Writers › Writer / Poet
Chu Guangxi
High Tang pastoral poet who took the jinshi in 726 and rose to Investigating Censor, was caught up in the An Lushan rebellion and demoted; his Tian Jia Za Xing and Mu Tong Ci depict country life.
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 Investigating Censor Chu
Chu Guangxi came from Yanling in Runzhou (modern Jintan, Changzhou, Jiangsu) and was born around 706. He took the jinshi in 726 in the same year as Cui Guofu and Qiwu Qian, held minor posts, withdrew for a time to the Zhongnan Mountains, and became Investigating Censor in 756. He held office under the rebels during the An Lushan rebellion, was demoted to the south after it was put down, and was pardoned in 762. A master of the old-style pentasyllabic poem, he wrote of country life in works such as Tian Jia Za Xing, Mu Tong Ci and Qiao Fu Ci, and is counted among the leading pastoral poets of the High Tang.
Life and times
Dates c. 706–c. 762 CE (death year disputed)