Almighty painter

Chapter 1061 Myth
The 19s.

In Paris.

Balzac was determined to create an encyclopedic work of art, envisioning it as a culmination of French literature, containing over one hundred novels, and calling it "The Human Comedy."

Regrettably.

Despite his prolific output, Balzac was unable to complete his grand vision.

In 1880, exactly thirty years after Balzac's death.

In Paris.

Auguste Rodin was commissioned by the French government to create decorative sculptures for the colossal bronze doors of the soon-to-be-opened Museum of Arts and Crafts in France. Rodin devoted tremendous effort to collecting sculptures from masters throughout European history, ultimately drawing inspiration from the "Gates of Paradise" designed by the Renaissance bronze sculptor Ghiberti for the Florence Baptistery, using Dante's masterpiece "The Divine Comedy" as a blueprint, and employing classical aesthetics as his design philosophy to conceive a massive and magnificent sculpture.

It is the exact opposite of Balzac's "The Human Comedy".

In Auguste Rodin's mind, this would be a complete set of sculptures about the hell on earth, and his masterpiece would be called "The Gates of Hell".

This will also be a comprehensive work, encompassing all the creative techniques and aesthetic concepts of the sculptor throughout his life, a whole sculpture composed of many subsets and many different sculptural works.

Rodin designed countless small sculptures for this "Gates of Hell" series.

Regrettably.

Even a prolific artist like Auguste Rodin was unable to complete this set of sculptures.

Rodin died at home on November 17, 1917, ten months after marrying his lover of fifty years, Ruth Burley.

1947 years.

Exactly thirty years after Rodin's death, the Kunsthaus Zurich and the French government collaborated to create a replica of the Gates of Hell at the museum's entrance, based on a plaster model left by the artist during his lifetime.

Today, this extremely complex sculpture has become a landmark and symbol of the Kunsthaus Zurich. It is as famous as Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait" in the museum's collection. To see Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait", you need to buy a ticket for 10 Swiss francs. Any tourist who walks past the museum or even just drives by can see the dark bronze statue at the entrance of the museum.

The sculpture "The Thinker," modeled after Dante, is located at the very center of the sculpture at the Gates of Hell.

He is not only Dante himself, but also a microcosm of all mankind.

The giant sat there, hunched over, chin in hand, biting his finger, silently gazing at the people suffering in hell. Art history is always full of witty, humorous, and ironic jokes.

A century has passed.

Gu Weijing brought his painting "The Human Comedy" to Zurich. This work represents the culmination of his personal oil painting techniques; it's as if the number of letters in Balzac's brushstrokes corresponds to the number of brushstrokes on the canvas. The number of characters in "The Human Comedy" corresponds to the number of images in his work.

It was this work that led Gu Weijing to the pinnacle of his career. He wanted to use this work to pay tribute to Balzac.

As if to say——

Do you see, Balzac? I did it. I have reached the pinnacle of art. You were a successful literary giant, but a failed collector, a die-hard Parisian enthusiast of national treasures. You spent your whole life collecting, only to be completely fooled by art speculators, utterly deceived and disoriented. In the end, besides a room full of junk, your supposedly Versailles-like display cases contained not a single valuable piece.

So now.

I'm giving you this work, which embodies my hard work.

This should have been the perfect ending to Gu Weijing's miraculous year. After a grand performance, the artist and his agent stood on the stage, hand in hand, making a perfect exit amidst the applause of the audience, the praise of critics, and the waving banknotes of collectors.

Hunter Bull silently walked onto the stage, took the painting, and threw it into the burning flames of the Gates of Hell as if it were trash.

He turned all of this into a vicious, hellish joke.

……

Hunter Bull is an older man who combines the focus of a monk with the unbridled spirit of a rock musician; it's hard to describe exactly what kind of eccentric temperament this is.

Imagine it.

A person was solving Goldbach's Conjecture on a blackboard while dancing wildly to disco music.

Or...

In the final scene of Titanic, the elderly Rose throws the Heart of the Ocean into the Atlantic Ocean. She closes her eyes and transforms back into the young girl she once was, returning to the Titanic's banquet hall. A waiter in a tuxedo opens the door for her, the sound of a violin fills the air, and the guests smile and applaud at her.

Ruth's heart pounded wildly as she climbed the spiral staircase, finally seeing the man of her dreams—

A middle-aged man with a protruding belly, bare-chested, and a full beard, wearing beach shorts, is running towards you with a loud laugh, holding a plastic water gun in one hand.

That's the impression Hunter Bull gives to those around him.

When he picks up a paintbrush, his movements are as delicate as if he were drawing an eyebrow for a young girl, his expression elegant and profound. When he puts the brush down, you feel that this kind of person, staring at the entrance of the art museum, is perhaps ready to pull out a black stocking from his crotch, put it on his face, and rush in to pull off a big heist.

Mr. Bull crossed his arms and gazed at Rodin's sculpture.

At this moment, he probably wasn't thinking about pulling off a big heist... probably. This kind of large bronze sculpture weighs several tons and is connected to the building structure behind it. If you want to pull off a big heist, pulling out black stockings from your crotch won't work. At the very least, you'd need to be able to pull out a crane from your crotch.

His gaze slid down from the kneeling, thoughtful giant's body, following the giant's line of sight to a corner where two people were entangled in a passionate kiss.

That's another work by Rodin, located in the lower left corner of "The Gates of Hell," based on the love story "The Kiss" from the fifth circle of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy.

seven years ago.

Hunter Bull was just like he is today at the opening ceremony of the Detective Cat Museum.

Not a word.

Just gazing.

Anna Elena was on the stage at the front, displaying a genuine Leonardo da Vinci painting from the Elena family collection to the guests. On the artist's manuscript, written in a mixture of Italian and Latin—

Happiness and pain are twins. They never appear alone; they coexist yet oppose each other, like conjoined twins back to back.

Clay & Gold

If you are enjoying happiness, you should know that suffering and regret will follow.

Only works that can truly touch the soul are truly good works; the secret to turning clay into gold has always been there.

Art is a path to gold, a path to eternity.

Seven years have passed.

Gu Weijing, however, was just painting those garbage paintings. It was as ridiculous as filling a wax-sealed iron pipe with gold powder, stirring it a couple of times in a high-temperature crucible, and then pointing at the residue and saying that he had extracted eternity.

Real alchemy can't be something as deceptive as this.

"Only...Gu Weijing can paint such a picture?"

I recall Anna Elena's remarks to the art media, and the title of this exhibition, "The Ultimate in Art."

He pouted.

"Only Gu Weijing could produce such excrement!"

Hunter Bull made such a scathing comment: "The old guy picked up his brush, dipped it in some brown paint from his palette, and actually painted a huge pile of dog poop on the blank right side of the artwork."

He threw down his paintbrush and turned to leave.

"Holy shit!"

At the magazine's headquarters in Austria, Sir Brown, witnessing this scene, couldn't help but burst into tears. This old gentleman, who was incredibly proud of the "Sir" title before his name, couldn't help but let out a heavy curse.

Hunter Bull is practically the living father of *Paint* magazine. That old guy is just hilarious!
The magazine "Oil Painting" had a premonition that the huge pile of dog excrement that Hunter Bull painted on Gu Weijing's painting would become a classic scene in art history, just like the urinal that Duchamp carried into the exhibition back then.
-
"This is one of the most interesting passages in art history."

"If you imagine this as a boxing match, when everyone was eagerly anticipating an absolutely thrilling battle, Hunter Bull chose to give up. He raised his hand in surrender and walked away. Ten years later, when Gu Weijing had proven himself in every sense."

"The game has entered garbage time with no suspense whatsoever."

"In the final five seconds of the last round, in the last few months of his miraculous year of art, Hunter Bull strolled back, and just as the referee was about to raise his hand to declare Gu Weijing the winner, amidst the boos and empty bottles thrown by the audience, the white-haired old boxer slowly flipped onto the ring."

"He punched Gu Weijing so hard that he fell to the ground."

—From *Hunter Bull: A Biography*
-
"...Currently, many netizens on the internet are calling it 'the greatest performance art in history.' Hunter Bull used a pile of dog poop to expose the true nature of an art deification movement and to shatter a myth of wealth."

"Let's revisit Gu Weijing's complete career resume. Since winning the gold medal at the Singapore International Biennale, in just ten years, the painter Gu Weijing has reached heights that most industry professionals can never achieve in their entire lives. He is the twenty-third painter in history whose works have sold for over $1000 million, and the ninth painter whose works have sold for over $2000 million. It is worth mentioning that Hunter Bull is the sixth on this list."

"Gu Weijing is also the only painter in the entire history of mankind to achieve this accomplishment when he was under thirty years old."

"He is the god of wealth in the art industry this generation. Moreover, Gu Weijing is the only painter whose works in different fields and styles, and even ceramic sculptures, are extremely popular in the market, regardless of style or technique. The art market's love for Gu Weijing is almost equal for everyone. In comparison, Picasso was also an artist with an extremely wide range of interests."

"But in the last century, when Picasso's oil paintings were auctioned for more than $1 billion, the total value of his hundreds and thousands of ceramic works was less than $10 million. The difference was 100:1000."

"This is the true reflection of the entire art industry."

"There are many artists who are involved in many fields, and there are also many painters who master two or three painting styles at the same time, but it seems that there has never been a truly all-around painter. After all, an artist's time and energy are often limited."

"All-around, from another perspective, can also be called all-around incompetence. Besides, Gu Weijing has always been praised as a painter for his delicate and exquisite brushstrokes. At least, that's what Gu Weijing himself claims."

"That is the origin of his agent Anna Elena's famous comment - 'In this era, only Gu Weijing can paint such works.'"

"Hunter Bull responded with action."

"In this era, only Gu Weijing could produce such utterly despicable things," he said. He used an oil painting to reveal Gu Weijing's true colors to the world...

Atlantic.

Over a century ago, the Titanic was sailing from Europe to New York through the clouds. A Dassault 2000EX private jet was passing through the clouds, returning to Europe from New York.

Gu Weijing sat in an armchair, watching the news program on his phone.

The plane is nearly thirty years old, and he plans to order a new one from a private jet contractor on his trip to New York.

just now.

All plans have been postponed.

Anna stayed in New York to continue handling some legal matters, while Gu Weijing flew directly back to Europe.

He looked at the related news on his phone screen, along with the pile of dog poop that Hunter Bull had drawn on the picture, shook his head, and turned off the screen.

He closed his eyes and slowly closed them to rest.

Perhaps every artist has their own enemies in their life, or rather... people they are destined to face and things they are destined to experience.

The so-called destined rival is someone you know from the moment you meet them that you must carry a dagger on your waistband, carefully step out the door, and be ready to pounce on them for a hard-fought battle, and if necessary, plunge the dagger into their heart.

Just as Impressionism faced the Academy, and Turner faced those pesky critics, Caravaggio encountered a tennis racket.

After all, the spirited young Caravaggio really did stab his opponent in the heart with a dagger after the tennis match, didn't he?

Ok.

Leaving aside this not-so-funny joke.

In the dramatic stories of art history, there always seems to be a pair of adversaries who can tear each other apart to the point of bloodshed for a true perfection.

Only by beheading the dragon and bathing in its blood can one be crowned king.

of course.

Sometimes, the person who plunges the dagger into the heart doesn't necessarily appear as an enemy or a dragon.

It's like Van Gogh meeting Gauguin.

They found strength in that friendship, yet they also led themselves to self-destruction within it.

On his artistic journey, Gu Weijing has never encountered someone he felt he had to defeat, perhaps Hao Ge from his youth was one of them.

However, no real competitor has ever emerged in the industry.

Gu Weijing kept thinking about who this person could be. At first, he thought it was Cui Xiaoming, then he thought it was Williams, and then he thought it was Tang Ning...

at last.

Gu Weijing identified the magazine "Oil Painting" as his rival. He worked towards this goal for seven years, until the moment he thought he had completely defeated "Oil Painting".

Hunter Bull appeared.

He had been there for over a decade, and he had even met Hunter Bull once or twice.

It was a distant name, a star that had shone brightly before his birth. He treated the other person with the same politeness as a distant name, and with the same distance as a distant star.

The moment Hunter Bull drew a dog poop on the canvas, Gu Weijing immediately realized—that was the person.

Gu Weijing wanted to take a short nap.

He was no longer the hesitant man he once was. Even if he was Hunter Bull, Elvis Presley, or the boy Picasso once admired, so what?

He has gone through countless trials to get to where he is today.

You are Hunter Bull.

I am Gu Weijing.

When I woke up, it was time for another good battle.
-
"Wow, wang wang."

In the yard, the Springer Spaniels chased after Gu Weijing, rubbing against his feet one by one. The painter bent down and stroked their ears one by one.

All three dogs are August's children.

He has an incredible amount of energy.

The one with lighter fur is a girl, and the rest are boys. Yang Dekang has always wanted to adopt one.

Gu Weijing walked into the manor's hall and exchanged a few pleasantries with Anna's butler. During their trip to the United States, all the cats and dogs were left at the manor and cared for by Mr. Adela.

"The doctor said it's actually just a minor cold, but he's quite old and has severe osteoporosis, so..."

"Hello, August, we must try our best to see our great-grandson born."

The dog ran over with the "August" tennis ball in its mouth, staring at Gu Weijing.

Gu Weijing squatted down and carefully scratched the dog's chin. August used to be a dog with black spots and light-colored fur.

When I bought it, it wasn't a competition dog with a pedigree certificate, and its coat color wasn't pure; it had a slightly chestnut hue.

Seven years have passed, and with the reduction of melanin, August has almost become a white dog, but he is still in good spirits.

(End of this chapter)