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“Our whole metaphysical tradition, Christian and other, maintains that “there are two in us,” this man and the Man in this man; and that this is so is still a part and parcel of our spoken language in which, for example, the expression “self-control” implies that there is one that controls and another subject to control, for we know that “nothing acts upon itself,” though we forget it when we talk about “self-government.” Of these two “selves,” outer and inner man, psycho-physical “personality” and very Person, the human composite of body, soul, and spirit is built up. Of these two, on the one hand body-and-soul (or –mind), and on the other, spirit, one is mutable and mortal, the other constant and immortal; one “becomes,” the other “is,” and the existence of the one that is not, but becomes, is precisely a “personification” or “postulation,” since we cannot say of anything that never remains the same that “it is.” And however necessary it may be to say “I” and “mine” for the practical purposes of everyday life, our Ego in fact is nothing but a name for what is really only a sequence of observed behaviors.”
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy / “Who is ‘Satan’ and Where is ‘Hell’?”
With his beautiful wife Stella Bloch
Stella Bloch / Portrait by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy / 1926
Artist and ethnic dancer Stella Bloch (1897-1999) had many varied and unusual accomplishments during her long and productive life. Born in Tarnow, Poland, but raised in New York City, Bloch began to draw at an early age, but it was a performance of Isadora Duncan in 1914, that changed her life. Bloch became the first American student of the Isadorables, the six young women who served as the company of dancers for Duncan. At the age of 17, she accompanied the art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy on a trip to India and the Far East. While there, she learned the native dances of Bali, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, and Java. She spent a year in the palace of the Prince of Solo learning the Javanese dance. Upon her return to the United States, she performed these dances to enthusiastic crowds and headlined at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York. Bloch married Coomaraswamy in 1922. It was his third marriage and it ultimately would end in divorce in 1930. While working on and off Broadway, Bloch met the lyricist Edward Eliscu and the two were married in 1931. They moved to Hollywood soon after their marriage, where both worked in the film industry for many years, later returning to New York in the 1950s after Eliscu had been blacklisted. The couple moved to Newtown, Connecticut in 1966, where they remained until the time of their respective deaths, a few months apart. Throughout her life, Bloch continued her art work. It was during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s that Bloch first had sketched and painted pieces that would later be hailed as her best; subjects include Josephine Baker, Bessie Smith, Thelonious Monk, as well as Harlem street scenes. One of her pieces was used as the logo art of the Broadway musical Black and Blue in 1989. Bloch's artwork also was featured in Dance Magazine and shown at many galleries. Beginning in 1983, she was represented by the Beaux Arts Gallery in Woodbury, Connecticut, where retrospectives were shown in 1996 and 2000.
New York Public Library
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