Why do different cultures paint the same subjects in completely different ways?

Because they're answering different questions. When I look at how a subject is rendered—a landscape, a figure, water—I'm looking at the painter's answer to what matters about that subject. A Chinese landscape painter might be exploring humanity's place within vastness and time. A European Renaissance painter might be solving problems of perspective and individual presence. Neither is right; they're working from different philosophical ground. The way a tradition depicts nature, for instance, often reflects what that culture believes about nature's role and meaning. Is it a stage for human drama? A force to observe and align with? A puzzle to solve geometrically? These aren't conscious decisions each painter makes—they're inherited ways of seeing, built into the tradition itself. Your job as someone studying these practices is to notice that logic. What does this approach assume about the world? What does it leave out or emphasize? Understanding that gap between traditions teaches you more about your own seeing than any single tradition could. You begin to recognize that how you naturally paint isn't universal—it's cultural, learned, inherited. And that awareness is the beginning of real choice in your work.