Writers › Writer / Poet
Fan Yun
Qi and Liang literary figure and one of the Eight Friends of Jingling, who rose to Right Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs under the Liang and was made Marquis of Xiaocheng.
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 Courtesy name Yanlong · Marquis of Xiaocheng
Fan Yun, courtesy name Yanlong, came from Wuyin in Nanxiang (around modern Xichuan, Henan) and was born in 451. He served the Southern Qi, was sent on a mission to the Northern Wei in 492 where Emperor Xiaowen thought well of him, and belonged to the circle known as the Eight Friends of Jingling around Prince Xiao Ziliang. Under the Liang he rose to Right Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs and was made Marquis of Xiaocheng. He died in 503 at fifty-two and was posthumously honoured with the name Wen. His verse is clear and graceful, and his collected works ran to thirty chapters; poems survive in the Jade Terrace anthology and Gu Shi Yuan.
Life and times
Dates 451–503 CE