Sīkōng Tú 司空圖 (837–908, zì Biǎoshèng 表聖, late-life hào Zhīfēizǐ 知非子 and Nàirǔ jūshì 耐辱居士), of Hézhōng Yúxiāng 河中虞鄉 (modern Shānxī Yǒngjǐ; ancestral Hénèi). Jìnshì of late Xiántōng (873). Served in the XuānShè mù (under Wáng Níng), then as Lǐbù lángzhōng; under Xīzōng (873–88) he was Zhī zhìgào and Zhōngshū shèrén — at the imperial residence-in-exile at Fèngxiáng (after the imperial flight from Huáng Cháo).
Foreseeing the imperial collapse, he resigned and withdrew to the family villa at Wángguān gǔ 王官谷 in the Zhōngtiáo 中條 mountains. Lóngjì and Qiánníng periods, summoned with old offices and Hù- / Bīng- 2 shìláng posts — refused; transferred to Luò and decreed to court — feigned senility, begged to return. When Zhū Quánzhōng 朱全忠 (Zhū Wēn) summoned him, he firmly refused; when Zhū usurped the throne (founding the HòuLiáng, 907), Sīkōng (on hearing of Āizōng’s murder) starved himself to death. Xīn Tángshū placed him in the Zhuóxíng (extraordinary-conduct) biography category.
Sīkōng’s enduring fame comes principally from the Èrshísì shīpǐn 二十四詩品 (Twenty-Four Categories of Poetry) — 24 prose-poem characterizations of poetic moods. The work circulated separately and became the canonical statement of late-Táng poetic aesthetics. Modern philology (Chén Shàngjūn 陳尚君, 1995, building on earlier doubts) has argued for an YuánMíng forgery attribution to Yú Zhāo 虞兆 — the now-prevailing scholarly view.
Principal works in the corpus: Sīkōng Biǎoshèng wénjí KR4c0095 in 10 juǎn (the Yī míng jí prose); Sīkōng Biǎoshèng shī jí KR4c0096 in 5 juǎn (SBCK verse). CBDB id 92445 confirms 837–908.