Art and Swadeshi

The compilation of articles is a glaring example of the multidimensional talent of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), who was not only a pioneer historian of Indian art, a master-interpreter, one of the most versatile of this century whose scholarship and knowledge knew no bounds, but a universal man at the same time, the one who urged the Indians to be conscious of their glorious heritage. Coomaraswamy was the harbinger of Indian nationalism but his outlook was neither parochial nor chauvinistic. It had a universal appeal. The present volume is a rich collection of his thirteen important articles embedded in a single thread. These are: Art and Swadeshi; Swadeshi, True and False; Domestic Handicrafts and Culture; The International Congress of Applied Chemistry 1901 and Aniline Dyes; The Function of Schools of Art in India—A reply to Mr Cecil Burns; On the Study of Indian Art; Facial Expression in Indian Sculpture; On Mughal and Rajput Paintings; Night Effects in Indian Pictures; Song-words of a Panjabi Singer; Poems of Rabindranath Tagore; The Modern School of Indian Painting; and Education in Ceylon. Diverse they are in contents, but they all convey a single message—the churned outcome of a master-mind visualizing things and events in their true perspective.