| Biography of Wang Wei |
Wang Wei was a particularly expressive poet. He is also very famous as a painter. Wang's poems are admired for their sensitivity to nature. As a painter he treated landscapes truthfully rather than decoratively. This seems to also apply to his poems, because they are powerful and have a tough, modern quality in many cases. Wang is regarded as a scholar-poet who withdrew from society to paint and write. He is described as the founder of the Southern School of Chinese art and became the model for the later literati (wen-jen) artist, or unworldly poet-painter. He kept a weekend retreat close to the capital. He was able to serve the government and go to his country estate for a few days. For this reason he was sometimes regarded as not a true Taoist recluse. Some saw him as hypocritical in adopting that role, but many of the poets, including Li Bai, consciously developed their traditional poetic persona. At the time of the Tang Dynasty, there were three strands of philosophical thought: Buddhism emphasized the transience and impermanence of life, Taoism emphasized abandonment to the Way found in nature, while Confucianism stressed moral responsibility and service to the state. Wang Wei carried on many of the poetic traditions, the Taoist tradition of living in reclusion the Buddhist idea of calming the heart, and the Confucian idea of human community. My favourite poems of his are: Magnolia Hermitage On Parting with Spring A Poem to My Brothers and Sisters My Retreat at Zhongnan To a Friend Wei City Song Lament for Ying Yao A green stream The beautiful Xi Shi Merv Daw |
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