Wáng Wéi 701-761
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Wang Wei, his nickname Mojie, from the popular Buddhist saint Vimalakirti 維摩詰 Weimojie, was a native of Taiyuan in Shanxi. He was a poet musician and painter. He is particularly known for his Ballad of the Peach Blossom Spring, a narrative poem about a long lost Shangrila. A devout Buddhist, he spent much time in semi-retirement on Songshan, Henan and at his villa at Wangchuan in the Zhongnanshan south of Changan, present day Xian. He was a noted painter and his poems are remarkably visual. It was the Northern Song poet Su Shi who wrote, 'In his poetry there is painting and in his painting there is poetry'. Like Tao Qian before him Wang wrote about the quiet pleasures of living in nature, but his poems are even more hermitic. |