The Door in the Sky: Coomaraswamy on Myth and Meaning
By Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
Pub Date: 11/1/97
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Paper, 256pp.
ISBN:
0691017476 
Our Price $19.95

Related Books: Comparative Religion

Reader's Catalog
Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a pioneering figure in Indian art history and social thought whose work is reminiscent of William Morris's. This volume gathers together the author's writings on myth drawn from his Metaphysics and Traditional Art and Symbolism. "There are many who consider Coomaraswamy as one of the great seminal minds of this century...This selection of papers should go into every library"--Times of London

Publisher
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"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

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
List of Abbreviations and Short Titles
List of Works by A.K. Coomaraswamy Cited in this Volume
1 Mind and Myth 3
2 Svayamatrrna: Janua Coeli 6
3 Imitation, Expression, and Participation 62
4 Atmayajna: Self-Sacrifice 72
5 A Figure of Speech or a Figure of Thought? 113
6 The Nature of Buddhist Art 143
7 An Indian Temple: The Kandarya Mahadeo 175
8 Literary Symbolism 184
9 The Symbolism of the Dome 192
Index 243

 

 

 

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