Spring's Earliest Blossoms

Wang Mian, courtesy name Yuanzhang (元章), also known as Zhushi Shannong, was a Chinese painter and poet active during the Yuan dynasty. Initially aspiring to be a government official, Wang later earned considerable recognition as an artist who specialised in plum blossom paintings. Falling out of the public eye in his later years, he had a short stint as military adviser to Zhu Yuanzhang. Wang makes an appearance in the eighteenth-century novel The Scholars.