Ananda Coomaraswamy 1877 – 1947
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was a Sri Lankan-born philosopher of art and metaphysics and one of the principal exponents of the Traditionalist school of thought in the twentieth century. After early studies in mineralogy and a long period of work on the history of South Asian art, he became curator of Indian art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where he produced an extraordinary series of essays on the philosophical foundations of traditional art and religion. His Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art and Hinduism and Buddhism articulated a comparative metaphysics of the perennial wisdom traditions.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Sri Lankan-American
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Indian Philosophy
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“The traditional artist is not an individual but a vehicle of tradition.”
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Attributed to Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“Beauty is the radiance of order.”
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Attributed to Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“Art is a proper means of religious knowledge.”
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Attributed to Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“Time is reckoned by the mind in motion; eternity is the mind at rest.”
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Attributed to Ananda Coomaraswamy:
“All philosophies are at last one philosophy.”