Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhang Zai (Western Jin)
Western Jin writer styled Mengyang from Anping, one of the Three Zhangs with his brothers, known for the Jiange Inscription and Seven Sorrows.
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 Mengyang · Zhang Mengyang
Zhang Zai, courtesy name Mengyang, came from Anping in Boling and was a Western Jin writer, known with his brothers Zhang Xie and Zhang Kang as the Three Zhangs. He held posts from assistant editor to secretariat gentleman and, late in the War of the Eight Princes, pleaded illness, resigned and died. His Jiange Inscription, written on a journey to visit his father in Sichuan, is his best-known piece; about ten poems survive, including two Seven Sorrows, and his early rhapsody Mengsi Fu won Fu Xuan's praise.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; active in the Western Jin from the Taikang era to the War of the Eight Princes (c. 280-306)