People have an incredibly vivid imagination when it comes to snow. Of course, snow is visually quite special. It is able to envelop the world in a veil instantaneously. The fact that it is able to bring about such change to the world to which we are accustomed must be one of the reasons people like it so much. When a huge area of land is suddenly covered in a boundless blanket of white, we enter an entirely new, surreal world in which all dirt and litter has been swept away. This is one of the wonders of nature that man just loves and the reason for which people, especially children, are so fascinated by it. In addition to this, snow is amazingly fluid, twisting and turning at every opportunity. It flutters in the wind, floating up and down in between the vast open sky and the great expanse of earth below. It's as if snowflakes have a life of their own, "Melting, melting, melting, I [a snowflake] would melt into the gentle waves of her bosom."  Snow here is teasing the conscience. The problem is that such seemingly lively snow can have so many different meanings. Different people project different meanings on snowscapes and it's only with this in mind that we can fully understand Xu Zhimo's hopes in, "If I were a snowflake……".

　　Zhang Jian has intentionally painted his snowscape series blurred and ambiguous. The scenes are distant and indistinct but are still able to give us the impression that "Swallow Mountain snowflakes are larger than mattresses".  These immense snowscapes are illusory and obscure from which any number of meanings can be understood. With such work, Zhang Jian is not trying to express his own feelings towards these scenes but rather the fact that they can move different people in so many different ways. More precisely, Zhang Jian paints snow in order to ask questions: why do people have such variable feelings towards snow? How do people enjoy snow? How do they find meaning in these snowscapes? And more generally, why is it that people can have different feelings towards the same landscape? This is why Zhang Jian's snowscape series is more than just purely sentimental work; it is a study. How can an artwork have numerous sentimental meanings? Where do these sentiments come from? Zhang Jian thus contrasts this snowscape series with a series of other scenes. Contrast here is vital because it allows us see the special nature of snow and snowscapes and in this way understand the special feelings people have for them. Only with a concrete contrast can we see snowscapes' differing significance. As we can see, the difference doesn't appear to be very great between these snowscape paintings, all being quite distant and empty with only tiny specks of human shadows scattered across the canvas of boundless blue sky and snow - the classic snowy scene. But it is only when such snowscapes are highly universalized may there be any possibility of garnering something concrete from them.

　　What can we see when we contrast these snowscapes with other landscapes then? Let's first look at the contrast with the painting of the tree-lined avenue. Light is scattered all along the avenue, giving it the impression of being a springtime morning with clean, healthy air. The tall, straight trees suggest strong growth, full of vitality. Importantly, there is a strong colour contrast in this painting between the white shadow of the concrete road, the black of the grass (because the branches have cast their shadow all over it), the bright green of other patches of grass (which have not received the shade of the trees), the emerald green colour of the trees themselves (which take up a large part of the canvas) and finally the pure white colour of the sky. The presence of such different colours creates a very striking composition. This painting concerns the composition of colour, that is to say, the effect of (sun) light on colour. Contrasting this scene with those snowscapes, we realise the uniformity of the snowscapes' colour. While in this 'sunscape' the colour is diverse, plentiful and full of depth, the snowscapes are vague, monotone and void of such depth. The world of snow is a generic world, which in some respects gives it part of its magic. The reason why so many people love running in the snow is because this boundless, rootless universe is one without hierarchy or the restrictions of roads. It's a free world, one of imagination. In contrast is the sunny and shady world of layers where limitations abound. People might stroll there, they might contemplate the world there but they certainly wouldn't dream like in places with snow.

　　Now let's look at the contrast of the snowscapes with that of an urban landscape. Zhang Jian has painted a section of a tall building made up of floor upon floor of windows. The rigidity of the building, the feeling of steel, the tidiness of it, the symmetry of it, the regimented nature of it all makes it feel extremely rational. And snow? Well snow is in total contrast to all of this rationality. It's qualities are quite distinct: it's cursive and fine, it's complex yet gentle, so haphazard and carefree and so very fragile. Just imagine what would happen if some of that snow was to drift over onto the building…… If we take snow and buildings to be at two extremes of the spectrum, now let us look at where water fits in. Snow and water clearly have similarities in terms of their fundamental properties, snow ultimately returning to being water at some point. However, we see here an interesting contrast between their forms. Water is a subject that Zhang Jian has always liked, most especially its ripples. Water is flat but is a whole in a self-sustainable universe, a pure world where the ripples represent ripples of the watery universe itself. As for snow, it is sticky and enveloping. It covers objects and is able to change the colour of the whole world but in itself doesn't make up an autonomous world. Once we contrast snow with water, we are able to see clearly that land in snowscapes always keeps its same form, it's just the colour of it that snow changes, not the natural form itself. That is to say, snowscapes have no form of their own. Snow itself is in flux but snowscapes are fixed, whereas water and its form are never fixed. Thus through its contrast to water, we are able grasp the form of snowscapes: their undulating form is at one with that of the world.

　　Out of all the paintings in the snowscape series, the scene which leaves the deepest impression is that of the wintersports. This is something only snowscapes can provide and lies in the playfulness of snow. This is how people become passionate over snow (with the help of sporting competitions, which solidify this interest). It's easy to forget the uniqueness of this playfulness because it's so dependent upon the weather. I don't believe the joy brought about by wind, rain or sun can compare to that of snow. The most interesting of contrasts that Zhang Jian makes is of that between snowscapes and a fairground's Ferris Wheel. Here we are made further aware of the diverse meaning of snow - it is not only an outlet for sentiment, but also a tool to play with. Through these contrasts to sunlight, water, buildings and fairground amusements, the various meanings of snow and snowscapes are thus made evidently clear.

作者：Wang Min’an