Wang Wei

Wang Wei (699-761) was a poet, painter, musician and government official of the middle Tang dynasty in China. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished figures in the literature and arts of his era. He took the courtesy name Mojie and sometimes signed his works Wang Weimojie, an allusion to Vimalakirti, the central figure of a Buddhist sutra. He is remembered above all for joining poetry and landscape painting.

Born into an aristocratic Han family originally from Qixian, he went to Chang'an at nineteen to prepare for the civil service examination. He passed it in 721, placing first. His career had its ups and downs. His first post was as a court musician, but he was reportedly demoted to managing a granary for breaking court etiquette while performing a lion dance, according to tradition. Later promotions were partly linked to his ties with the minister and poet Zhang Jiuling. In 728 he hosted Meng Haoran in Chang'an, and the two became close friends and poetic collaborators. He never remarried after his wife died in 731. He also served on the northwestern frontier at Liangzhou, a region of constant military conflict.

After returning to the capital, he acquired an estate at Lantian that had once belonged to the poet Song Zhiwen, known as Wang Chuan. When his mother died in 747-748, he observed the traditional mourning period so severely that he is said to have been reduced almost to a skeleton. During the An Lushan rebellion, he was captured in Chang'an in 756 while ill with dysentery and taken to Luoyang, where the rebels sought his cooperation. Sources differ on how he avoided serving them: some say he feigned deafness, others that he damaged his voice. After the city was retaken he was imprisoned for treason. His brother Wang Jin and the poems he had written during captivity, which were accepted as proof of his loyalty, helped secure his release. He returned to government in 758 and ended as shàngshū yòuchéng, roughly deputy prime minister, until his death in 761.

Around four hundred of his poems survive, collected by his brother Wang Jin at imperial command. None of his paintings survive in authenticated form, and he is known through their influence on later artists and through descriptions. His music has not survived either. His landscape poetry, in the shanshui tradition, was paired with that of Meng Haoran under the name "Wang Meng". His devotion to Chan Buddhism, which earned him the posthumous title "Poet Buddha", shaped his later years. The most quoted judgment on his work comes from Su Shi: his poems contain paintings, and his paintings contain poetry.