Eastern civilization has always been fundamentally different from western. Today, many eastern countries are considered to be lagging behind, despite the fact that the East laid the foundation for the development of many subsequent peoples. What do we mean by the term "Ancient East" today?
The Ancient East is a separate group of civilizations that populated the territory of the eastern Mediterranean, from the banks of the Nile River to the expanses of western and southwestern Asia (China, Egypt, India). The history and culture of the Ancient East begins in ancient times, between the third and fourth millennia BC. It was then that the last Persian power fell , leaving the way for younger civilizations starting their development.
Modern society is accustomed to the so-called secondary position of the eastern countries in the world, few people know that up to the 15th century they were much ahead of the West in terms of their organization and cultural development. All the great discoveries at that time were made precisely in the East: the invention of mechanical watches, gunpowder, paper, not to mention such inventions of the Chinese people as a compass and a seismograph.
The very concept of culture in the countries of East and West was significantly different. In Europe, the term "culture" meant "cultivation, transformation." Chinese equivalent hieroglyph “wen” is translated as “decoration”. It is in it that the meaning of the eastern concept of “culture” lies - grace, beauty, decoration. The traditional culture of the Ancient East is distinguished by the greatest succession of generations. Many traditions of modern eastern countries are rooted in the distant past, in times of lack of writing, when all of them were passed down to new generations orally.
The art of the Ancient East was closely connected with many aspects of general cultural processes taking place in society. The very role of an artist in the East has always been honorable. For example, at the dawn of the development of Egyptian civilization, the profession of an artist was in many respects equivalent to the activities of a priest, however, it was not considered self-sufficient. The art culture of the Ancient East for thousands of years has absorbed the features of religious and philosophical ideas, social norms and folk traditions of everyday life. Creative personalities (artists, sculptors and painting writers) were called upon to realize the traditional attitudes of society in their creative activities. Experimental attempts to express in their works something new, still unknown to society, were thoroughly suppressed. This was due, first of all, to the traditionalism of the lifestyle of ancient Eastern civilizations. In ancient Egypt, there was a whole system of canons for artists, containing rules that describe what colors should be used and what proportions to observe when writing portraits of people, images of animals. Artists and sculptors of Ancient Egypt acted as guardians of traditions and sacred laws. They were entrusted with depicting not only the earthly existence of man, but also his stay in other worlds into which, as it was believed, he left after the completion of his life's journey.
The traditional culture of the Ancient East was transmitted mainly through myths, first verbally, and with the advent of writing in the form of small texts displayed on clay tablets. Images of mythological heroes can be found not only in the plots of literary works, but also in sculpture, architecture and painting. The artistic culture of the Ancient East for many centuries retained its magical destiny. Ancient people, for example, believed that a reproduced copy of God, like himself, has powerful power, and therefore it should be revered no less than him.
Modern eastern countries differ from their predecessors in religious and cultural traditions, one thing has remained unchanged for many millennia: adherence to the traditional way of life, the transfer of accumulated experience from one generation to another.