Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wu Wei
Painter from Jiangxia who served at the Ming court under two emperors, was given a seal reading Top Graduate in Painting, and led the Jiangxia branch of the Zhe school
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 Ciweng · Hao Xiaoxian
Wu Wei, courtesy names Shiying and Ciweng, styled Xiaoxian, the Little Immortal, came from Jiangxia, present-day Wuhan; orphaned and poor, he is said to have been taken in by a family at Changshu, where he learned to paint. As a young man he went to Nanjing and made a name with figures and landscapes, and in the Chenghua reign he was summoned to Beijing and attached to the Renzhi Hall as a court painter. Wild-tempered and fond of drink, he is said to have answered a summons drunk and dashed off a painting in splashed ink on the spot. The Hongzhi emperor gave him a higher guard rank and a seal reading Top Graduate in Painting. Summoned again by the Zhengde emperor in 1508, he died before he could set out. His surviving works include Fishermen's Pleasures and Crossing the Ba Bridge in Snow, and later critics paired him with Dai Jin as the leading Zhe school painters, naming his followers the Jiangxia school.
Life and times
Dates 1459 CE–1508 CE