MUZIChinese Matrix
Writers › Writer / Poet
Early Tang poet styled Bijian, one of the Four Friends of Literature and grandfather of Du Fu, a founder of regulated verse.
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 Bijian
Du Shenyan, courtesy name Bijian, was an early Tang poet who took the jinshi in 670 and served as county captain and assistant magistrate. Demoted to Jizhou in 698, he later became a court editor and Hall of Literary Refinement academician in 708, the year he died, and was posthumously made Director of Compilation. Grouped with Li Jiao, Su Weidao and Cui Rong as the Four Friends of Literature, he is remembered for the early Tang regulated verse 'Early Spring Outing, Matching Lu of Jinling'. His grandson Du Fu wrote that his grandfather's poetry surpassed the ancients.
Tang
Du ShenyanDu Shenyan passed the jinshi examination and began as defender of Xicheng; after several moves he was assistant magistrate of Luoyang, was demoted over a case to a registrar post in Jizhou, then became assistant in the Palace Library, moved to vice director of the Bureau of Provisions, and was called to be registrar of the Directorate of Education with the added title of Xiuwen academy scholar.
Du Shenyan was long skilled in five-character verse and good at calligraphy, and had a name for ability. He said his prose deserved to have Qu Yuan and Song Yu as his clerks and his calligraphy to have Wang Xizhi face north to him; his peers, hurt by his proud manner, grudged him.
