"Coomaraswamy had a fantastic challenge to the aesthetics of the West. He said that the Indian national movement must carry out a guerilla war against the museum. He said what has the West done for art? He said we preserve the folk-song, the very moment we destroy the folk-singer and then he asks the question, “If God were to return today and ask civilized western man where the Aztecs and the Incas were or where the Australian aborigines were, would he take him to a museum?” The museum smells of death and formaldehyde. Of course, it’s ironic that with the British intelligence chasing him Ananda Coomaraswamy goes to America and becomes the curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. One of India’s great geologists becomes one of India’s great art historians."
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