Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Wang Yuan
Northern Wei calligrapher from Taiyuan, a registrar in Liang-Qin province, who wrote out the Shimen Inscription cut into the Baoxie road cliff in 509
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 Wang Yuan, Registrar of Liang-Qin
Wang Yuan, a native of Taiyuan commandery, served as registrar in the Northern Wei province of Liang-Qin. When the Baoxie road through the Qinling, reopened on the orders of the regional inspector Yang Zhi from 507, was finished, the work was commemorated in 509 by the Shimen Inscription, written out by Wang Yuan and cut by the Luoyang mason Wu Aren on the east wall of the Stone Gate tunnel. Its broad, free-flowing script was ranked in the highest class by Kang Youwei in the late Qing. The inscription was cut from the cliff in 1967 ahead of a reservoir and is now in the Hanzhong Museum. Nothing else is known of him beyond his signature.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active c. 509 under the Northern Wei