The Door in the Sky: Coomaraswamy on Myth and Meaning

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Oct 2020 · Mythos: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology Book 81 · Princeton University Press

About this ebook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Utterely amazing

About the author

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