Writers › Writer / Poet
Zhang Hu
Mid-Tang poet styled Chengji, famed for his palace poems and 'Inscribed at Jinling Ferry', who never held office.
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 Chengji · Donggua (childhood name)
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Zhang Hu, courtesy name Chengji, was a Tang poet whose birthplace is given as Wucheng in Bei prefecture or Rang in Deng prefecture. Scholars disagree on his dates: birth in 782, 792 or 802, death in 853 or 854; c. 785 to c. 854 is the usual compromise. He is known for palace poems and 'Inscribed at Jinling Ferry', and a line of his Jiling Tai gave the idiom 'faintly pencilled brows'. He once lost to Xu Ning in the Hangzhou prefectural contest, and Linghu Chu recommended him without success.
Life and times
Dates c. 785-c. 854 CE; both dates disputed