Ananda Coomaraswamy - Contributions

Contributions

Coomaraswamy made important contributions to the philosophy of art, literature, and religion. In Ceylon, he applied the lessons of William Morris to Ceylonese culture and produced, with his wife Ethel, a groundbreaking study of Ceylonese craft and culture. While In India, he was part of the literary circle around Rabindranath Tagore, and contributed to the "Swadeshi" movement, an early phase of the struggle for Indian independence. In the 1920s, he made pioneering discoveries in the history of Indian art, particularly distinctions between Rajput and Moghul painting, and his book Rajput Painting. At the same time he amassed an unmatched collection of Rajput and Moghul paintings, which he took with him to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, when he joined its curatorial staff in 1917. Through 1932, from his base in Boston, he produced two kinds of publications: brilliant scholarship in his curatorial field, but also graceful introductions to Indian and Asian art and culture, typified by The Dance of Shiva, a collection of essays that have lost none of their attractiveness and remain in print to this day. From 1932 until his death in 1947, he was yet another man, another mind. Deeply influenced by René Guénon, he became one of the founders of the Traditionalist School. His books and essays on art and culture, symbolism and metaphysics, scripture, folklore and myth, and still other topics, offer a remarkable education to readers who accept the challenges of his resolutely cross-cultural perspective and insistence on tying every point he makes back to sources in multiple traditions. He once remarked, "I actually think in both Eastern and Christian terms—Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Pali, and to some extent Persian and Chinese." Alongside the deep and not infrequently difficult writings of this period, he also delighted in polemical writings created for a larger audience—essays such as "Why exhibit works of art?" (1943).

In his book The Information Society: An Introduction (Sage, 2003, p. 44), Armand Mattelart credits Coomarswamy for coining the term 'post-industrial' in 1913.