Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of pigment  , has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. Together with other activities that may have been ritualistic   but have come to be considered as artistic   (such as music or dance), painting was one of the earliest ways in which man sought to express his own personality and his emerging understanding of an existence beyond the material world. Unlike music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have survived to the present day. And painting, like other arts, exhibits universal qualities that make it easy for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate. The major extant examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed shifted to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. Therefore, Western shared a European cultural tradition ----the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin and, later, the countries of the New World. Western painting is in general distinguished by its concentration on the representation of the human figure, whether in the heroic context of antiquity   or the religious context of the early Christian and medieval   world. The Renaissance extended this tradition through a close examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, linking painting to the developing sciences of anatomy   and optics  . The first real break from figurative painting came with the growth of landscape painting in the 17th and 18th centuries. The landscape and figurative traditions developed together in the 19th century in an atmosphere that was increasingly concerned with "painterly" qualities of the interaction of light and color1 and the expressive qualities of paint handling. In the 20th century these interests contributed to the development of a third major tradition in Western painting, abstract painting, which sought to uncover and express the true nature of paint and painting through action and form. What makes it possible for Western to share a European cultural tradition?
The examples of early painting found in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. The shift of the areas where important paintings were created. The Middle East and Mediterranean Basin. The countries of the New World.