Coomaraswamy Films March 20, 2009

The Ceylonese-born art historian, collector and curator, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) expanded American aesthetics from object-based connoisseurship towards an understanding of the symbolic value of art. Traveling to Asia in the 1920s, Coomaraswamy used the latest image technology to document ritual dance, performance festivals and religious sites, highlighting the relationships between art, life and nature. Stripped of sound, these black-and-white films allow viewers to fully experience the formal expressiveness of rhythmic movement, facial inflections and gestural phrasing.