Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a pioneer in Indian art history and in the cultural confrontation of East and West. A scholar in the tradition of the great Indian grammarians and philosophers, an art historian convinced that the ultimate value of art transcends history, and a social thinker influenced by William Morris, Coomaraswamy was a unique figure whose works provide virtually a complete education in themselves. Finding a universal tradition in past cultures ranging from the Hellenic and Christian to the Indian, Islamic, and Chinese, he collated his ideas and symbols of ancient wisdom into the sometimes complex, always rewarding pattern of essays. The Door in the Sky is a collection of the author's writings on myth drawn from his Metaphysics and Traditional Art and Symbolism, both originally published in Bollingen Series. These essays were written while Coomaraswamy was curator in the department of Asiatic Art of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where he built the first large collection of Indian art in the United States.

Coomaraswamy's essays [give] us a view of his scholarship and brilliant insight. -- Joseph Campbell

About the Author
Rama P. Coomaraswamy, the son of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, is a medical doctor.

Reviews
"There are many who consider Coomaraswamy as one of the great seminal minds of this century... This selection of his papers should go into every library."--Kathleen Raine, The [London] Times



Book Information
ISBN 9780691017471
Author Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press
Weight(grams) 425g