Wang Wei

Wang Wei was a poet, painter, and musician of the Tang dynasty, and one of the most celebrated lyric poets of the era. Passing the imperial palace examination with top honors around 721, he was briefly appointed a music official but was soon demoted to Registrar of Jizhou (Shandong) after performers in his charge staged the emperor-only Yellow Lion Dance. He later returned to a series of court and provincial offices in the capital Chang'an and served on the western frontier. He is known for nature and landscape verse, much of it associated with his country estate in the Wangchuan valley near Lantian, and for pioneering monochrome ink landscape painting. When Chang'an fell during the An Lushan rebellion in 756, he was captured and held under duress in the rebel administration at Luoyang; after the imperial reconquest he was pardoned — spared in part by a loyalist poem written in captivity and by his brother Wang Jin's intercession. A devout Chan Buddhist, he was later given the epithet \"Poet Buddha.\" His work profoundly shaped later Chinese poetry and painting, and reached Western readers through many translations.