His achievements in literature are the most outstanding.
Although Su Shi's poetry, prose, novels and other literary works are not large in quantity, their quality is extremely high. His poetry is known as one of the "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties", which shows his literary attainments.
Su Shi's calligraphy works are also unique and form a school of their own, and are known by later generations as the representative of the "Su School" of calligraphy. Su Shi also had high achievements in painting, music and politics, but in comparison, his achievements in literature were the most significant. Therefore, Su Shi is called "the first among the five unique talents".