 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|||||
|
 |
 |
Biography of Wang WeiName: Wang WeiBirth Date: 699 Death Date: 759 Place of Birth: P'u-chou, China Nationality: Chinese Gender: Male Occupations: poet, painter Wang Wei The Chinese poet and painter Wang Wei (699-759) was one of the greatest poets of the golden age of Chinese poetry, the T'ang dynasty, 618-907. He was also regarded by later critics as the founder of the Southern school of landscape painting.Wang Wei was also called Mo-chieh (or ch'i, the name Wei-moch'i being a transliteration of the Sanskrit name Vimalakirti, the great lay disciple of Buddha) and Yuch'eng (assistant minister of the right, after his last government position). He was born in P'u-chou (the present Fen-yang county in Shansi Province) into a family which had contributed 13 prime ministers to the T'ang court. Because the traditional family seat was in T'ai-yüan, Shansi, Wang Wei is usually called a native of T'ai-yüan.By the age of 15, Wang Wei was a skillful poet and musician. In 717 he won first place in the metropolitan examination in preparation for a government career, …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…honored Wang Wei as patriarch of the Southern school, which included all of the great literati, or scholar-painters. As poet, painter, and scholar; as innovator in ink-wash landscape painting; and as one of the first masters to lodge poetic expression in painted forms, Wang Wei stands at the opposite pole from the professional and academic masters of the Northern school. He has been honored since the 11th century by every great landscape painter who sought to perpetuate this ideal.When Wang Wei died in 759, he was buried in the deer park on his beloved estate, not far from the tomb of his mother. Further Reading A collection of Wang Wei's poetry, translated by Ching Yin-nan and Lewis Walmsley, is Poems by Wang Wei (1968). There is a monograph in English on Wang Wei by Lewis and Dorothy Brush Walmsley, Wang Wei, the Painter-Poet (1968).Wagner, Marsha L., Wang Wei, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981. |