Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wang Mian
Late Yuan painter and poet from Zhuji who taught himself while herding cattle, became known for ink plum blossoms, and opens the novel The Scholars as its model recluse
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Yuanzhang · Hao Zhu Shi Shan Nong
Wang Mian, courtesy name Yuanzhang and literary name Zhushi Shannong, came of a farming family at Zhuji in Shaoxing. Song Lian's biography tells how as a boy herding cattle he slipped into a schoolroom to listen to the lessons and read at night by the lamp of a Buddhist temple, until the scholar Han Xing took him as a pupil. After failing the examinations several times he burned his compositions and travelled north to Dadu, where he refused an offer from Tai Buhua to recommend him for a court post. Back in the south he lived on Jiuli Mountain, planted a thousand plum trees, called his home the Plum Blossom Hut and lived by selling paintings. He was known for spare ink plum blossoms and his poems are collected as the Zhuzhai ji. The History of Ming says that after Zhu Yuanzhang took Wuzhou he named Wang Mian an adviser, and he soon died of illness. Wu Jingzi's novel The Scholars (Rulin waishi) opens with his story.
Life and times
Dates 1287 CE–1359 CE (birth by another account 1310)