Almighty painter

Chapter 1073 In literature, there is no first place; in martial arts, there is no second.

"At the gallery, Mr. Maes III still hopes the auction can proceed as planned—" Anna's voice came through the phone. "Of course, he said the final decision is yours."

"Yeah, I think so too."

Gu Weijing replied.

“I’ll arrange it, okay?” he said.

Gu Weijing is no longer the young painter who could postpone his art exhibitions at will and always say "wait a minute" when he felt he wasn't ready.

Anna did not even tell Max III that they were not ready and asked to postpone the auction for a few months.

Without it.

Even she couldn't do it.

The journey to climb the mountain of wealth is a one-way street; it's a bullfight where death is the only certainty—the difference lies in whether the bull or the matador falls. It's a free solo climb without any safety measures; either you reach the top or you fall to your death.

There has never been a case of someone climbing halfway up the mountain, then throwing up their hands and saying, "I'm not playing anymore."

An auction with a target sales of over $2 million often means that various preparatory work has been underway for at least a year in advance. A team of over a thousand people around the world works behind the scenes to serve Gu Weijing, and all clients who may be interested in "Gu Weijing," including the top private collectors and art investment funds, will be contacted.

The auction house visits every potential bidder, from Las Vegas casino tycoons to tech moguls to Saudi royalty.

Some of these people have an even greater influence than the Elena family.

Back then, Anna and Gu Weijing's first collaborative art exhibition was repeatedly delayed, eventually dragging on for two years. In the end, Gu Weijing told Anna, "Please, we can't delay any longer. We need to consider what the gallery thinks, what the sponsors think, and what the other painters at the Ma Shi Gallery think about him occupying the exhibition space and changing the dates again and again."

this time.

Gu Weijing couldn't even come up with the same excuse.

This auction is not for anyone else, it's for himself. He doesn't need to be responsible for anyone else, any other sponsors, but he must be responsible for himself.

No one pressured him to succeed or sell his paintings.

When such a large team exists solely for you, success or failure is 100% his responsibility. Gu Weijing had already promised him future "success," so now he must also take responsibility for any possible disastrous failure.

He doesn't even need to be responsible for the Hermès Gallery.

The Maestro III family doesn't care.

Emotionally, the other party certainly hopes that Gu Weijing can set a new record for art transactions, but regardless of success or failure, he will receive the remaining $1.5 million.

The auction was a great success, which naturally benefited everyone involved.

Even if the auction goes wrong, Maestro III will still receive the money.

To put it bluntly, the auction went wrong, Gu Weijing couldn't pay back the money and went bankrupt. So the agreement was terminated, all the acquisition terms were null and void, and the gallery became the property of the Ma family again. Mas III directly made a net profit of the $3700 million acquisition payment that Gu Weijing's team paid him in the first installment.

Making tens of millions of dollars in profit from this round trip is not necessarily a bad outcome for Maestro III.

The only loser was Gu Weijing.

The Maestro III expressed his hope that the auction could be held as scheduled, which was purely out of goodwill. If it weren't for the Hunter Bull incident, a postponement of a few months, or even a year or two, would have been fine.

In this awkward situation, postponing is practically tantamount to admitting defeat. It's not necessarily a matter of whether postponing a major auction that's been hyped up or ruining the auction itself is worse.

Investing in art is an investment in confidence.

If Gu Weijing himself is weak, how can you expect collectors who spend real money to have confidence?
Gu Weijing is unlikely to have the same opportunity as Hearst, who suffered a setback during the financial crisis, spent ten years in reflection, and then made a comeback.

The financial crisis is temporary, but the loss of confidence among collectors is permanent.

Based on his years of market experience, Maestro III realized that Gu Weijing would either be able to set a new record at next summer's auction, or he would never be able to.

Hunter Bull didn't give him ten years either.

This "Elvis" gentleman is quite old.

Gu Weijing should thank Hunter Bull for still giving him a chance, for still being willing to play this bullfighting game with him, and for slapping him in the face in the media.

What if they stop playing?

Then Gu Weijing had nowhere to even cry.

Especially in the art industry, it's difficult to completely defeat an ancient person, and even more difficult to completely defeat a dead person. When a painter passes away, the value of the collection increases. It sounds cold, but in many cases, it is the true reflection of the market.

Gu Weijing should be grateful that Hunter Bull was still willing to talk to him and give him a chance for a "second battle." If Bull had painted a pile of dog poop on Gu Weijing's work and then stopped writing altogether.

That would be very awkward.

Or this old madman is even more ruthless.

If Hunter Bull were to disappear again, drive off the highway and crash through a guardrail, or go for a walk and be shot in the head by a madman...

What should Gu Weijing do then?
Gu Weijing probably clearly understood how the painter from CDX Gallery, who was competing with him for an award at the Singapore Biennale, felt after seeing the news that Gu Weijing had jumped into the sea.

WDNM!

Is this some serious business?
Cheating! Someone cheated! This is unfair competition!
That poor artist was probably the person in the world who hated those robbers the most, and also the person who most hoped that someone would quickly get Gu Weijing ashore.

Gu Weijing is probably the person in the world who most hopes that Hunter Bull will quit smoking and drinking, exercise more, and live a healthy life to the age of one hundred.

Let me tell you a hellish joke.

If Hunter Bull had studied painting with Picasso as a child, he would have become one of the most successful young painters in human history in his twenties or thirties, reached his peak at forty, then disappeared for twenty years, wandered aimlessly for ten years, and then casually made a move that brought down a superstar like Gu Weijing.

And then--

It just died.

At this point, the art was complete.

Then Hunter Boor would surpass Van Gogh and become the god of art in the new era. He is light, electricity, myth, the poster that every art student would put on their wall, a combination of Elvis and Michael Jackson.

Gu Weijing was probably powerless to do anything but stand there in a helpless rage.

He will once again experience the feeling he had when he stood in the Xihe Guild Hall, waving his staff over the surging waters of the Qiantang River. Only this time, he will no longer have the magnanimity to recite, "Only today do I realize who I am."

Even if you truly master martial arts to the highest level, becoming invincible and unbeatable, so what? Reality isn't like the six major sects besieging Bright Peak. As long as you, young hero, possess unparalleled martial arts skills, you can deflect punches and kicks from all directions.

The reality is that all you can see when you look around is a vast expanse of river.

He could not use his staff to push aside the spring tide, nor could he use his paintings to defeat the dead.

Therefore, Gu Weijing is grateful to Hunter Bull, as he has no intention of closing his eyes and becoming a footnote in the other's legendary life. Gu Weijing knows that if he did, he wouldn't even be able to become the "Gauguin" in the "Van Gogh" story.

Van Gogh has his legend, and Gauguin has his charm.

Gauguin was at least crazy enough.

At least Gauguin had great writers following him, who wrote his famous book, "The Moon and Sixpence."

And what about Gu Weijing?
The story of someone drawing a pile of dog poop on a work of art doesn't sound particularly legendary, does it?
That book should be called "Dog Shit and the Man Who Went Bankrupt Because of $1.5 Million in Debt," which doesn't sound like the kind of book that artsy young people would put on their bookshelves and read every day.

After all this commotion...

It turns out that Gu Weijing has become a clown who engages in artistic speculation.

The clown always has a red nose, while Gu Weijing has a huge pile of dog poop on his head. This is to avoid becoming the protagonist of a book called "Dog Poop and the Man Who Went Bankrupt Due to $1.5 Million in Debt."

He has less than ten months to turn things around.

to this end.

Gu Weijing also chose to donate more than $3000 million.
-
"...Faced with the pressure from Hunter Bull, both Gu Weijing and Anna Elena experienced the darkest moments of their lives. They had just enjoyed the good times of fame and fortune, but all sorts of criticism followed with the large stain that Hunter Bull left on the canvas."

"..."

"...No one could understand why, under these circumstances, Gu Weijing chose to quietly donate over $3000 million. This was the largest sum of money he possessed, and the last straw that saved him from the catastrophic disaster of being declared bankrupt..."

"But Gu Weijing still did it."

"This may be attributed to Gu Weijing's act of self-redemption, a kind of implicit disgust with his glamorous, clichéd life."

—Excerpt from Volume 5, "The Collapse of the Empire," of "The Power of Art: Gu Weijing and Anna Elena."
-
"Also, Maestro III told me..."

Anna paused for a moment before speaking to Gu Weijing again, "He has realized that someone is currently buying your work on the secondary market."

"At this time?"

Gu Weijing asked with a smile.

"It seems many people have a lot of confidence in your investment," Miss Elena quipped playfully.

Both of them sensed that something was unusual about the matter, and both tried to create a relaxed atmosphere.

Don't worry about that.

Anna said.

"The Hermès Gallery will have a standard response strategy."

"I'll arrange it, okay?" Anna used the same words as Gu Weijing to end this short conference call. Both of them had their own opponents to deal with.

After hanging up the phone.

Gu Weijing sat by the window, staring blankly at the system panel in front of him for a while.

With the influx of free experience points during this period, and Gu Weijing's unwavering support, oil painting techniques successfully surpassed Chinese painting techniques, becoming the first of all of Gu Weijing's painting techniques to reach the second-tier bottleneck of the master level.

The sketching technique is still lacking, but it's not far from the limit of Lv.8.

[Lv.9, Limited-Time Breakthrough Quest]

As you climb ever upward, reaching the top of the long staircase, what will you use to ignite the divine fire? And what is the secret to transforming clay into gold?

[Task objective: Do something to prove you've reached the pinnacle. You can break through this barrier by paying a price equivalent to the most expensive work of art in the world.]

[Mission Objective: Pay free experience points equal to the price of "The Savior". (0/45,000,000)]

[Note 1: My paintings can be compared with anyone in the world, no matter who he is or whether he is still alive. — Leonardo da Vinci]

[Note 2: You can also break through bottlenecks by gaining insights and understanding the process on your own, without going through the system's breakthrough quests.]

"Can my paintings be compared to those of anyone else in the world?"

Gu Weijing stared at the system panel.

He never imagined that the final breakthrough task facing him would be so simple and brutal.

Go prove that you've reached the top.

For Renaissance oil painters, proving themselves to be the foremost painter of their time was quite simple. They might be able to paint a portrait of the Pope, or they might be able to secure a super-large project, such as receiving a commission from a cardinal to paint a large-scale ceiling painting for a palace in the Papal States.

Several hundred years later.

The way to prove yourself to be the best oil painter is probably a bit complicated. You either have to be the president of the Royal Society of Arts, or Madame de Pompadour, or a guest of honor in the Elena family, chatting and laughing with high-ranking officials, dignitaries and celebrities in the salon.

The more salon invitations you receive, the more popular you are in Paris, and the more powerful you become.

But in modern society...

Proving oneself to be the most outstanding painter doesn't seem too difficult. There are many standards for evaluating art—poor art, rich art—everyone has their own list in their mind, and everyone has their own opinion on the best painter.

This is what is meant by "there is no first place in literature".

But the artists' market value rankings are there, and the auction records for artworks are there; these are the results of collectors investing real money.

This is what is known as "there is no second place in martial arts".

If you want to break through to the final level of oil painting, then please pay the same price as the most expensive artwork in the world, which is 45 million free experience points, equivalent to a full 450 million US dollars.

That's exactly the price that "Salvator Mundi" fetched at auction.

The system told him to prove that his work was comparable to anyone else's work in the world, even Leonardo da Vinci's.

(Sorry, I got home really late.)
(End of this chapter)