It is difficult for the champion to enter the ranks of everyone. Among the 265 top scholars in Tang and Song Dynasties, eight masters such as Su Shi and other great poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu all won the top scholar. This extremely unique historical and cultural phenomenon is still an ancient cultural mystery that puzzles people.
Among the top scholars in the past dynasties, the highest achievement in poetry and painting was Wang Wei, the top scholar of the New Weike in the 19th year of Tang Kaiyuan (73 1). He is one of the outstanding representatives of the pastoral poetry school in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and his poetic art is considered to be "from Li (Bai) to Du (Fu), which should be the first". There is a saying that "Li Bai is a genius, Du Fu is a native talent and Wang Wei is a talent". Because of his deep belief in Buddhism, later generations also called Wang Wei Shi Fo.
Wang Wei is not only recognized as Shi Fo, but also a master of Nanshan literati painting. Qian Zhongshu called him "the first painter in the prosperous Tang Dynasty".
After Sui Dynasty, landscape painting in Tang Dynasty developed into two schools with different styles. First, the "green landscape" represented by military commanders Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao in the early Tang Dynasty; One is the "ink landscape" represented by Wang Wei. In the Ming Dynasty, Dong Qichang compared with Wang Wei the difference between the north and the south of Zen Buddhism, calling Li the originator of landscape in the north and Wang Wei the originator of landscape in the south.