There has been much discussion about how to understand Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) as an influential voice in art history. This talks considers the place of Sri Lanka in his intellectual process, and therefore in the underlying energies of his formation of a canon of South Asian art. Situating how Coomaraswamy was shaped by his Sri Lankan experiences where he worked as a mineralogist from 1903 through 1906 can help to open up an engagement with debates about the value of art. His connections to various networks, some oriented towards the arts & crafts movement, some engaged with rising modernist concerns, and others part of broad educational efforts, reflect a situation not unique to him in the early twentieth century. What was more unusual was the way in which he chose to highlight certain aspects of his experiences as the relation of art and religion became distinctly important to him. A better reckoning of his writing allows us to trace the presence of Sri Lankan visual material in certain early-twentieth-century conversations where it held a greater significance than heretofore realized.
Janice Leoshko teaches courses on Indian and Himalayan art at the University of Texas at Austin in the department of Art and Art History; she also spent some years as a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her research and publications deal with various issues, but most especially have focused on Buddhist art of eastern India. A recent turn to Sri Lankan art led to her current book project on the early work of Ananda Coomaraswamy.
