Articulating and debating the view of 'good' art

Padraig Maxwell

Wanting to travel to Datong in northern Shanxi province for the Mid-Autumn Festival earlier last month, I made the mistake of booking it late and so, with millions of others traveling to visit family and friends, I barely managed to get a train ticket leaving Beijing on the Sunday evening before the festival.

I hadn't planned on going anywhere but when a friend gave me a mooncake from Yunnan province, I decided that a festival that produces cakes this good deserves to be celebrated. I looked at a map of China and spotted Datong — one of the "nine ancient capitals of China", a city with a history of conquest and creativity stretching back more than 2,000 years, reputedly visited by Marco Polo.

Colorful gift boxes cluttered the walkways, seats and overhead shelves of the train as people settled in for the journey. I could see the landscape and the weather change as we rolled by fields of solar panels, cliff faces and hills and, eventually, wind farms. By the time we got to Datong station, there was a drizzle in the air that gave the impression it hadn't been dry here for a number of centuries. The place was cool and dank and I immediately loved it.

On Sunday night, I wandered about the old town, stepping into the vast reconstructed city walls, feeling like I would get lost for weeks inside them. I finally stepped out of the dark to the sight of kids being carried home by the hand, in arms or on shoulders.

On the train to Datong, I read about the Yungang Grottoes, a 1-kilometer-long stretch of 51,000 Buddha carvings ranging from 2 centimeters to 17 meters in height. It is estimated that up to 40,000 craftsmen worked on the rock carvings over centuries, bringing touches of Central Asian, Indian, Greek and Persian culture to mingle with indigenous art forms.

When I went to see them the next day, I felt as I often do when I'm in the presence of art like that, grasping for a reference point — you know what you're looking at is "good" but you seem incapable of comprehending why it's good.

On the way back from the caves, I shared a taxi with a father and son from Guangzhou, Guangdong province, who'd come north for a holiday. Haoyang, the son, was in his early 30s and spoke good English. I asked him what they had thought of the grottoes, "One Buddha, two Buddhas, three Buddhas … Once you've seen four Buddha statues, you've seen them all," was his considered view.

I laughed, not wanting to agree, but unable to find adequate words for a debate. There was what must have been awe rising from the pit of my stomach when I first saw the great outdoor Buddha, but what I was looking for were technical, rigorous words, not feelings.

On his phone, Haoyang showed me a photo of a 2,500-year-old wine goblet in Beijing's Palace Museum, or Forbidden City, which he'd visited the day before.

"Now, that's impressive," he said.

It was. Some young men must have grown old crafting the intricate dragon forms that sprouted from each corner atop the now-green copper goblet.

"Impressive," I agreed, nodding and feeling impressed, but again lacking words beyond parroting Haoyang's.

And so we moved on to food. "The food is better in Guangzhou," my new mate said, and I thought of my Datong lunch, which was also impressive; but unsure of what I'd eaten, I couldn't counter, and asked him whether the cuisine in his hometown was very spicy.

He talked of food as concern gradually rose in his face. We were on the wrong side of the road and had been for a couple of minutes. It was rush hour and oncoming cars made some serious noise as they approached our taxi. Our driver sounded his horn in return and remained in the lane he had claimed. Haoyang asked him what he was doing, and the driver said something to soothe his nerves while facing down the next oncoming car.

As a former taxi driver, I could only admire the man's self-assurance. Instinctively, I trusted him and, anyway, I was relieved to be off the subject of trying to adequately debate art. But when I exited the car and said goodbye to a relieved Haoyang and his father, I realized I was still frustrated.

My frustration rose as I walked through crowds of moon harvest revelers on Daxi Street, but eventually Bertolt Brecht came to my rescue. A Worker Reads History — that's what I needed.

I looked for it on my phone later that night and thought of those 40,000 craftsmen, plus the two or three who may have worked on the goblet, as I read, "The books are filled with names of kings.

"Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? In which of Lima's houses, that city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?

"In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished, where did the masons go?"

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