Superlatively iconic and consummately executed, Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline-Big Family: Family Portrait from 1998 is one of the first portraits to feature full-body figures. Created at the apex of Zhang’s career when his Bloodline visual lexicon had reached full maturity in terms of style and technique, the present work attains classical perfection in compositional symmetry and rendering, particularly in the pensive mottled background. Zhang Xiaogang’s era-defining Bloodline series, created in endless permutations over the years, is an epochal visual encapsulation of the inescapability of familial and socio-political ties that bind people together – laterally, within present society, as well as throughout history. Exhibited and critically acclaimed in many important international art festivals, most notably the Sao Pãulo Biennial and the Venice Biennale, the series was initially inspired by old family photographs from the Cultural Revolution. Intrigued by the stiff dispositions and facial demeanours within these photographs, the artist documents the scarred memories of his previous generations with his wholly unique visual language – one inspired by photo-realism as well as magical realism and which engages poignantly with collects ive national memory and Chinese identity.

Zhang gave birth to the Bloodline series in the summer of 1993 in Kunming. The immediate prototypes of these works are formal group photographic portraits from the 1950s and 1960s, including those of Zhang’s own family. From these old black-and-white pictures Zhang derived the series’ most defining features: a subdued, nearly monochromatic palette; a thickly layered but flat surface without overt evidence of brushwork; a general compositional restriction to upper bodies; the rigid and frontal poses and faces; and of course the Mao-era hairstyles and dress. The off-color passages, first introduced as patches of light on the faces, later became independent surface elements that recall vintage and damaged photographs. Rooted in the primordial importance of the concept of family in Chinese culture, the series’s origin in the genre of the family portrait evokes extraordinary resonance and compelling psychological power. Johnson Chang has written, “Through the Chinese tradition of portraiture, Zhang has drawn upon the classical iconography of ancestor portraiture of which every Chinese would have vague collects ive memory of” (Johnson Chang, “Between Reality and Illusion,” in Diancang, p. 168). Likewise, for Li Xianting, “The legacy of Confucian ethics takes visual form in the common Chinese family’s ‘family group’ photographs. The technique of formal retouching, the classical upright pose of the figures, the rigidly set social order: all reveal the enduring power of the blood relationship” (Umbilical Cord, p. 37).

As the series progressed, Zhang’s works achieved increasingly a signature aesthetic. The facial features, lit from the right without exception, exhibit faded contours in a diffused chiaroscuro to merge dreamily with the grey backgrounds. The watery eyes hint at traumatic memories beneath the dazed and blank faces, pointing to history as well as interiority - Zhang’s own emotional investment in his subjects. On the other hand, the eyes - the key to the subject’s presence in traditional portraits and religious icons alike - are unrealistically jet-black and oversized, and being invariably unfocused or directed off-axis, they remain spiritually vacant. The translucency is achieved through numerous virtuosically applied layers; Zhang reflects: “To bring out a sense of vacuousness and feminine detachment, I must adhere to a rigorous painting process, and apply very thin layers one after another, repeatedly. Generally a face needs four to five layers”. Although the Big Family paintings are often described, even by Zhang Xiaogang himself, as completing his transition from an “expressionist” to a “surrealist” mode, these terms of early-20th-century Western modernism are not entirely accurate. “Repressive” is perhaps a better description, for the moments of surrealism are not there instead of expression, but to conceal, resist, and thus draw attention to it. To quote Zhang again, “I repeat one formulaic ‘beautiful’ face after another; they seem calm on the surface but are full of numerous complex emotions”.

With solemn, quietly unsettling and icy cold exteriors, Zhang’s portraits unravel hidden tensions in politics and history. Prominent critic Karen Smith writes of Zhang’s works: “Conjuring allusions to received impressions of China under Mao and through the Cultural Revolution, [the Big Family paintings] are eloquently, poignantly, Chinese in their sensibilities. Since the format is derived from conventional black and white, occasionally hand-colored photographic snapshots of the proletariat post-1949, these are sensibilities that Zhang Xiaogang renders accessible to all”. While Zhang is somet.mes s uncomfortably labelled as a Cynical Realist, Arne Glimcher observes that “Zhang Xiaogang’s works are anything but cynical”, aspiring instead to create a personal vision. Stemming from Zhang Xiaogang’s personal preoccupation with the memory of his family, the iconic Big Family series gives voice to his generation’s collects ive traumas and dreams, illusions and disillusions. It does so not by any direct “representation” of the past, but rather by enacting in painting the uncanny ambivalences between self and other, between self and collects ive, and even between self and self. A superlative painting from Zhang's most prominent series, Bloodline-Big Family: Family Portrait encapsulates the artist's paramount position in Chinese art history.

張曉剛《血緣大家庭：全家福》繪於1998年，屬於首批全身肖像作品，技巧風格運用嫻熟，堪稱張氏的典範傑作。本作出自張曉剛藝生涯的頂峰時期，當時，藝術家的《血緣》系列在風格和技術方面完全成熟；此畫構圖對稱，技法方面呈現古典藝術式的完美工整，這一點在惹人愁思的斑駁背景上尤為明顯。《血緣》系列深具劃時代意義，多年來繪有無數版本，反映出在家譜世系與社會政治下，人與人、當下社會及整個歷史不能逃避的縱向聯繫，是一幅劃時代的觀景圖。此系列最初靈感源自文化大革命時期的家庭老照片，曾於不少重要的國際藝術節上亮相，其中包括聖保羅雙年展和威尼斯雙年展。藝術家對照片人物中僵硬的姿態及面部表情深感興趣，他憑著受攝影現實和魔幻現實主義啟迪而生的獨特視覺語彙，記錄上一代人傷痕滿佈的過往，帶出沉重的集體國民記憶和中國國民身份。

張曉剛在1993年夏天於昆明創出《血緣》系列，作品的直接靈感來自50至60年代的標準化合照，包括他自己的家庭照。從這些舊黑白相片中，張曉剛創出《血緣》系列的典型特色：含蓄而近乎單色的色調、多層次卻平滑的畫面、沒帶半點筆觸的痕跡、人物只有上半身的構圖、拘謹的正面姿勢，當然少不了毛澤東時代的髮型和服飾。畫面上褪色的部位最初見於臉上的光斑，後來成為了作品的獨立元素，令人聯想起復古破舊的照片。此系列深蘊中國文化最為著重的家庭觀念，因此，源自全家福照片的畫作成功引起觀眾的強烈共鳴，激發強大的精神力量。評論家和畫廊東主張頌仁曾道：「通過肖像的傳統而連接祖宗造像這樣一個中國人都依稀存有記憶的經典圖式」（張頌仁撰，〈寫實與寫幻〉，《典藏今藝術》，頁168）。同樣，栗憲庭也認為「在以儒家傳統為正統的中國，一向以宗親治國為本，它潛移默化地留給近代中國攝影業的直接影響，就是中國普通百性的『全家福』留影方式──修飾的著裝、正經端莊的姿勢、主次有序的呆板排列，自覺不自覺地彰顯著宗親的力量」（〈時代的臍帶〉，頁37）。

隨著《血緣》系列逐步發展，張曉剛作品裡的美學愈顯個人風格。畫作無一例外都是從右側打光，人物面部輪廓在散漫的明暗裡逐漸消失，朦朧地融入灰濛濛的背景當中。一顆顆水靈的眼睛掛在空洞茫然的面孔上，掩藏源自歷史和內心的傷痛記憶，反映出藝術家在人物身上投射的感情。另一方面，眼睛也是傳統肖像和宗教聖像裡人物氣質的關鍵；《血緣》系列中的人物眼睛超乎現實地烏黑過大得超乎現實，他們目光散漫、雙目斜視，精神空虛。張曉剛在畫幅上熟練地塗上多層顏料，營造透明效果；他認為「要帶出一種空虛和女性化的抽離，我必須堅守嚴謹的繪畫程序，重複地塗上一層又一層透薄的油彩。大致上，一張臉便要塗上四至五層油彩」。雖然《血緣》系列常被指是張曉剛從「表現主義藝術家」到「超現實主義藝術家」的圓滿過渡，甚至連他本人也有同感，但這些二十世紀的西方現代主義術語，未必能夠反映實情。「壓抑」也許是比較恰當的形容詞；之所謂超現實主義不在表達，而在隱藏和抗拒，才能引起關注。張曉剛說：「我重複畫出一個又一個標準『美麗』面孔；他們表面上平靜如水，內裡卻情感澎湃。」

張曉剛的肖像畫以嚴肅冰冷、暗藏不安的面目，揭示政治歷史裡的暗湧。知名評論家凱倫・史密斯（Karen Smith）形容這些作品「令人想起毛澤東時代的中國；透過刻畫文化大革命，《血緣》系列的情感生動感人、尖銳深刻，非中國無疑。由於畫作形式取材自傳統的黑白照，偶爾是四九年後手工著色的無產階級快照，張曉剛成功令所有人都身同感受」。張曉剛的作品有時會被誤作為「玩世現實主義」，但是根據安涅・格林舍（Arne Glimcher）的觀察，「張曉剛的作品一點兒也不玩世」，反而充滿創造個人願景的抱負。《血緣》系列源自張曉剛對自己家庭的記憶，最終替他這一代人的集體創傷和夢想、幻想和幻滅發聲，並非直接「呈現」過去，而是透過繪畫的過程，體現個人與他者、個人與群體、甚至個人與自身之間的詭異矛盾。本作乃張曉剛《血緣：大家庭》代表作裡的一流典例，此系列奠定了他在中國藝術史上的崇高地位。