ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a detailed discussion on the theory of art from a comparative perspective largely drawn on Ānand K. Coomaraswamy’s writings on Indian and Western poetics. It further discusses the various stages in the history of a work of art traced by Coomaraswamy showing the influence of Croce’s views on his analysis that somewhere creates certain drawbacks in his propositions. Coomaraswamy, under the influence of Croce’s views, recognizes mere “intuition” of utmost importance, ignoring the significance of scholarship and practice that always was stressed by the Indian aestheticians in the origin of art. He proposes that art is not the end of the artist’s work but remains in the artist. The chapter further discusses the language of art that according to Coomaraswamy is symbolic. The discussion here about art is more of philosophic nature where the Hindu and Christian ways of understanding art and beauty are of primal significance. The comparative views discussed here show both interface and affinity. Coomaraswamy’s approach to an artist that he seeks spiritualism (śreyas) not hedonism (preyas) is closer to Hegel’s.
