If you take metros in Beijing, especially late at night, there is a good chance you may run into a tall British man walking around with a camera taking pictures of all the art and decorations within the stations. Passersby look at him strangely and curiously, but his passion for history and desire to learn about and capture every artistic element of the public transport system, keeps him going on his quest to document it all.
Brian Salter, who is in his 60s, has lived and worked in Beijing for more than six years. For him, the Chinese capital city is like a fairyland full of surprises that has never ending paths to explore. Over the past year, artwork in Beijing's metro system has become the focus of his exploration.
The ignored artwork
Salter lives in the city center and takes subways and buses on a regular basis. He had always been attracted by the great diversity of the artwork, including sculptures, murals, calligraphy and special lighting in the metro stations and curious about the themes and stories behind them.
"I was mentioning this to someone one day, and I couldn't believe when she said she did not know there was any artwork in the subway. And she was a Beijinger! When I talked to a few other people, I got similar responses," he said.
As a man fascinated in art and Chinese culture, he could not bear that the delicate designs and art pieces were being ignored and wasted. Therefore, he decided to write a book about it and there started his journey full of exploration and discoveries with the Beijing metro.
In the following months, Salter would jump onto an underground train when he had free time and recorded everything in each of the stations and lines.
"Over the course of about three months, I took photographs of just about anything that could possibly be categorized as art, slowly ticking off each station as I visited it."
The project was time-consuming and in order to capture every piece of artwork, Salter had to walk up and down the linking passageways and go through every corner inside the station. To get a clear view of the artwork, he often had to wait for all the passengers to walk past, which could take a lot of time in crowded Beijing subways.
"The worst was the Beijing Zoo station, which I had to visit late in the evening when all the kids had gone home for the night," he laughed.
Despite the difficulties, Salter gradually became more and more addicted to his metro project as he started to learn about the history and meanings of the art. Metro stations became a window for him to see and learn about Beijing's culture and history.
Full of discovery
"To try to find out why some of the themes for the murals were used, I had to dig into some of the history of Beijing, which in itself was a very interesting pastime," Salter said.
He found that behind the names of the metro stations were historical stories about the city that link the theme of the artwork to the station.
For example, Zhangzizhong station on Line 5 is the only station in the whole metro system that is named after a person - a famous military general that fought to his death during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945). And it reminds people of that piece of memorable history, which is demonstrated by the sculptures and frescos at the station. Furthermore, works in other stations illustrate some of the trades or famous places or events that have occurred locally.
Salter often found himself immersed in questions about the metro system and the more he asked, the deeper he got in learning about Beijing's culture.
"Some of the seemingly easy questions were the most difficult to answer. For instance, why are Dongzhimen and Xizhimen stations called by those names? Dong and Xi are east and west respectively; men means gate. But what does Zhi represent? What is straight, upright, or direct about these two gates?" he smiled and asked, leaving a mystery for others to solve.
Moreover, the works also deliver values that help Salter understand local people better. For example, in Xiju station (Line 10 and 14), the images of honeybees flying to sunflowers represent hardworking people who strive for a bright and hopeful future. The spirit of the art echoes with many who work in this hustling and bustling city and rush in and out of the station every day.
After months of exploration, he now knows much more about Beijing than he did before. For instance, Cao Xueqin, author of the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber, lived in the area now known as Ciqikou. In addition, Beihai Park has the longest history of existing imperial gardens and Beiyunhe West is the northern shipping terminus of the Tongzhou canal.
"Through the art, one can find out so much about day-to-day life of days gone by," he said.
Likes and dislikes
Over the past year, Salter has visited 354 metro stations and was impressed by the variety of the designs and the quality of the works. If one wants to know where to find the best art in the Beijing subway system, Salter is the perfect person to ask.
"The best lines for artwork, in my opinion, are 4, 6, 7 and the western side of 10," he said. One of his favorite pieces is located in Zaoyuan station (Daxing Line) and is called Pastoral Sonata, which he says has to be one of the most stunning pieces of art in the entire Beijing Subway system.
"The 33-meter-long piece made by the cloisonné process makes the entire image almost jump out from the wall," he said.
Other recommendations include Gongzhufen's (Line 10) Birds toward the Phoenix, an allegory about women (traditionally emperors were thought of as dragons, while their first ladies were phoenixes) and the artwork in Chedaogou (Line 10), where four small murals blend pictures of a horse and foal, a lion, deer and birds with matching brass footprints cleverly blended into the floors.
"The new stations on Line 16, which opened at the end of December, are all attractive because of their ceilings. Line 7 features calligraphy throughout; Line 15 has some stunning lighting, especially the Olympic Green station," he said with excitement.
However, not all subway lines provide a rich artistic experience. On Salter's least-recommended list are Batong and Yizhuang lines and Line 13. Both Tuanjiehu and Hujialou on Line 10 win his "wooden spoon award" for their lack-luster artwork.
Apart from Beijing, Salter has also visited subway systems in other cities in China.
"Shenzhen and Shanghai are both impressive, and Taipei is probably the best in terms of system design and well thought out artwork. Hong Kong is the most disappointing, as it looks tired and unexciting," he commented.
To share his experiences with more people and to draw more attention to subway artwork, Salter has compiled a book called Underground Art in the Beijing Subway, and it is currently available as an e-book and will be published in hard copy later this year. The book is likely to be translated into Chinese, providing a different view of the subway system from a British expat's perspective.
In fact, this is not the only publication about Beijing you will be seeing from Salter. He has been exploring Beijing in great detail and has already written over 100 blogs about the city's museums, temples and parks.
"Life should be enjoyed and art can feed the inner spirit; so why not explore it further? Plus, it is really fun," Salter said.
