Writers › Writer / Poet
Chang Jian
High Tang landscape poet, jinshi of 727 alongside Wang Changling, remembered for his poem on the rear meditation hall of Po Mountain Temple.
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 Chang Jian, Defender of Xuyi
Chang Jian's dates and birthplace are uncertain (Xingtai or Chang'an). He took the jinshi in 727, in the same year as Wang Changling, and was made defender of Xuyi. Frustrated in his career, he withdrew to Wuchang in Ezhou and lived in the western hills with Wang Changling and Zhang Fen. His poem on the rear meditation hall of Po Mountain Temple, with the line about a bamboo path leading to a secluded spot, is the most admired; Lament at General Wang's Tomb is a notable frontier poem. The Complete Tang Poems preserves 57 of his poems.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; jinshi in 727 CE, active in the High Tang