Writers › Writer / Poet
Lin Bu
Northern Song recluse poet who lived on Solitary Hill by West Lake for twenty years, never married, and is best known for his lines on plum blossom
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 Zi Junfu · Shi Hejing · Xihu Yinshi · Meiqi Hezi
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Lin Bu, courtesy name Junfu, came from Qiantang in Hangzhou, lost his father young, studied hard and had no interest in office. After travelling along the Yangzi and Huai he returned to Hangzhou and built a hut on Solitary Hill in West Lake, where for twenty years he never set foot in the city. Emperor Zhenzong sent him grain and silk and told local officials to call on him. He wrote a fine running script and discarded his poems once written, saying he did not want fame from verse, so what survives was mostly copied by others. He never married, and later writers, recalling the plum trees and cranes he kept, said he took plum blossom for a wife and cranes for sons. He died in 1028 and Emperor Renzong named him Mr Hejing. Two lines of his Small Plum in the Mountain Garden, on sparse shadows over clear water and hidden fragrance under the moon, gave the Southern Song poet Jiang Kui the titles of two songs.
Life and times
Dates c. 967 CE–1028 CE (birth by another account 957)