Time in Language and Fine Arts: Cross-cultural Analysis of Italian and Arab Worldview

This study is devoted to the analysis of ideas about time in Italian and Arabic cultures, ideas embodied in the philosophy and coded by means of language and painting. Time is one of the main philosophical categories studied since the days of ancient Greece. Attitude towards time determines our actions. Nowadays, when globalization processes have intensified intercultural contacts, time is becoming a particularly significant category. The research subject is collocations, phraseological expressions and proverbs in the Arabic and Italian languages, as well as works of fine art of the 15-18 centuries. The purpose of this work is to analyze the perception and image of time in philosophy, language and painting. To achieve this goal we solved the following aims: we presented philosophical, cultural and linguistic views on time in Arab and Italian traditions, analyze definitions of time, collocations, idioms and proverbs connected with time. We analyzed the image of time in Italian and Arabic painting and highlighted a general theme of paintings relating to the time.