Drawing On Excellence - Japanese Silk Painting, Medieval Art, and Perspective

In between posts about practical tips and pointers on art techniques and establishing ways to work as an artist, I wanted to share some discussions that Carrie and I have had over the course of our relationship (Me with my humanities background and her with a strong basis in art techniques). Our earliest discussion was during a trip to the Denver Museum of Art where Carrie talked about her love for Japanese Silk Paintings and how they influenced her style and thinking.
My class in culture and art had spent an entire session discussing the use of perspective in Japanese silk painting. The author we had studied in class had made the claim that the use of perspective in Japanese art revealed that they saw the world differently from  a western perspective as in the example below from the 15th century.

Carrie found this conversation amusing and noted that the entire debate revolved around the idea that the use of perspective to show harmony, transcendence, and importance had been a part of western art for years, it was only recently that the importance of the subject's perspective and the ideals of representation was incorporated strongly into Europe. To illustrate this, she noted that medieval paintings of scenes and figures used the same aesthetics as Japan had and that there was a far more universal belief that art should be transcendent, harmonious, and aspire to beauty.  Just compare the medieval painting below.