64 China in World History
poetry, considering them too constraining for his unbridled inspiration.
He liked to give the impression that he cared nothing about fame and
offi cial rank and that he would just as soon throw his brilliant poems
into a rushing stream as copy them into a notebook for posterity. Li Bo
could use poems in the Confucian way, to criticize social ills and injus-
tices, but he was more likely to celebrate the beauties of nature and the
fun of drinking with his friends. More than with any other Chinese poet
of any time, Li Bo’s poetry celebrated his own unique self.
In contrast to Li Bo, Du Fu served in several positions as a conscien-
tious Confucian offi cial, and he was a careful craftsman in poetry, never
violating the proper poetic form. He was the most versatile Chinese
poet ever. He could be profoundly erudite, highly political, or critical
of corruption and inequality, as well as light, playful, deeply compas-
sionate, or intensely personal. Du Fu demonstrated the full range of his
humanity in his poems, writing fondly of his wife and his children, his
friends, and his daily routine.
Other Tang poets have also been immortalized in Chinese culture.
Bo Juyi, for example, was one of the most popular poets during his
own time, the late eighth and early ninth century, and on into the pres-
ent. He wrote in a simple and direct style that made his poems popular
with everyone, not just the highly educated. His “Song of Everlasting
Sorrow” described the tragedy of Emperor Xuanzong and his Precious
Consort Yang Guifei, helping to make her the best-known imperial con-
cubine in Chinese history. People in all walks of life bought his poems
in urban markets, and courtesans set his verses to music. He was one
of China’s fi rst international celebrities. The great Japanese novel from
the tenth century, The Tale of Genji, quotes dozens of poems by Bo Juyi
and his friends.
The Tang court, like all subsequent courts in imperial China,
patronized many artists, and Chang’an became a magnet drawing the
best painters in the land. Members of the elite continued in the Tang to
be buried in tombs with elaborate paintings on the walls, but Tang art-
ists also painted on vertical hanging scrolls or horizontal hand scrolls
designed not for tombs but for private ownership by the living. Although
few Tang paintings have survived the ravages of war and time, schol-
ars now regard the Tang as the fi rst great period of Chinese landscape
painting. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Chang’an Chinese artisans
quickly learned Persian metalworking techniques for making delicate
objects in gold and silver. Merchant caravans from the West were so
common that people began placing in tombs cheap painted and glazed
porcelain representations of Western merchants and entertainers and