Wang Wei (c. 699–761) was a Chinese poet, painter, musician and official of the middle Tang dynasty, and he is regarded as one of the most distinguished figures in the arts and letters of his age. He used the courtesy name Mojie and signed some of his works "Wang Weimojie", a reference to Vimalakirti, the central figure of a Buddhist sutra. His reputation as a painter rests mainly on later tradition, since no authenticated work by him survives; what is known comes from his influence on later painters and from written descriptions of his pictures. He is better remembered as a nature poet, and his work remains a touchstone for both Chinese poetry and landscape painting.
He was born into an aristocratic Han family, originally from Qixian and later settled at Puzhou in the historic Hedong region. As the eldest of five brothers, he left for Chang'an, the imperial capital, at nineteen to prepare for the civil service examination. His poetry and his skill on the pipa won him popularity at court, and in 721 he passed the jinshi examination with first place, the zhuangyuan. His official career had its ups and downs. His first post was as a court musician, but he was demoted to supervising a granary in the former province of Jizhou. According to tradition, the reason was a lion dance that broke court etiquette. He was later linked to the minister and poet Zhang Jiuling, and when Zhang fell from favour, Wang lost imperial goodwill too. By 728 he was back in Chang'an, where he hosted the poet Meng Haoran, and the two formed a lasting friendship and poetic partnership.
His wife died in 731, and he never remarried. He served as an official in Liangzhou, on the northwestern frontier, a region marked by constant military conflict. Later he acquired a large estate at Lantian that had once belonged to the poet Song Zhiwen, known as Wang Chuan, and there he spent long periods among the hills, painting and writing. He became a devout Chan Buddhist and a vegetarian, and he is said to have studied for ten years with the Chan master Daoguang. When his mother died in 747–748, he observed the traditional three-year mourning period, grieving so intensely that he was reduced almost to a skeleton.
During the An Lushan rebellion he was captured in Chang'an in 756, when the rebels took the city. Suffering from dysentery, he could not flee with the court. Some sources say he feigned deafness to avoid cooperating with the rebels; others say he damaged his voice with medicine. Either way, in Luoyang he accepted a rebel title. When the Tang recaptured the city, he was imprisoned in 757 on charges of treason. He was saved by his brother Wang Jin, who had distinguished himself in the defence of Taiyuan, and by the poems he had written in captivity, which were accepted as proof of his loyalty. In 758 he returned to service at the court of the crown prince, and in 759 he regained his former rank and was promoted to the post of shangshu youcheng, a role comparable to deputy prime minister. He died in 761, although some accounts give 759 as the year of his death. He is said to have asked for writing materials, written letters to his brother and friends, and was buried on his Lantian estate.
His legacy is chiefly literary. Su Shi observed that his poems contain paintings and his paintings contain poetry. He is associated with the shanshui, or landscape, school of poetry and, together with Meng Haoran, was known as "Wang Meng". His later work, shaped by Chan Buddhism, earned him the nickname "Poet Buddha". About four hundred of his poems survive, collected by his brother Wang Jin at imperial request, and twenty-nine appear in the eighteenth-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.