Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission: The International Buddhist Art Style in East Asia, ca. 645–770

By redirecting our attention to pilgrim-monks, elite patrons, powerful monasteries, and major cultural centers in India, China, Japan, and Korea, Wong’s book breaks away from problematic questions of “influence” and formalism. The vexing issue of “Sinicization”—the belief in the inevitable gravitation of foreign art forms toward a Chinese cultural center (expressed in the change of figural style and costume in Buddhist sculpture)—is dealt with, instead, through the lens of “cosmopolitanism.” [...]an approach could fruitfully open up the study of East Asian Buddhist art to a renewed interest in the problem and critical importance of “style” in global art history.