This cosmopolitan model applies even to ''island art,'' as is suggested by two exhibitions in

New York this spring that focus on Japan. Both shows are based on concepts of cultural
dispersion, and both in different ways break with established political and institutional
views of their subject.

''Transmitting the Forms of Divinity: Early Buddhist Art From Korea and Japan,'' at the
Japan Society from Thursday through June 22, goes against the grain of history to present
an integrated picture of two East Asian countries that were bitter enemies throughout much
of the 20th century. ''Great Waves: Chinese Themes in the Arts of Korea and Japan,'' at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art through Aug. 17, tackles similar issues of influence in an
interdepartmental collaboration that verges on being revolutionary for a museum that
presents art in terms of discrete territorial units.

The Japan Society exhibition, which promises to be one of the great Asian shows of the
season, has personal associations for me. Nearly 20 years ago, the same institution
presented a fabulous little survey titled ''The Great Age of Japanese Buddhist Sculpture:
A.D. 600-1300,'' which included three of the same precious gilt bronze images that will be
in the new show.

One was an eighth-century figure of the smiling infant Buddha, his arm raised high in a
''hey, there'' salute. Another was a seventh-century jewel-holding bodhisattva, regally robed
and crowned, looking like an inverted, bell-shaped flower. The third was a 12-inch-high
image thought to be of the Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, called Miroku in Japan, who is
shown seated, relaxed, eyes closed, one finger held to his cheek, like a commuter catching a
catnap.

All three pieces were familiar textbook classics, but I had never seen them ''live.'' After one
look at the Maitreya I knew I had to go to the country he was from. A month later, I flew to
Japan and spent weeks visiting museums and temples, in cities and in the countryside,
from the grand religious centers like Mount Koya to a pilgrimage route of 88 temples, some
no bigger than bus shelters, that circle the island of Shikoku.

Of the dozens of images I encountered, the most moving was also the most famous: the
meditating Miroku at the Koryuji temple in Kyoto. Carved from red pine, it is, in effect, a
larger version of the little bronze figure at the Japan Society. It is also a symbol of Japan
itself and an embodiment of qualities often used to define Japanese-ness in art: formal
simplicity and emotional serenity. To see it was to have an instant Japanese experience. I
had mine.

As it turns out, though, the Koryuji sculpture isn't Japanese at all. Based on Korean
prototypes, it was almost certainly carved in Korea and sent to Japan, along with many

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/arts/art-architecture-japanese-art-and-its-korean-secret.html