Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Xue Ji
Early Tang calligrapher and crane painter who trained on his grandfather Wei Zheng's collection and was forced to die in 713 over Princess Taiping's plot
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 Sitong · Jinguo Gong
Xue Ji, courtesy name Sitong, came from Fenyin in Puzhou and was a great-grandson of the Sui poet Xue Daoheng. His maternal grandfather Wei Zheng owned many pieces in the hands of Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang, and Xue copied them until he had formed a style of his own. He entered office through the examinations and served Empress Wu as a secretariat drafter; his son Xue Boyang married Princess Xianyuan, daughter of the future Emperor Ruizong, which tied the family closely to Ruizong. Under Ruizong he became a chief minister, then minister of works and of rites, Junior Guardian of the heir and Duke of Jin. When Princess Taiping's faction was destroyed in 713, he was found to have known of Dou Huaizhen's plot and was ordered to die in the Wannian county jail. He was also a painter of cranes, praised in a poem by Du Fu, and later critics count him with Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan and Chu Suiliang as the four masters of early Tang calligraphy.
Life and times
Dates 649 CE–713 CE