Li Bai: The Poet
Li Bai (Tang Dynasty), one of the key figures in the history of Chinese incense culture.
Li Bai · Tang Dynasty
Identity:Poet
Representative Incense Works / Incense Events:Incense Poetry
Fragrance permeates Li Bai's poems: "Burning incense as I enter the Orchid Terrace, drafting many fragrant words" and "Jade tents, mandarin ducks spray agarwood." His writings on incense often accompany the imperial court, beauties, and immortal wanderings—splendid within the bold and unconstrained, a projection of the grandeur of the High Tang onto the sense of smell.
And Chinese Incense Culture
Seen through Li Bai, Chinese incense culture is not an isolated craft, but a process in which generation after generation of literati and artisans continuously documented, systematized, and spiritualized olfactory experience. Only by understanding these pioneers can one understand the weight of the wisp of incense in one's hand today.
Representative Incense Formulas · Incense Poems · Incense Treatises
Incense Poems"Qingping Diao"
"Famous flowers and a beauty compete in delight, ever winning the emperor's smiling gaze. Explaining the boundless regrets of the spring breeze, north of the Agarwood Pavilion, leaning on the railing." — The Agarwood Pavilion of the Tang palace was made of agarwood; Li Bai used it to point to the flourishing of incense burning in the High Tang.
Incense Poems"Yang Pan'er"
"Agarwood fire in the Boshan censer, twin smokes as one breath rise to the purple clouds." It depicts agarwood curling upward in the Boshan censer, twin smokes reflecting each other—the most lush and vivid stroke among Tang incense poems.