| style="width:20%" | Phase | style="width:20%" | Indian Culture
since 1500 BC | style="width:20%" | Classical Culture
since 1100 BC | style="width:20%" | Arabian Culture
since 0 | style="width:20%" | Western Culture
since 900 AD |
rowspan="4" | Spring
Intuition, powerful cultural creation from awakening souls, unity and abundance. | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Birth of a grand myth signifying a new conception of God. Fear and longing for the world. |
| valign="top" | 1500 BC-1200 BC | valign="top" | 1100 BC-800 BC | valign="top" | 0-300 AD | valign="top" | 900-1200 AD |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Earliest metaphysical organization of the world. High scholasticism. |
| valign="top" | Contained in the oldest parts of the Vedas | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
rowspan="8" | Summer
Maturing consciousness. Earliest urban-civil socity and critical thought. | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Reformation: revolt of the religious moderates against the early religion. |
| valign="top" | 10-9th century BC | valign="top" | 7th century BC | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Beginnings of a purely philosophical movement. Contrasting idealistic and realistic systems |
| valign="top" | Contained in the Upanishads | valign="top" | 6-5th century BC | valign="top" | 6-7th century | valign="top" | 16-17th century |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Mathematical breakthroughs leading to a new conception of the world. |
| valign="top" | Missing | valign="top" | 540 BC | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Rationalism. The depletion of mysticism from religion. |
| valign="top" | Traces in the Upanishad | valign="top" | 540 BC | valign="top" | 650s | valign="top" | |
rowspan="6" | Fall
Urban rise. High point of disciplined organizational strength. | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Faith in the omnipotence of rationality. Cult of Nature. |
| valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | The height of mathematical thought. |
| valign="top" | Zero as a number | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | The last idealists. Theories of knowledge and logic. |
| valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
rowspan="10" | Winter
Coming fissure in the world-urban civilization. Exhaustion of mental organization strength. Irreligioussness rises. | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Materialism: Cults of science, utility, and luck. |
| valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Ethical-social ideals: philosophy without mathematics, skepticism. |
| valign="top" | Elements of Buddhism | valign="top" | | valign="top" | Elements of Islam | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | The last mathematical thinkers. |
| valign="top" | Missing | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Decline of abstract thinkers, and the rise of specialized academic philosophy. |
| valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | Schools of | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Spread of the last ideas. |
| valign="top" | Indian Buddhism since 500 | valign="top" | Roman Stoicism since 200 | valign="top" | The practical Fatalism of Islam since 1000 | valign="top" | The spread of ethical Socialism since 1900 |
| colspan="2" style="width:20%" | Phase | style="width:20%" | Egyptian Culture | style="width:20%" | Classical Culture | style="width:20%" | Arab Culture | style="width:20%" | Western Culture |
colspan="2" | Prehistory
A chaos of primitive styles. Mystical symbolism and naïve imitation. | valign="top" | 2830 BC-2600 BC | valign="top" | 1600 BC-1100 BC | valign="top" | 500 BC-0 | valign="top" | 500-900 |
rowspan="11" | Culture
The dominant stylistic idiom which fundamentally underpins the life of a culture is formed from necessity. | rowspan="5" | Early Period
Ornamentation and architecture are the first basic expression of the recent world-historical consciousness. | valign="top" | 2600 BC-2200 BC | valign="top" | 100 BC-650 BC | valign="top" | 0-500 | valign="top" | 900-1500 |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Birth and ascent. Artistic forms are not consciously arising, but reflect the spirit of the landscape. |
| valign="top" | 2550 BC-2320 BC | valign="top" | 11-9th century BC | valign="top" | 1st-3rd century | valign="top" | 11-13th century |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Completion of the early stylistic idiom. Exhaustion of its possibilities leading to contradiction. |
valign="top" | 2320 BC-2200 BC - 6th dynasty
- End of pyramid and epic relief styles
- Bloom of archaic portraits.
| valign="top" | 8-7th century BC | valign="top" | 4-5th century | valign="top" | 14-15th century |
rowspan="6" | Late Period
Formation of an urban group of selective, self-conscious artists: "the old masters." | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Instruction in formal artistry. |
| valign="top" | 2130 BC-1990 BC | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Completion of an intellectual stylistic idiom |
| valign="top" | 1990 BC-1790 BC | valign="top" | 480 BC-350 BC | valign="top" | 7-8th century - Umayyad dynasty
- Victory of architecture and pictureless arabesque art
| valign="top" | |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Exhaustion of the strict organizational strength. Dissolution of the cultural idiom. The end of classic and romantic styles. |
| valign="top" | Confusions in 1700 BC limit change in art | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | |
colspan="2" rowspan="6" | Civilization
Existence without internal form. Metropolitan city art as habit, luxury, sport, excitement. Trendy style fashions (revivals, arbitrary inventions, borrowings) without larger symbolic content. | colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Modern art. Attempts to alter and provoke metropolitan city consciousness. Conversion of music, architecture and painting into mere arts and crafts. |
| valign="top" | 1675 BC-1550 BC | valign="top" | | valign="top" | 9-10th century | valign="top" | 19-20th century |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | End of any development in stylistic form. Senseless, empty, cumulative architecture and ornamental art. Imitation of archaic and exotic themes. |
| valign="top" | 1550 BC-1328 BC | valign="top" | 100 BC-100 AD | valign="top" | | valign="top" | Since 2000 |
| colspan="4" style="font-size:95%;background: #f0f0ff;text-align:center" | Exit. Training of a rigid form. The Caesars flaunt materialism for mass effect. Provincial arts and crafts. |
| valign="top" | 1328 BC-1195 BC | valign="top" | | valign="top" | | valign="top" | To come |