The Art of Indian Asia: Its Mythology and Transformation, 2 Vols

by Heinrich Robert Zimmer, Joseph Campbell (Editor)

The Present work is intended not as a handbook bus as an introduction to its subject, to be read from beginning to end. Each section is preparation for the next. Chapter I, presenting as it does a brief historical outline of the transformation of Indian art as well as a key to the symbology of the forms, can be used as a guide during the first perusal of the pictures. For the reader then wishing to find quickly the several portions of text referring to any specific group of monuments, a copious index has been supplied, together with textual referrences in the Description of Plates and cross-references in the footnotes. Marginal references to the Plates, furthermore, accompany the text. These should make possible an easy and rapid correlation of the materials of the two volumes.

The first two groups of Plates in the text volume illustrate, for the most part, the anthropology and comparative observations of the text. Included among them, however, are a few photographs that are indispensable to Dr. Zimmer s argument but do not meet the aesthetic standard of the Plates volume. On the other hand, the final cluster of text Plates constitutes. An independent pictorial appendix, illustrating the miniature and Rajput art of the eleventh to nineteenth centuries A.D. Dr. Zimmer s notes on this subject had not been developed beyond preliminary jottings, and could not be incorporated in any major section of the text. But since there is actually a rather special, very delicate, lyric quality about these paintings on palm leaf and paper, which sets them apart, somewhat, from the tradition of the stone monuments, it is not inappropriate that they should be given a separate place.

Genres: Philosophy, Art

1079 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Heinrich Robert Zimmer (1890-1943) was an Indologist & historian of South Asian art. He began his career studying Sanskrit & linguistics at the Univ. of Berlin where he graduated in 1913. Between 1920-24 he lectured at the Univ. of Greifswald, moving to Heidelberg to fill the Chair of Indian Philology. In 1938 he was dismissed by the Nazis. He emigrated to England where between 1939-40 he taught at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1942 he moved to NY to accept a Visiting Lecturer position in Philosophy at Columbia Univ. One of his students during this time period was Joseph Campbell. He died there, of pneumonia, in 1943. His method was to examine religious images using their sacred significance as a key to their psychic transformation. His use of (Indian) philosophy & religious history to interpret art was at odds with traditional scholarship. His vast knowledge of Hindu mythology & philosophy (particularly Puranic & Tantric works) gave him insights into the art, insights that were appreciated by Campbell among others. Campbell edited many of Zimmer's writings after his death. The psychiatrist C,G, Jung also developed a long-standing relationship with Zimmer, & edited a volume of Zimmer's entitled Der Weg zum Selbst (the two men 1st met in 1932, after which Zimmer, along with Richard Wilhelm, became one of the few male friends of Jung). Zimmer is credited by many for the popularizing of South Asian art in the West.