The "Poet Buddha," master of landscape poetry "with a painting within"
A High Tang poet and painter, ranked with Li Bai and Du Fu and called the "Poet Buddha." Skilled in music and painting and deeply versed in Buddhist thought, he wove the empty stillness of Zen into landscape poetry. Su Shi said of him "there is a painting within the poem, and a poem within the painting" — "empty hills, no man in sight, yet voices echo" and "the bright moon shines among the pines, the clear stream flows over stones" sketch a scene of sight and sound in a few strokes. The landscapes under his brush are places where the heart can come to rest.
Wang Wei writes "in the vast desert a lone smoke rises straight; over the long river the setting sun hangs round" — ten characters, and already a boundless frontier painting. He put the painter’s eye, the musician’s ear, and the meditator’s heart all into the poem — to read him is to watch a breathing ink-wash, so still you can hear the spring water run over stone.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.