Ananda Coomaraswamy Quotes

#1. The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function; the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#2. Man's activity consists in either a making or doing. Both of these aspects of the active life depend for their correction upon the contemplative life (that is, the Hero).

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#3. The most awkward means are adequate to the communication of authentic experience, and the finest words no compensation for lack of it. It is for this reason that we are moved by the true Primitives and that the most accomplished art craftsmanship leaves us cold.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#4. No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#5. Beauty is the attractive power of perfection.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#6. It is the natural instinct of a child to work from within outwards; "First I think, and then I draw my think." What wasted efforts we make to teach the child to stop thinking, and only to observe!

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#7. We have come to think of art and work as incompatible, or at least independent categories and have for the first time in history created an industry without art.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#8. The man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#9. Art is nothing tangible. We cannot call a painting 'art' as the words 'artifact' and 'artificial' imply. The thing made is a work of art made by art, but not itself art. The art remains in the artist and is the knowledge by which things are made.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#10. All that is best for us comes of itself into our hands-but if we strive to overtake it, it perpetually eludes us.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#11. Industry without art is brutality.

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#12. It is only when the maker of things is a maker of things by vocation, and not merely holding down a job, that the price of things is approximate to their real value ...

Ananda Coomaraswamy

#13. The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist.

Ananda Coomaraswamy