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.