Buddhist pilgrim-monks as agents of cultural and artistic transmission : the international Buddhist art style in East Asia, ca. 645-770 / Dorothy C. Wong
Xuanzang and His Fellow Buddhist Pilgrims and Missionaries, ca. 645-710 -- Xuanzang and His Image-Making Activities: Mass Reproduction and Materiality in Buddhism -- Genesis of the Bejweled Buddha in Earth-Touching Gesture: Wu Zhao and Her Monk-Advisers -- Doji and His Contemporaries, ca. 710-45 -- Doji's Activities in China and Japan -- The Rebuilding of Daianji -- Completion of Todaiji and Jianzhen's Travels to Japan, ca. 745-70 -- The Art of Avatamsaka Buddhism at the Courts of Wu Zhao and Shomu/Komyo -- Jianzhen's Travels to Japan and the Building of Toshodaiji
Summary:
In the mid-seventh century, a class of Buddhist pilgrim-monks disseminated an art style in China, Japan, and Korea that was uniform in both iconography and formal properties. Traveling between the courts and religious centers of the region, these pilgrim-monks played a powerful role in this proto-cosmopolitanism, promulgating what came to be known as the International Buddhist Art Style. In Buddhist Pilgrim-Monks as Agents of Cultural and Artistic Transmission, Dorothy C. Wong argues that the visual expression found in this robust new art style arose alongside the ascendant theory of the Buddhist state, and directly influenced it. Aided by lavish illustrations, Wong's book shows that the visual language transmitted and circulated by these pilgrim-monks served as a key agent in shaping the cultural landscape of Northeast Asia. This is the first major study of the vital role played by Buddhist pilgrim-monks in conveying the notions of Buddhist kingship via artistic communication. Wong's interdisciplinary analysis will attract scholars in Asian art history and religious studies.
