Almighty painter

Chapter 686: Will Destiny Sell Indulgences? (Part )

The paintings hanging on the background wall are not overly complicated.

This oil painting is not very long to begin with, and it took less than two hours to create from draft to finalization.

Even if Gu Weijing had eight hands like an octopus to paint together, it would be impossible for him to take into account the exquisite and mysterious temperament of the main character while making such meticulous carving of the distant view behind in such a short time.

Therefore, he had to make corresponding choices in the process of painting.

It is still a combination of swift and light brushstrokes, hazy details and clever atmosphere creation.

It still cleverly captures the essence of Impressionist painting.

The key is the lines.

If the man on the chair is the artist who gave him a sense of mystery through the Impressionist art theory of light and shadow transformation of pigments, then the painter has touched the soul of the paintings in the background by controlling the beauty of lines, the curves and straightness of the pen tip, and the lightness and heaviness of the fingertips.

In the process of shaping the lines of these distant views, Gu Weijing's feeling of using the brush is a bit similar to the feeling when he painted the portrait of Miss Koko on the sketchboard - that is, using the most concise brushwork and the most capable lines to draw out the complex and smooth temperament of human muscles.

But the overall feeling this time is better than the previous sketch.

The Lv.6 sketching technique only allowed Gu Weijing to vaguely feel the ethereal realm of "depicting spirit with lines and depicting spirit with shapes".

After being temporarily promoted to the first level of master by the small candle blessed by the Muse, his mastery of sketching lines has clearly reached this level.

The painting within the painting in the background and the man sitting in the seat in front form a wonderful visual contrast.

The left and right sides of the picture are light and dark tones, which is a visual contrast between light and dark.

The foreground and background of the picture represent the difference between visual density and sparseness.

For the man sitting in the center seat, Gu Weijing spent a lot of time and effort to shape the light and shadow, just to find that mysterious temperament that is ever-changing and constantly changes with the audience's mood.

He painted a lot, but it seemed like he painted very little.

The background of the picture is just the opposite.

Gu Weijing used only very few lines in the paintings on these walls.

The lines are just a few strokes, and the colors are simply pieced together with large blocks of paint.

But no matter what kind of audience they are, they can accurately and intuitively feel the voice, smile, joy or sadness of the characters in the paintings.

He painted very little, but seemed to express a lot——

A lonely old man, a running child, a man and a woman leaning against the river, a lover in the sunset, a peasant woman bending over...

Legend has it that when the camera first came to the East, it was not accepted by some people because the photos it took were too lifelike. People felt that when the photographer pressed the shutter release, he sucked people's souls into the photos.

Another legend.

In the late Qing Dynasty, there was a panic about witchcraft that swept the entire Jiangnan region. Rumors said that a demon had appeared and would call your name. If you responded, your soul would be sucked away by his magic in an instant.

Whether it is "photographic witchcraft" or "photographic witchcraft", it is of course a farce of self-inflicted troubles unique to pre-modern society and the feudal era. When later scholars look back on it, they often feel both amused and ridiculous.

but.

In the eyes of ordinary audiences, the master-level technical level does seem to have a little bit of "witchcraft".

Such a simple curve, such a real spirit.

It was as if the painter's mind moved.

The body and spirit of the sketch object are absorbed by the brush at his fingertips and painted into the lines on the picture.

The winding muscle curves on the canvas are transformed from a person's three souls and seven spirits.

Perhaps... only in this way can their body postures be expressed so vividly?

Like the color treatment of the man in the chair, these "paintings within paintings" are also affected by the changes in light within the work space.

The sunlight passed through the man's shoulders, leaving a long shadow on the wall at the back of the studio.

On the right hand side of the shadow, the side illuminated by direct sunlight, the lines of the painting on the wall are the most complex, and the audience can see relatively more things. The closer to the man's shadow, the hazier the picture, and the fewer and simpler the lines.

This approach, on the one hand, allows for adjustments based on lighting conditions, thus giving the entire painting a harmonious and unified look.

On the other hand, it is also a selective simplification of picture elements within a limited drawing time.

For works whose frames are brightened by the sun, Gu Weijing can spend more time on painting a relatively complete oil painting. However, when the paintings are close to the shadows, he only needs to draw a few simple curves of the characters in the "colorful vapor-like sun and air".

When it comes to the man's shadow and the left half of the canvas that is not illuminated by light, the treatment of color and line becomes simpler.

Because the dark tones completely enveloped the canvas, just like the painting of "The Godfather" on Chen Shenglin's wall, the figure of Marlon Brando had completely melted into the darkness.

He just added some simple lines.

Gu Weijing's treatment of darkness in the painting is different from Chen Shenglin's treatment of darkness in the painting.

He should be thankful for the time he spent copying the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" in his spare time over the past few months.

The female painter Carroll not only helped Gu Weijing publish his first paper in his life and brought him these "little candles blessed by the Muse", but also opened up Gu Weijing's thinking and taught him how to create a "dark-toned Impressionist" work.

To be honest, art has never been an industry where you can succeed as long as you work hard.

Excellent works and success in the secular sense are two different things.

Success in the secular sense requires not only the painter's efforts, but also the favor of noble people, just the right amount of luck, a tenacious character... and so on.

It requires not only the blessing of the Muse, but also the favor of the goddess of fate.

but.

Practicing painting... is something that you can usually gain something from as long as you work hard at it.

If you have good talent, you will gain a lot. The improvement of painting skills is like drawing water from a well, which is available as soon as you draw water, such as Miss Sakai and Chen Shenglin.

If you don’t have talent, it’s like drawing water with a bamboo basket.

Carrying water in a bamboo basket is not just an empty dream.

Even if the bamboo basket is only stained with a few scattered drops of water, they are the crystallization of sweat.

Even a bald old man like Gu Tongxiang, who was not very smart, was whipped by his grandson from behind every day and was pulled out of bed to practice painting with a hum.

He also gains something after each painting practice.

Although it seems that Old Man Gu is stuck at the bottleneck of the first level of professional painter and cannot climb up no matter how hard he tries, it is really disappointing.

But even if they are at the same professional first level and close to perfection.

After his unremitting day and night training during this period and the systematic guidance of a "famous teacher" of a higher level like Gu Weijing, Gu's current painting style and artistic aesthetics are no longer comparable to what he was twenty years ago.

otherwise.

He would not act so relaxed and happy as a master at the association's discussion lectures.

Even to be honest.

Gu Weijing was always worried because his grandfather's brain was not very smart. No matter how hard he knocked, it seemed like he couldn't crack the shell. He looked stupid when he picked up a pen. This was mainly because the people around him were too talented.

Compared with Gu Tongxiang, who has outstanding painting talents like Sakai Katsuko and Tang Ning, old classmate Gu must be a good-for-nothing who has lived his whole life on his dog at his old age.

But Gu Weijing's behavior is as annoying as those parents who always like to compare their snotty kids with the kids in the next class who won gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad and think their kids are stupid.

This comparison is unfair.

Compared with the whole society, or even among the group of people studying art, Gu Tongxiang's talent in painting is not the best, but it is not bad either.

There are actually many people like Miss Elena, who want to paint, love to paint, have the best resources and the best teachers, but just can't paint well.

It's not that they're not smart, they're just simply not good at it.

Anna told the kids in the ballroom that she might be born to be good at some things, but running didn't happen to be one of them.

Neither is painting.

must admit.

There are some things that money just can't buy.

Chen Shenglin was as rich as a country, but he could not buy the final peace in the face of fate.

In many aspects, Anna could even crush Boss Chen, who was so arrogant in front of Gu Weijing and acted like the god of destiny, but her talent in painting was something that she could not have even if she was rich.

She is the one who envies others.

There are many outstanding painters in history who have created excellent works but have been unable to achieve success in the secular sense due to lack of opportunities.

But for Miss Elena, the success in the secular sense that everyone dreams of is something she can get at will, as easy as picking up a macaron from a plate.

But she just couldn't get excellent painting skills.

When my aunt was a child, she made a judgment about her niece: "You can't be a painter. It's not that you can't succeed. Our family's financial situation makes it easy for us to hold an exhibition and sell our paintings at the same price as top painters, no matter what kind of paintings you make, good or bad. However... my little girl, I have to tell you the truth, you are really not good at painting."

Even people like Miss Elena may remain at the amateur level of painting skills throughout their lives.

But this does not mean that they cannot gain something from the process of practicing painting.

Every time I start to paint, it is a new journey. Every self-portrait is a gaze and examination of my own soul.

When you hold your breath and feel the brush rustling across the flax plant fibers, when you feel the touch of the painting with your fingertips and smell the smell of turpentine with your nose...

When you stare at a bitten apple for a long time, feeling its green, its red, its pale yellow, and its indescribable color, the more you observe it, the more subtle your "perception" is, the more you will be able to describe the ever-changing beauty of nature.

You will understand the true meaning of painting.

Perhaps you will never be able to "transfer" such subtle changes onto paper through a brush.

But this kind of comfort, this kind of inner touch and harvest... although they are not harvests in terms of painting techniques, they are still real harvests.

But he can entertain himself with painting.

Who has had such experience.

When she walked into the Vatican Museum again and smelled the cleaning oil on the old tempera paintings, when she pushed her wheelchair under the dome of the Menech Monastery and looked at Athena driving the lion chariot through the clouds above her head, when she picked up her pen to write an art review next time.

She is different from her peers who have never painted but simply studied art theory.

She is also different from herself who had not painted that picture.

She is not Athena, she does not have the goddess's power to be invulnerable to swords, but she can have the heart of a goddess to control a lion.

Insights are always your own.

Even though her pen tip is far less delicate and graceful than Ms. Sakai's, she can still write her thoughts into comments, turn them into words, and win with talent and courage.

This is what Miss Elena gained from practicing painting.

The same is true for Gu Weijing.

His previous ability to use a brush was far inferior to that of Carroll, who painted "Old Church in a Thunderstorm".

The degree of similarity of the copied works has remained stuck for quite a long time.

But Gu Weijing would still start copying whenever he had free time.

Gu Weijing continuously used his brush to copy the flowing thunder, and continuously used his heart to restore the turbulent heart of the painter named Carol.

He went to touch her breasts, he went to feel her warmth.

He went to look for her "candlelight" in the thunder and darkness, to feel her struggle.

Even though Gu Weijing is unable to accurately reproduce all of this on his drawing board due to limitations in his technical skills, those emotions will never disappear in vain. They will only accumulate in the hearts of young people little by little, drop by drop, constantly fermenting and brewing.

Until the moment when the little candle of the Muse is lit.

Angry thunder suddenly broke through the sea of ​​clouds.

Emotions are like a rainstorm,
Pouring down.

The black mist that enveloped most of the studio was like the rolling thunderclouds in the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm".

Some critics have suggested that it is meaningless for modern painters to focus their energy on creating static sunlight and air.

Oil painters in the 18th and 19th centuries spent a lot of energy on creating static landscapes.

In those years, the painters' pursuit of brushwork skills seemed to have no end.

Critics say this is a wrong path in the development of art.

They believe that the rise of this art trend was because cameras had not yet been invented at that time, or taking photos was still a very rare thing for most people.

In the 3th century, when cameras had just been put into practical use, it took from three hours to half a day to develop the silver plate to take a photo. During this time, the subject had to remain still and motionless in order to obtain a clear image.

Taking a photograph is more tiring and troublesome than hiring an artist to paint a portrait.

therefore.

A hundred years ago, frozen static still lifes still retained a certain degree of novelty and freshness for many people.

They will pay for the static light and shadow and delicate depiction of those painters just like buying a photograph.

Based on this principle.

Today's audiences are bombarded with a large number of videos, TV series and movies every day.

The 19th-century consumers who paid for paintings as they did for photographs are gone, and so are the delicate depictions of light and shadow.

Not to mention.

When it comes to a one-to-one restoration of the real world, no matter how exquisite your brushwork is, it can't beat spending $399 on a phone and clicking the shutter.

therefore.

The ideal development path for modern artists is to move towards abstraction, towards highly conceptual paintings, and to paint things that cannot be captured with a single click of a mobile phone.

Let’s not talk about whether this way of analyzing consumer behavior is too utilitarian.

At least in terms of understanding and analyzing the role of static scenery, this kind of Western view is far less profound and elegant than traditional Eastern aesthetic philosophy - "all scenery is a language of emotion."

Static scenery creation is never just simple scenery creation.

What cannot be captured with a click of a camera shutter is not only highly abstract and conceptual avant-garde art.

Reflecting the inner spirit of a character through the profiling of light and shadow is precisely the strength of hand-painted artwork.

It is also the aesthetic essence of Impressionism.

The sunshine and air recorded and depicted by the painters are never just sunshine and air; they are carriers of beauty and emotions.

The relationship between sunlight, air and the emotion that the work wants to convey is the relationship between the flask and flowers, the thunderclouds floating in the sky, lightning and rain.

They will be inseparable.

This is true of sunlight and air.

The dark brushstrokes, shadows and night scenes are also the same.

In front of Chen Shenglin's eyes, on the side of the picture that was not illuminated by the light, the darkness like the night enveloped everything and swallowed everything.

It didn't feel like pure darkness, but more like flowing thunderclouds or rolling fog.

This fluffy, flowing sense of dynamics seems to be caused by the light spots reflected by certain smooth surfaces in the direction of the sunlight in the picture, and the diffuse reflection of the light source by the walls and the floor. It also seems to be purely flowing because of the subjective thoughts of the owner of the picture.

Chen Shenglin's gaze was involuntarily attracted by the rolling darkness in the picture.

He is a man who knows his business.

From the perspective of the composition of the work, this painting by Gu Weijing is a rare one with an extremely asymmetrical left-right composition design.

The dividing line between light and dark cuts the painting directly across one side.

There are too many elements on the side of the work illuminated by light, which makes the dark side look too empty.

The man on the chair is too close to the window. He is not in the center of the studio, nor in the "center" of the picture.

So when outsiders look at this painting, their visual center is the cold-toned blank space in the center of the picture, between the light-dark dividing line and the left wall, between the figure on the chair and the oil paintings hanging behind.

This blank focus seems to be empty, yet it seems to be filled with some elusive emotions.

Some shining point, some mysterious atmosphere full of subjective fantasy...they fill the blank space on the picture.

Chen Shenglin's thoughts involuntarily extended infinitely toward the blank spot shrouded in the deep shadow of the picture, toward the "core of the source" that inspired and grew the temperament of the entire painting.

He was attracted by the picture and stared at the painting in a trance.

Materially, the middle-aged man still stood in front of the easel, frowning slightly, his face changing because of Gu Weijing's words.

And spiritually.

Chen Shenglin is "poking" his head, "standing on tiptoe", and "stretching" his neck, as if he wants to probe his body into the hidden dimension within the picture, and completely walk into the fog to see what is hidden between the flowing fog and the flowing light.

He wanted to get into this painting.

"There is still a chance, there is still a chance." Chen Shenglin thought to himself, "No one is truly invulnerable, no one is truly as hard as iron, and no one is truly unbought."

He had seen countless seemingly indestructible figures being destroyed in an instant by a simple phone call.

It doesn’t matter if a check can’t buy off the other party, and it doesn’t matter if kidnapping can’t threaten the other party.

Then at most it would just be a change in the bidding method.

"As long as you get into this painting, as long as... you really get into the other person's heart, you can find the gap that can make him collapse."

“The best paintings always hide a true soul.”

The middle-aged man thought to himself.

Although this is impossible, the fluffy mist in the picture seems to really flow as Chen Shenglin observes attentively.

They were welcoming his arrival.

When Rembrandt was painting, he had a secret little habit. He once painted a golden circle in the center of the crown of his characters, which symbolized the character's third eye - "senses", representing that as the audience's senses extend, the picture will continue to extend.

Boss Chen noticed that in the dark mist, behind the studio wall, there were some lush lines.

That is the painting hidden behind the mist.

When the space turns from light to darkness, the works hanging behind the wall are completely blocked from sunlight.

Those paintings were all simplified by Gu Weijing into lines with a few shadows.

At a glance.

The middle-aged man only regarded this as a decorative line that Gu Weijing filled in at the end of his creation to prevent the picture from appearing too empty and unbalanced. It had no practical meaning.

Take a closer look.

Chen Shenglin then realized that he was wrong.

At first, the lines looked like some red and green confetti wrapped in silky gauze.

As the black fog rolled around, or in other words, as Chen Shenglin's thoughts continued to extend and as his imagination progressed, those lines also continued to extend.

(End of this chapter)