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Wang Jian
Mid-Tang poet, courtesy name Zhongchu, known as Sima Wang, who is paired with Zhang Ji as the Zhang-Wang school of yuefu and is remembered for his hundred Palace Poems.
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 Zhongchu · Sima Wang
Wang Jian, courtesy name Zhongchu, came from Yingchuan (around Xuchang, Henan), was born around 767 and died around 830. He served as military adjutant at Shanzhou, hence the name Sima Wang. A friend of Zhang Ji, he wrote yuefu on the hardships of ordinary life, and the two are paired as the Zhang-Wang school, among the representatives of the Mid-Tang New Yuefu movement. His hundred Palace Poems, in seven-character quatrains, describe court life and were widely influential; his poems appear in the Thousand Family Poems and the Three Hundred Tang Poems.
Life and times
Dates c. 767–c. 830 CE