In 756, when Chang’an was occupied by the troops of the rebellious general An Lushan (安祿山), Wang Wei was captured and taken to the rebel capital at Luoyang (洛陽), where he was forced to accept a post in the administration. He rose to high office but was soon demoted and given an unimportant position in Jizhou (濟州), before being recalled to the capital in 734 and given a post in the censorate.

He received the prestigious jinshi (“presented scholar”) degree in the imperial civil-service examination system in 721-probably more for his musical talents than anything else, although he is said to have revealed his literary talents as early as age nine. Wang Wei was born and brought up during the Tang dynasty when the capital, Chang’an (長安), was a truly cosmopolitan city that enjoyed both wealth and security. In the 17th century the writer on art Dong Qichang (董其昌, 1555-1636) established Wang as the founder of the revered Southern school of painter-poets, whom Dong characterized as more concerned with personal expression than surface representation. Wang Wei is popularly known as a model of humanistic education as expressed in poetry, music, and painting. He is also called Wang Youcheng (王右丞, Minister Wang of the Right). His poetry is widely anthologized, and he is frequently mentioned alongside other poets of the Tang dynasty, such as Li Po and Tu Fu.Wang Wei (王維, 701-761), courtesy name Mojie (摩詰), was one of the most famous men of arts and letters during the Tang dynasty (618-907), one of the golden ages of Chinese cultural history. Wei’s poetry likewise embodied Zen Buddhist ideals of detachment and simplicity in his poems, he uses details sparingly, frequently narrating natural phenomena such as water and mist rather than human presence. None of his paintings are extant, though the spiritual quality of his landscapes influenced many painters.

He is particularly known as a landscape painter, developing the possibilities of monochrome and pomo (“breaking the ink”), a technique in which ink is applied in patches or washes that leave blank spaces. Wei founded the Southern School of painter-poets. After weathering the Anshi Rebellion (755–759) and grieving over the deaths of his wife and sister, he retired to his country villa on the Wang River, where he deepened his study of Buddhism and wrote many of his best poems. Wang Wei was a poet, painter, musician, and statesman during the Tang dynasty combining the humanist ideals of a Chinese scholar-official, he served various bureaucratic posts in the Tang court, both in the capital and in the province in Shantung.

The poetry of wang wei