A Life of Brush and Bureaucracy In the early years of the Tang dynasty, a man named Yan Liben moved through the imperial halls of Chang'an with a dual identity that defined his very existence. He was a high official, a politician who climbed the ranks to serve as chancellor under Emperor Gaozong, yet his true essence resided in the tip of his brush. Born into a family where art and administration were inextricably linked, he learned the secrets of calligraphy and painting from his father, Yan Pi, a man who had served the Sui dynasty as a painter and official. This lineage provided more than j…
A chart of Yan Liben's corpus mapped not by date but by subject. Spokes are what they painted; rings are when; and the threads between stars reveal the patrons and places that secretly connect them.
Each arm of the atlas gathers works by what they depict: portraits, sacred scenes, mythologies, and the scientific studies. Click a spoke to swing that cluster to the top.
Distance from the center marks time. The innermost ring is the earliest period; the outermost, the final years. Style matures as you move outward.
Coloured lines link works bound by the same patron, commission, or theme. Trace a context to watch related clusters light up across subjects.