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Xu Wei (, 1521–1593), also known as Qingteng Shanren (), was a Chinese painter, playwright, poet, and tea master during the Ming dynasty.

Life

Xu's courtesy names were Wenqing (文清) and then later Wenchang (文長). His pseudonyms were "The Mountain-man of the Heavenly Pond" (天池山人 Tiānchí Shānrén), "Daoist of the Green Vine House" (青藤道士 Qīngténg Dàoshì) and "The Water and Moon of the Bureau's Farm" (署田水月 Shǔtián Shuǐ Yuè). Nevertheless, Xu was employed by Hu Zongxian, Supreme Commander of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Fujian coastal defense against the wokou pirates.

The British orientalist Arthur Waley, in his introduction to the 1942 translation of Jin Ping Mei argued that Xu Wei was the author but later scholars have not been convinced.

Xu Wei was also a poet in shi style. Xu's collected works in 30 chapters exists with a commentary by the late Ming writer Yuan Hongdao. Xu cared most about calligraphy and then poetry. A modern typeset edition of Xu Wei's collected works, Xu Wei ji, was published by the Zhonghua Publishing House in Beijing in 1983. Previously a 17th-century edition of his collected works known as the Xu Wenchang sanji was reproduced in Taiwan in 1968. In 1990 a book length study of Xu Wei concludes that Xu Wei can be seen as a “scholar in cotton clothes” or buyi wenren (布衣文人), a scholar who failed the civil service examination, yet became active in the realm of literature. Many such individuals appeared in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and attached themselves to officials or became independent in late Ming China.

Painting style

Xu Wei used "splattered ink [that] utilises considerable quantities of ink that are practically poured onto the painting surface".

thumb|right|200px|Grapes (葡萄), Xu Wei, [[Palace Museum]]

See also

  • Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou
  • Wu Changshuo
  • Qi Baishi
  • Bada Shanren

Notes

References

  • Barnhart, R. M. et al. (1997). Three thousand years of Chinese painting. New Haven, Yale University Press.
  • Chaves, Jonathan. "The Columbia Book of Later Chinese Poetry." New York: Columbia University Press, 1986; pp. 310–320. First scholarly presentation of Xu as a poet.
  • Liang and Goodrich in Goodrich and Fang, Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, Columbia University Press, New York, 1976, vol. 1, pp. 609–612.
  • Carpenter, Bruce E, "Cruelty and Genius: Poems of Hsü Wei", Tezukayama University Review (Tezukayama Daigaku Ronshu), Nara, Japan, 1979, no. 26, pp. 16–36.
  • Yu Jianhua and Chen Sunglin, A Complete Collection of Chinese Paintings (Zhongguo huihua chuanji) Zhejiang Peoples' Art Press, 2000, vol. 15, pp. 1–51.
  • Ma Liangchun and Li Futian, Encyclopedia of Chinese Literature, vol. 7, p. 4904.
  • Shen Moujian, Encyclopedia of Chinese Artists (Zhongguo meishu jia renming cidian), Shanghai, p. 73.
  • Wang Yao-t'ing, Looking at Chinese Painting, Nigensha Publishing Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 1996 (first English edition), p. 75.
  • Zhang Xinjian, A Preliminary Study of Xu Wei (Xu Wei lungao), Wenhua yishu Publishing Co., Beijing, 1990.
  • Ci hai bian ji wei yuan hui (辞海编辑委员会). Ci hai (辞海). Shanghai: Shanghai ci shu chu ban she (上海辞书出版社), 1979.