Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Yan Zhenqing
Tang calligrapher and official who led loyalist resistance in Hebei as prefect of Pingyuan during the An Lushan rebellion and was later strangled by the rebel Li Xilie
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 Qingchen · Yan Pingyuan · Yanlu Gong · Shi Wenzhong
Yan Zhenqing, courtesy name Qingchen, belonged to a family from Linyi in Langya long settled at Chang'an, and passed the jinshi examination in 734. Having offended Yang Guozhong, he was sent out as prefect of Pingyuan; when An Lushan rebelled in 755 he and his cousin Yan Gaoqing, prefect of Changshan, rose against him, and loyalist commanderies in Hebei chose him as their leader. Gaoqing and his son were killed after Changshan fell, and when Zhenqing recovered his nephew Jiming's skull he wrote the draft eulogy now known as the Draft of a Requiem to My Nephew (Ji zhi wengao). Under Daizong he was made Duke of Lu. In 783, when Li Xilie of Huaixi rebelled, the chief minister Lu Qi had him sent to negotiate; held captive at Caizhou, he refused to submit and was strangled; his posthumous name is Wenzhong. His standard-script steles include the Duobao Pagoda and Yan Qinli inscriptions, and the phrase Yan's sinew and Liu's bone pairs his brushwork with that of Liu Gongquan.
Life and times
Dates 709 CE–785 CE