 330. The area in red shows the zone of influence of the Latin
West, while the area in blue shows the eastern Greek part.
For about five hundred years, the Roman Empire maintained the Greek East and
consolidated a Latin West, but an east–west division remained, reflected in many
cultural norms of the two areas, including language. Eventually, the empire became
increasingly split into a Western and Eastern part, reviving old ideas of a
contrast between an advanced East, and a rugged West.

From the time of Alexander the Great (the Hellenistic period), Greek civilization
came in contact with Jewish civilization. Christianity would eventually emerge from
the syncretism of Hellenic culture, Roman culture, and Second Temple Judaism,
gradually spreading across the Roman Empire and eclipsing its antecedents and
influences.[63]

The Greek and Roman paganism was gradually replaced by Christianity, first with its
legalisation with the Edict of Milan and then the Edict of Thessalonica which made
it the State church of the Roman Empire. Catholic Christianity, served as a
unifying force in Christian parts of Europe, and in some respects replaced or
competed with the secular authorities. The Jewish Christian tradition out of which
it had emerged was all but extinguished, and antisemitism became increasingly
entrenched or even integral to Christendom.[64][65] Much of art and literature,
law, education, and politics were preserved in the teachings of the Church.

In a broader sense, the Middle Ages, with its fertile encounter between Greek
philosophical reasoning and Levantine monotheism was not confined to the West but
also stretched into the old East. The philosophy and science of Classical Greece
were largely forgotten in Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire,
other than in isolated monastic enclaves (notably in Ireland, which had become
Christian but was never conquered by Rome).[66] The learning of Classical Antiquity
was better preserved in the Eastern Roman Empire. Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis
Roman civil law code was created in the East in his capital of Constantinople,[67]
and that city maintained trade and intermittent political control over outposts
such as Venice in the West for centuries. Classical Greek learning was also
subsumed, preserved, and elaborated in the rising Eastern world, which gradually
supplanted Roman-Byzantine control as a dominant cultural-political force. Thus,
much of the learning of classical antiquity was slowly reintroduced to European
civilization in the centuries following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

The birth of European West during the Middle Ages

Mosaic of Justinian I with his court, circa 547–549, Basilica of San Vitale
(Ravenna, Italy)[68]

Two main symbols of the medieval Western civilization on one picture: the gothic
St. Martin's cathedral in Spišské Podhradie (Slovakia) and the Spiš Castle behind
the cathedral

Stone bas-relief of Jesus, from the Vézelay Abbey (Burgundy, France)

Notre-Dame, the most iconic Gothic cathedral,[69] built between 1163 and 1345
The Medieval West referred specifically to the Catholic "Latin" West, also called
"Frankish" during Charlemagne's reign, in contrast to the Orthodox East, where
Greek remained the language of the Byzantine Empire.

After the fall of Rome, much of Greco-Roman art, literature, science and even
technology were all but lost in the western part of the old empire. However, this
would become the center of a new West. Europe fell into political anarchy, with
many warring kingdoms and principalities. Under the Frankish kings, it eventually,
and partially, reunified, and the anarchy evolved into feudalism.

Much of the basis of the post-Roman cultural world had been set before the fall of
the Western Roman Empire, mainly through the integration and reshaping of Roman
ideas through Christian thought. The Eastern Orthodox Church founded many
cathedrals, monasteries and seminaries, some of which continue to exist today.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, many of the classical Greek texts were
translated into Arabic and preserved in the medieval Islamic world. The Greek
classics along with Arabic science, philosophy and technology were transmitted to
Western Europe and translated into Latin, sparking the Renaissance of the 12th
century and 13th century.[32][33][34]

Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic philosopher of the Middle Ages, revived and developed
natural law from ancient Greek philosophy.
Medieval Christianity is credited with creating the first modern universities.[37]
[38] The Catholic Church established a hospital system in Medieval Europe that
vastly improved upon the Roman valetudinaria[70] and Greek healing temples.[71]
These hospitals were established to cater to "particular social groups marginalized
by poverty, sickness, and age," according to the historian of hospitals, Guenter
Risse.[39] Christianity played a role in ending practices common among pagan
societies, such as human sacrifice, slavery,[72] infanticide and polygamy.[73]
Francisco de Vitoria, a disciple of Thomas Aquinas and a Catholic thinker who
studied the issue regarding the human rights of colonized natives, is recognized by
the United Nations as a father of international law, and now also by historians of
economics and democracy as a leading light for the West's democracy and rapid
economic development.[74] Joseph Schumpeter, an economist of the twentieth century,
referring to the Scholastics, wrote, "it is they who come nearer than does any
other group to having been the 'founders' of scientific economics."[40]

Later Middle Ages (Rome and Reformation)

The rediscovery of the Justinian Code in Western Europe early in the 10th century
rekindled a passion for the discipline of law, which crossed many of the re-forming
boundaries between East and West. In the Catholic or Frankish west, Roman law
became the foundation on which all legal concepts and systems were based. Its
influence is found in all Western legal systems, although in different manners and
to different extents. The study of canon law, the legal system of the Catholic
Church, fused with that of Roman law to form the basis of the refounding of Western
legal scholarship. During the Reformation and Enlightenment, the ideas of civil
rights, equality before the law, procedural justice, and democracy as the ideal
form of society began to be institutionalized as principles forming the basis of
modern Western culture, particularly in Protestant regions.

In the 14th century, starting from Italy and then spreading throughout Europe,[75]
there was a massive artistic, architectural, scientific and philosophical revival,
as a result of the Christian revival of Greek philosophy, and the long Christian
medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important
of human activities.[76] This period is commonly referred to as the Renaissance. In
the following century, this process was further enhanced by an exodus of Greek
Christian priests and scholars to Italian cities such as Florence and Venice after
the end of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople.

Christopher Columbus arrives at the New World.

From Late Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and onwards, while Eastern Europe was
shaped by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Southern and Central Europe were
increasingly stabilized by the Catholic Church which, as Roman imperial governance
faded from view, was the only consistent force in Western Europe.[77] In 1054 came
the Great Schism that, following the Greek East and Latin West divide, separated
Europe into religious and cultural regions present to this day. Until the Age of
Enlightenment,[78] Christian culture took over as the predominant force in Western
civilization, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science for many years.
[77][79] Movements in art and philosophy, such as the Humanist movement of the
Renaissance and the Scholastic movement of the High Middle Ages, were motivated by
a drive to connect Catholicism with Greek and Arab thought imported by Christian
pilgrims.[80][81][82] However, due to the division in Western Christianity caused
by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, religious influence—especially
the temporal power of the Pope—began to wane.[83][84]

Expansion of the West: the Era of Colonialism (15th–20th centuries)

The United States Constitution

Early modern era
From the late 15th century to the 17th century, Western culture began to spread to
other parts of the world through explorers and missionaries during the Age of
Discovery, and by imperialists from the 17th century to the early 20th century.
During the Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington[85] the Western
world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as
the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of the time, eclipsing Qing China,
Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire. The process was accompanied
and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and continued into the modern period.
Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great
Divergence happened, including lack of government intervention, geography,
colonialism, and customary traditions.

The Age of Discovery faded into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century,
during which cultural and intellectual forces in European society emphasized
reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority. It
challenged the authority of institutions that were deeply rooted in society, such
as the Catholic Church; there was much talk of ways to reform society with
toleration, science and skepticism.

Philosophers of the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John

Locke, Baruch Spinoza, Voltaire (1694–1778), Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, and
Immanuel Kant,[86] who influenced society by publishing widely read works. Upon
learning about enlightened views, some rulers met with intellectuals and tried to
apply their reforms, such as allowing for toleration, or accepting multiple
religions, in what became known as enlightened absolutism. New ideas and beliefs
spread around Europe and were fostered by an increase in literacy due to a
departure from solely religious texts. Publications include Encyclopédie (1751–72)
that was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The Dictionnaire
philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary, 1764) and Letters on the English (1733)
written by Voltaire spread the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment was the scientific revolution, spearheaded
by Newton. This included the emergence of modern science, during which developments
in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry
transformed views of society and nature.[87][88][89][90][91][92][excessive
citations] While its dates are disputed, the publication in 1543 of Nicolaus
Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Spheres) is often cited as marking the beginning of the scientific
revolution, and its completion is attributed to the "grand synthesis" of Newton's
1687 Principia.

Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the
period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This included going from
hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production
processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power,
and the development of machine tools.[93] These transitions began in Great Britain
and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades.[94]

A Watt steam engine. The steam engine, made of iron and fueled primarily by coal,
propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the world.[95]
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every
aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and
population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say
that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living
for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in
history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve
until the late 19th and 20th centuries.[96][97][98] The precise start and end of
the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of
economic and social changes.[99][100][101][102] GDP per capita was broadly stable
before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist
economy,[103] while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic
growth in capitalist economies.[104] Economic historians are in agreement that the
onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of
humanity since the domestication of animals, plants[105] and fire.

The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in
the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic
progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered
railways, boats, and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the
increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories.[106][107][108]

Post-Industrial era
Tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies include the concept of
political pluralism, individualism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such
as New Age movements) and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from
globalization and human migration. Western culture has been heavily influenced by
the Renaissance, the Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment and the Industrial and
Scientific Revolutions.[109][110]

In the 20th century, Christianity declined in influence in many Western countries,

mostly in the European Union where some member states have experienced falling
church attendance and membership in recent years,[111] and also elsewhere.
Secularism (separating religion from politics and science) increased. Christianity
remains the dominant religion in the Western world, where 70% are Christians.[112]

The West went through a series of great cultural and social changes between 1945
and 1980. The emergent mass media (film, radio, television and recorded music)
created a global culture that could ignore national frontiers. Literacy became
almost universal, encouraging the growth of books, magazines and newspapers. The
influence of cinema and radio remained, while televisions became near essentials in
every home.

By the mid-20th century, Western culture was exported worldwide, and the
development and growth of international transport and telecommunication (such as
transatlantic cable and the radiotelephone) played a decisive role in modern
globalization. The West has contributed a great many technological, political,
philosophical, artistic and religious aspects to modern international culture:
having been a crucible of Catholicism, Protestantism, democracy, industrialisation;
the first major civilisation to seek to abolish slavery during the 19th century,
the first to enfranchise women (beginning in Australasia at the end of the 19th
century) and the first to put to use such technologies as steam, electric and
nuclear power. The West invented cinema, television, the personal computer, the
Internet and video games; developed sports such as soccer, cricket, golf, tennis,
rugby, basketball, and volleyball; and transported humans to an astronomical object
for the first time with the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon Landing.

Arts and humanities

See also: Western canon

Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry showing William the Conqueror (centre), his half-
brothers Robert, Count of Mortain (right) and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux in the Duchy of
Normandy (left). The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the
Norman Romanesque.
While dance, music, visual art, story-telling, and architecture are human
universals, they are expressed in the West in certain characteristic ways.[113]

In Western dance, music, plays and other arts, the performers are only very
infrequently masked. There are essentially no taboos against depicting a god, or
other religious figures, in a representational fashion.

Music
For modern Western music, see Music industry.
In music, Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern Western musical
notation to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church,[114] and an
enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This
led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music and its
many derivatives. The Baroque style, which encompassed music, art, and
architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church
as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and
emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.[115]

The symphony, concerto, sonata, opera, and oratorio have their origins in Italy.
Many musical instruments developed in the West have come to see widespread use all
over the world; among them are the guitar, violin, piano, pipe organ, saxophone,
trombone, clarinet, accordion, and the theremin. In turn, it has been claimed that
some European instruments have roots in earlier Eastern instruments that were
adopted from the medieval Islamic world.[116] The solo piano, symphony orchestra,
and the string quartet are also significant musical innovations of the West.

Claudio Monteverdi, 1567–1643

Claudio Monteverdi, 1567–1643

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, 1678–1741

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, 1678–1741

George Frideric Handel, 1685–1759

George Frideric Handel, 1685–1759

Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685–1750

Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685–1750

Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732–1809

Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732–1809

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756–1791

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756–1791

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770–1827

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770–1827

Frédéric François Chopin, 1810–1849

Frédéric François Chopin, 1810–1849

Franz Liszt, 1811–1886

Franz Liszt, 1811–1886
Painting and photography
Jan van Eyck, among other renaissance painters, made great advances in oil
painting, and perspective drawings and paintings had their earliest practitioners
in Florence.[117] In art, the Celtic knot is a very distinctive Western repeated
motif. Depictions of the nude human male and female in photography, painting, and
sculpture are frequently considered to have special artistic merit. Realistic
portraiture is especially valued.

Photography and the motion picture as both a technology and basis for entirely new
art forms were also developed in the West.
Restoration of a fresco from an Ancient Roman villa bedroom, circa 50-40 BC,
dimensions of the room: 265.4 × 334 × 583.9 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York City)
Restoration of a fresco from an Ancient Roman villa bedroom, circa 50-40 BC,
dimensions of the room: 265.4 × 334 × 583.9 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(New York City)

Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503 – 1506, perhaps continuing until circa
1517, oil on poplar panel, 77 cm × 53 cm, Louvre (Paris)
Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503 – 1506, perhaps continuing until circa
1517, oil on poplar panel, 77 cm × 53 cm, Louvre (Paris)

Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, 1656, oil on canvas, 318 cm × 276 cm, El Prado
(Madrid)
Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, 1656, oil on canvas, 318 cm × 276 cm, El Prado
(Madrid)

Dance at Le moulin de la Galette, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876, oil on canvas,

height: 131 cm, Musée d'Orsay (Paris)
Dance at Le moulin de la Galette, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876, oil on canvas,
height: 131 cm, Musée d'Orsay (Paris)

Photo of the interior of the apartment of Eugène Atget, taken in 1910 in Paris
Photo of the interior of the apartment of Eugène Atget, taken in 1910 in Paris

Rêverie, by Alphonse Mucha, poster for the publishing house Champenois (1897)
Rêverie, by Alphonse Mucha, poster for the publishing house Champenois (1897)
Dance and performing arts

Classical music, opera and ballet: Swan Lake pictured

The ballet is a distinctively Western form of performance dance.[118] The ballroom
dance is an important Western variety of dance for the elite. The polka, the square
dance, the flamenco, and the Irish step dance are very well known Western forms of
folk dance.

Greek and Roman theatre are considered the antecedents of modern theatre, and forms
such as medieval theatre, Passion Plays, morality plays, and commedia dell'arte are
considered highly influential. Elizabethan theatre, with playwrights including
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, is considered one of the
most formative and important eras for modern drama.

The soap opera, a popular culture dramatic form, originated in the United States
first on radio in the 1930s, then a couple of decades later on television. The
music video was also developed in the West in the middle of the 20th century.
Musical theatre was developed in the West in the 19th and 20th Centuries, from
music hall, comic opera, and Vaudeville; with significant contributions from the
Jewish diaspora, African-Americans, and other marginalized peoples.[119][120][121]

Literature

The Divine Comedy is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri. Engraving by Gustave Doré.
Western literature encompasses the literary traditions of Europe, as well as North
America, Latin America and Oceania.[122]

While epic literary works in verse such as the Mahabharata and Homer's Iliad are
ancient and occurred worldwide, the prose novel as a distinct form of storytelling,
with developed, consistent human characters and, typically, some connected overall
plot (although both of these characteristics have sometimes been modified and
played with in later times), was popularized by the West[123] in the 17th and 18th
centuries. Of course, extended prose fiction had existed much earlier; both novels
of adventure and romance in the Hellenistic world and in Heian Japan. Both
Petronius' Satyricon (c. 60 CE) and the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (c. 1000
CE) have been cited as the world's first major novel but they had a very limited
long-term impact on literary writing beyond their own day until much more recent
times.

The novel, which made its appearance in the 18th century, is an essentially
European creation. Chinese and Japanese literature contain some works that may be
thought of as novels, but only the European novel is couched in terms of a personal
analysis of personal dilemmas.[113]

As in its artistic tradition, European literature pays deep tribute to human

suffering.[113] Tragedy, from its ritually and mythologically inspired Greek
origins to modern forms where struggle and downfall are often rooted in
psychological or social, rather than mythical, motives, is also widely considered a
specifically European creation and can be seen as a forerunner of some aspects of
both the novel and of classical opera.

The validity of reason was postulated in both Christian philosophy and the Greco-
Roman classics.[113] Christianity laid a stress on the inward aspects of actions
and on motives, notions that were foreign to the ancient world. This subjectivity,
which grew out of the Christian belief that man could achieve a personal union with
God, resisted all challenges and made itself the fulcrum on which all literary
exposition turned, including the 20th–21st century novels.[113]

Architecture

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Important Western architectural motifs include the Doric, Corinthian, and Ionic
orders of Greek architecture,[124] and the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance,
Baroque, and Victorian styles, which are still widely recognized and used in
contemporary Western architecture. Much of Western architecture emphasizes
repetition of simple motifs, straight lines and expansive, undecorated planes. A
modern ubiquitous architectural form that emphasizes this characteristic is the
skyscraper, their modern equivalent first developed in New York and Chicago. The
predecessor of the skyscraper can be found in the medieval towers erected in
Bologna.

The Parthenon under restoration in 2008, the most iconic Classical building, built
from 447 BC to 432 BC, located in Athens
The Parthenon under restoration in 2008, the most iconic Classical building, built
from 447 BC to 432 BC, located in Athens

The facade of Angoulême Cathedral was built between 1110 and 1128 in the Romanesque
style.
The facade of Angoulême Cathedral was built between 1110 and 1128 in the Romanesque
style.

Stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, completed in 1248, mostly

constructed between 1194 and 1220 in the Gothic style
Stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, completed in 1248, mostly
constructed between 1194 and 1220 in the Gothic style