Zang Xiaogang Analysis

HOW ZHANG XIAOGANG CRITICIZE THE SOCIETY THROUGH HIS ARTWORKS?

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to investigate different expressions that Zhang used to criticize the society.

It will define that Zhang used traditional Chinese charcoal drawing aesthetic to show the subtext of his artworks in contemporary Chinese art. By tracing the traditional Chinese charcoal drawing aesthetic in Chinese Painter Zhang Xiaogang artistic development in the past two decades, his art as a whole can be interpreted in presenting his concerns of the foregone society and showing his own feelings towards the public history with a unique form of expression.

INTRODUCTION

In this article, I will argue that Zhang’s artworks focus on the performance of notion of identity

And explore his style of painting, such as the wavers between the downy exaggeration of animation and the rigid flatness. It will also examine how Zhang expresses his self-feeling in his painting by using different drawing techniques. And I will analyse the characteristic of his artworks through 3 pieces of his planting.

INTRODUCTION TO ZHANG XIAOGANG’S LIFE AND CAREER

Zhang Xiaogang was born in Kunming, Yunnan Province in 1958. Zhang’s childhood was during the political upheavals known as the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, which exerted an element of impact on Zhang’s painting. In 1975, he met his first teacher Lin Ling, who was a Chinese water color painter and taught him formal water color and sketching techniques. He started having a great interest on drawing at that time. Therefore, Zhang was accepted into the Sichuan Academy of Fine arts two years after, and then he began studying oil based painting. While he was studying in the University, his professors continued to teach him styles of Revolutionary Realism such as the Soviet Union realist art, which converted him to the modern arts of the western countries. This also inspired him to opt for topics of the western philosophy and introspective

According to an article published in China Academic Journals, the writers (Li Yu-kun, Zhang Yue, Li tournament, Li Linlin and Chai Yu) said that this artwork series had a high price of works of art presented in front of world, but his art didn’t belong to any art faction. From the series “prairie paintings” to “A Big Family”, Zhang Xiaogang followed his heart from beginning to the end. At first, he just imitates the western expressionism and surrealism painting language mode. After experiencing some external influence, he found his own artistic tendencies location, which is changing his art presentation from showing his own feeling to focusing on the past society. Zhang noticed that there’s a complicated rapport between the state and the people that he could convey by making use of Cultural Revolution. China is like a family, a big family. Everyone must depend on each other and to face each other. This was the issue he paid attention to, and gradually, it became more and more linked to people’s states of mind and less to the Cultural Revolution. Therefore, he painted this series and those of them are about family photographs. He often painted in black and white and used the idea of the traditional quality of formal photo studio poses and grayscale palette of old photographs, which are using the technique of the traditional Chinese charcoal drawing. Besides the grey tone, there is always a