Wang Wei (701--761A.D) was a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty. He once took the position of Shanshu Youcheng. He has been regarded as the greatest poet when he was alive. He was not only good at poetry, but also he was a representative painter of the “Pomo Landscape (Pomo Shanshui)“ school. People also called him “Buddha of Poetry“, for his sincere cultivation in Buddhism.
Among his 400 poems preserved, the most representative ones are those to describe the natural beauty of mountains, water and gardens and his reclusive life. He inherited and developed the tradition initiated by Xie Lingyun, who wrote landscape poems, and absorbed the fresh, natural style from Tao Yuanming’ pastoral, making the landscape pastoral reach a higher level. His works like Thinking of My Brothers in Shandong on the Double Ninth Festival, Red Bean and Composed in Wei Town are all widely spread among the Chinese people.
Wang Wei was also a painter and a horticulturist. Su Dongpo once remarked that there is a picture in Wang’s poetry and there is a strong poetry of his paintings. After the “Anshi Insurgence (Anshizhiluan)“, Wang Wei lived a reclusive life and cultivated himself sincerely according to the Buddhism doctrine. Wangchuan Villa, a garden built by Wang Wei for his reclusion, was one of the most famous gardens of the Tang Dynasty, and, at the same time, was the earliest landscape garden in China. He gained many creation inspirations in this villa, and created a lot of landscape poems and paintings, such as Picture of Snow and River (Xuexi Tu), Picture of Meng Haoran reciting on the horse and Picture of Snowy Mountain. Dong Qichang of the Ming Dynasty remarked Wang Wei as “The ancestor of Nanzong“ and thought “Wang Wei was the initiator of the literati painting.“
