Since 2000, ZHANG Jian have created a series of art works on Tian'anmen and Houhai. Compared with his previous impressionism style, these works, whether colored or single, are all far away from the nature of painting, but close to image effect. Glittering sunshine is replaced by obscure, vast and profound visualizations, offering people with seemingly quiet and unromantic feelings. I think the meaning behind these works on Tian'anmen and Houhai is that these works are a kind of reflections and responses to ZHANG Jian's personal growing experiences and the commonly shared political experiences of Chinese. For this, in his talks with the critic WU Hong, ZHANG Jian said something about it on his personal experiences: "When I was 13, I rided on my father's bike and it took me 4 hours riding from the distant suburb to West Chang'an Street through to the Tian'anmen Square, then a circle by a circle around the square. It was so grand, bright and high. For a boy of 13, the 'high' was mainly the result from the propagandization by the mainstream media. Then 20 years later, I again stood in the same place and created these two huge square paintings. For these,Tian'anmen was only a red point in the distance in the picture. This red point provoked the 'public experiences' of the majorities. Then a new explanation came into being." However, obviously, ZHANG Jian's re-explanation of Tian'anmen grew out of the public experiences made by the mainstream media, strictly speaking the intertextual relationship of political experiences of the public. Only for that, the previously grand, high and magnificent Tian'anmen described as a small red point in the distance in ZHANG Jian's paintings can offer us such charming psychological feelings. But what I would like to say is that for the growing-up of a generation, this is an issue never serious enough, for it is related to the psychological fact that regarding the centre as the direction of action has been lost in the heart of the generation. Therefore, it seriousness is nothing less than that of the death of the God as Nietzsche said. Maybe as the compensation to this charming and extremely serious issue, ZHANG Jian painted more on another space close to Tian'anmen: Houhai.

　　If say ZHANG Jian's series of Tian'anmen only show his personal feelings towards the two different times, then in his seemingly unromantic, peaceful and still description of Houhai, he expresses his complex psychological state similarly after the death of the God. To me, such complex psychological state is uniquely possessed by a man, or a generation of people after losing direction in the center, that kind of helplessness and sink not knowing what course to take and whom to rely on; that kind of freedom and bepuzzlement without scruple and belief. Maybe it is just this kind of nihility feeling that make ZHANG Jian only see the hollowness and quietness in already flourishing Houhai. To me, that lonely swimmer in Houhai can be regarded as the sign of living consciousness and life state of a generation. I must say that all I read from ZHANG Jian's Houhai series are also gained from the meaning association of Houhai and Tian'anmen described by ZHANG Jian and the real Houhai and real Tian'anmen as the center of Beijing and China's politics (during the period of the Cultural Revolution, Tian'anmen was called as the center of world revolution). ZHANG Jian mentioned when he said something about these works: "Having weight in the purity is my direction." In my opinion, the nihility feeling he expressed in his description of Tian'anmen and Houhai appears right after the loss of central direction and this, not only achieves his purity in art, but also grants him with weight in purity.

Wangjing Garden, Jan. 8th, 2007

作者：ZOU Yuejin