Writers › Writer / Poet
Guanxiu
Poet-monk and painter-monk of the late Tang from Lanxi, given the title Chanyue by Wang Jian of Former Shu
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Shi Guanxiu · Master Chanyue · Jiang Deyin · Shiliu Luohan Huajia
Guanxiu, born Jiang, courtesy name Deyin, from Lanxi in Wuzhou, was born in 832, a poet-monk and painter-monk of the late Tang and Five Dynasties. Wang Jian of Former Shu titled him Master Chanyue and built him the Longhua monastery; he died in Shu in 912, and his poems form the Chanyue ji. He painted arhats that the Xuanhe huapu calls ancient and wild in look, and a Sixteen Arhats set attributed to him survives. Tradition says he offered Qian Liu a couplet on fourteen prefectures and refused to make it forty; Fu Xuanchong thinks the story a later invention.
Life and times
Dates 832 - 912