Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Samaritan Woman at the Well


This painting is called "Samaritan Woman at the Well" and was created during the T'ang dynasty between 618 and 907 CE by an unknown artist for the court. During this time China was extremely open to foreigners and received many Christians. Because of the Christian influence in this region that was concentrated due to this openness, some citizens of the Chinese nation were converted and produced works of art like this.

The reason I found this interesting is because I've always seen Christianity as a very Western religion that had little to no influence on the Far East until as late as the 20th century or so. To learn about paintings that have been around for this long makes sense, what with the spice trade, but I just hadn't ever thought of the spread as going that quickly.

No comments:

Post a Comment