Almighty painter

Chapter 702 Anna and "The Old Church on a Thunderstorm"

In the airport lounge.

Miss Elena's eyes moved away from the English journal title of "Asian Art" and fell back on the picture on the cover.

"Is it a religious painting?"

Anna is not a devout religious person.

However, as the most important part of the cultural tradition of the Central European aristocratic elite, members of the Irena family traditionally believe in Catholicism.

Like all the daughters of Elena's family, Anna attended a public school with a strong church atmosphere.

It was the kind of aristocratic school where the old matrons read the entire Old and New Testament to the students, where there were separate confessionals, where the graduates were called "Vasa," "St. Francis," "Livington" sisters (note), and then married an "Eton"-like boy they met at a fraternity dance.

(Note: All are top private secondary schools with a long-standing reputation and a student first-choice admission rate of nearly 100%. Most of them are girls' schools. The famous Eton College only accepts male students and is a boys' school.)
The high school that Gu Weijing attended was also known as an aristocratic school, but in essence Fitz was just a commercial education group.

Compared with the real aristocratic school that Anna attends, where the tuition is so expensive that it would make Old Gu pee his pants, there are far more school staff than students, and in class four or five students follow an old professor to read Shakespeare in an old building built in 1907 with ivy-covered walls.

Still at the level of a country bumpkin.

Miss Elena, however, does not like the strong religious atmosphere on campus.

exactly.

Anna really couldn't like any school in the 21st century that would give students a copy of "The Catholic Lady's Code" as a daily personal conduct manual (even if the school's cutlery was sterling silver, she wouldn't like it).

But this did not prevent Miss Elena from having a deep understanding of church architecture.

Whether it is painting, literature, philosophy, theology... or teaching detective cat sister the emotional psychology of love.

Don’t worry about the actual effect for now.

Mr. Sloth has always been an excellent theorist - a master of "paper talk".JPG!
Anna glanced at the scanned cover of "The Old Church on a Thunderstorm" in the journal and recognized it as an English or French colonial church.

The trick to distinguishing a British church from a church elsewhere is that, except in special immigrant communities, you can hardly find any Rococo, Romanesque, or Central European Byzantine-style decorative elements in British churches; most of them are Gothic in style.

The Gothic aesthetic style is also known as the French style in architecture.

Miss Elena always found it quite interesting.

Britain and France, on both sides of the ocean, had disliked each other for so many years. The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants were fierce and the war lasted for century after century.

However, on both sides of the English Channel, as the most powerful Catholic country and the most powerful Protestant country on the European continent, the British and the French hated each other, despised each other, and fired artillery at each other, but the iconic religious buildings that they were most proud of had completely similar aesthetic styles.

This is probably the powerful force of some kind of art?
There is a famous saying in forensic evidence: Wherever there is an encounter, there must be an exchange, and wherever there is an exchange, there will be traces left.

"Where there is an exchange, there will be traces left" - this is the famous "Rocard's Law" that is often mentioned again and again in the works of detective novelists.

Miss Elena felt that this sentence could only be used in the situation where Holmes, while smoking his pipe, determined the identity of a criminal suspect by finding pieces of fabric in the soil between the fingernails of an unknown man in a cemetery.

Aesthetically.

It also has a somewhat grander expression.

Traveling merchants could see the face of Buddha with an oval face, long and curved eyebrows, deep eye sockets, thin lips and a high nose bridge in the South Asian subcontinent, along the Silk Road, through the Wakhan Corridor, between the Pamir Plateau and the Hindu Kush Mountains, among the leaping Afghan snow leopards and the herds of Marco Polo sheep with long curved horns, and on a mottled Buddha statue on the edge of a cliff.

It is characteristic of the Gandhara Arts and Crafts style.

Buddhism is a typical Asian culture.

However, the artistic style of Gandhara has strong Hellenistic characteristics, and the faces of these Buddha statues all have the facial features of Greek and Roman people.

Relevant research told Anna that this was the result of Alexander's Eastern Expedition, which opened up transportation between Asia and Europe, allowing Greek culture and sculpture art to spread to Asia.

This style flourished in the old Kushan Empire. In the following 1000 years, it was introduced to Dongxia along the Silk Road, reaching Chang'an, the capital of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and then spread eastward to Korea, Japan, and even back to Europe via the Maritime Silk Road.

Captain Columbus set sail with a Latin copy of "The Travels of Marco Polo" in his arms, ready to find the legendary country full of gold, "China".

When he was planning his long journey on the nautical chart, did he know that long, long ago, something invisible and intangible had already completed this long journey around Europe and Asia through trade and caravans, crossing mountains and oceans?

Monk Faxian and Master Xuanzang both traveled along the Silk Road and traveled deep into the heart of Asia.

When Tang Sanzang was sitting on a camel, circling in the mountains of the Kingdom of Brahma, he suddenly passed through the mountains and the scenery in front of him suddenly became clear. He wrote in his diary, "To the northeast of the royal city, there is a stone statue of a standing Buddha, one hundred and forty or fifty feet high, shining with golden color, and adorned with brilliant jewels."

Does he know.

Perhaps through the sculpture, he saw the eyes and eyebrows of Socrates or Aristotle who lived a thousand years ago?
When Zhao Wu of the Spring and Autumn Period learned about his life experience, killed his enemy and avenged his great vengeance, did he know that his story would become the play "The Orphan of China" written by the famous "China fan" Voltaire 2,200 years later, and that on the stage in Paris, a group of actors in robes and with blond hair and blue eyes would perform the "Prince's Revenge" of the Spring and Autumn Period and play out his story?

"Whenever there is an encounter, there is an exchange. Whenever there is an exchange, it leaves a trace."

Anna liked this imagination.

It is a dream core that can extend infinitely, connecting this vast world together, weaving all the names and stories together through vines, rather than being lonely and floating gravel in the lonely and cold universe.

This kind of imagination has a majestic and vast beauty.

It's telling Anna.

Everything is important, everything is eternal.

The stars twinkled in the night sky.

The vast void between them cannot be described in words.

From birth to death, these stars will never meet each other and will always move independently in their own celestial systems.

But in the end.

A hundred years later, two hundred years later, a thousand years later… a hundred million years later.

Their light will eventually intertwine.

Combined into a bunch.

Everything is unimportant and everything is short-lived.

All the emperors, all the generals, all the conspiracies and intrigues, all the power, slavery and conquest will one day disappear into thin air.

Alexander the Great conquered Central Asia.

He unified Greece, conquered Egypt, destroyed the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, and occupied India.

He defeated almost all the enemies that stood in his way, but in the end, he was defeated only by death itself.

This scene is so symbolic in Anna's heart.

It would make her feel that the wars and colonizations that people were so passionate about in the 19th century were boring.

The most powerful commander in the world established the largest country in the world at that time. In 13 years, he conquered 500 million square kilometers of land.

On the day he died, Macedonia became the only country in the world spanning the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa.

2300 years ago, Alexander died of illness on the ruins of Babylon.

He "conquered" three of the four ancient civilizations; he is the embodiment of the word "conquer."

But in the end... there are still things that even such a leader cannot conquer.

It cannot be defeated by force or army.

The poem says that he went on an expedition to Asia and ordered his soldiers to take away all living things as slaves and sow "seeds of salt and thorns" in the soil.

"There will be no more human laughter, art and poetry, only wild beasts and weeds."

And it was shortly after Alexander's death.

Hellenistic Buddha images began to spread in Central Asia, and perhaps on one of them was printed the face of Alexander himself.

Then.

Did Alexander conquer Buddha?

Or did Buddha conquer Alexander?
This is a philosophical question that is difficult to answer.

Miss Elena only knew that, whatever it was, it was not "beasts and weeds."

History has shown time and again that civilization cannot be killed by cavalry, warships, or Western missionaries. Civilization will grow and multiply.
It will blend into each other.

"Art decays later than glory."

Anna looked at the picture of "Old Church on a Thunderstorm Day", and she remembered the words engraved on the handrail of the long steps in Elena Manor.

It was for the same reason that she could recognize it not only as an English church but also as a colonial English church.

From the perspective of 19th century Eurocentrism.

Missionaries carried the gospel in their arms and traveled around the world on colonial ships, spreading so-called "civilization" to so-called "barbarism."

Churches are core buildings and are often planned and built at the very beginning of colonial rule.

In theory, it has to be built meticulously. For example, when the French occupied Vietnam, when the Notre Dame Church was built in the capital of Vietnam, it is said that every brick in the building was specially transported from France.

But actually.

There are still many churches that, even if they follow European architectural standards as a whole, still reflect local characteristics in small details.

Local aesthetics also affect the design and operation of churches. Anna has even seen missionary churches in Mali, Africa, that have very local characteristics.

The influence of civilizations is mutual.

Wherever there is contact, there is exchange.

This was true even for the civilization that was considered "barbaric and backward" in the minds of many Europeans at the time.

Neither the British fleets, guns, nor germs could change this.

Neither can the almighty Jehovah or the glorious Virgin Mary.

Did civilization conquer the general, or did the general conquer civilization?

Did God conquer art, or did art conquer God?

Who can tell clearly?

Perhaps it was the spirit of equality, civilization and tolerance that won the final victory.

This is also the reason why Anna loves Impressionism.

It is not only a very beautiful art, but also a very inclusive art.

Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet... they discovered that in traditional oriental art, painters explored and pursued things beyond "material power".

It is a completely different way of unfolding from Western painting philosophy.

It is like the difference between painting the "red" of an apple and painting the "fragrance" of an apple. They realized that at the level of "freehand brushwork", perhaps Eastern artists have come a long way in the past hundreds or thousands of years.

then.

They absorbed them with great delight.

By capturing momentary impressions and feelings, they completed the change from using brushes to purely depict objective scenes of the real world to focusing on the creation of artistic conception and emotional expression.

This inclusive spirit has made Impressionism great and also made it timeless.

This kind of capture and depiction of momentary feelings always touches Miss Elena again and again, just like the magazine cover in Anna's hand now -

The statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the old church is made of dry and rough stone.

The Impressionist style of painting with short and complex brushstrokes often gives people a vague and hazy impression when depicting detailed scenery.

however.

Miss Elena still figured out that the roughness of the stone statue was not caused by the painter's lack of brushwork, but an intentional roughness that seemed to represent history, tradition or something else.

to the opposite.

The thunderclouds in the sky are depicted in great detail.

When ordinary people look at this painting, it is easy to blur the thunderclouds above the church and the distant view of the entire painting with the night sky because the entire painting is in dark tones.

Especially when the picture is covered with dust, the painting will immediately become gray or even dirty.

It was for this reason that the staff of the Yangon Hotel packed it up and disposed of it as garbage when they were cleaning the warehouse.

Anna is no ordinary person.

Almost at a glance, she discovered the beauty of the dark sea of clouds floating in the upper layer of the picture.

Thunderstorms often represent a gloomy and depressing image, but when the painter uses a pen to connect these thunderclouds into a whole on the drawing paper, turning them into short and powerful lines, they are full of solemnity or rolling anger.

Then such clouds are like dead wood struck by lightning, burning fiercely.

The gloomy and cold temperament it contained was immediately evaporated completely.

This color reminded Miss Irena of another classic Impressionist work with dark tones, "Wheat Field Under Thunderstorm Clouds", which is a representative work of Van Gogh. The clouds in the painting painted with short blue strokes turned into a storm, occupying half of the picture.

Van Gogh painted that picture in the spring of 1890.

In July of the same year.

In a state of mental disorder, he chose to shoot himself and end his life.

"Wheat Field Under Thunderclouds" became one of the last few works created by Van Gogh in his life and one of his last works.

Some scholars interpret this painting as Van Gogh's despair about life and living, and believe that Van Gogh expressed his unspoken cry for help through his art works with a frenzied temperament.

Anna sees it differently.

From the perspective of future generations of history, it is the easiest thing to follow the clues and give some kind of rote answer, but it is also the thing with the least technical difficulty.

Hemingway committed suicide in 1961, so the articles he wrote at the end of his life were actually saying "I am dying, come and save me."

Benjamin committed suicide in 1940, so every line of the poems he wrote at the end of his life was saying "I am dying, save me!"

For the same reason.

Van Gogh committed suicide in 1890, so at the end of his life, every stroke and every painting he made was supposed to be saying:

"I'm dying, hurry up, someone come and save me!"

In Anna's heart.

Such an interpretation is more like what a clumsy fortune teller would do if he used an expired lottery ticket to predict yesterday's Lotto results, rather than the conclusion that a professional researcher should come to.

There's no sign of any deep thinking involved.

Some people, like Benjamin or the suicide enthusiast Dazai Osamu.

His works do have a strong sense of world-weariness when read, and all day long, you're like, "Oh, mom, I'm going to die."

There are some people too.

For example, Van Gogh's "Wheat Field Under Thunderclouds". Anna thinks that it is correct that the thunderclouds in this work contain the creator's "cry", but it is not necessarily a "cry for help".

Than a desperate cry for help.

It is more like some kind of fierce roar at the world.

Van Gogh's mental state did become increasingly unstable in his later years, and he often fell into a state of mania and madness. Perhaps it was this mental state that made Van Gogh paint that picture, and it was also the same mental state that made the artist point the gun at himself and pull the trigger.

But it can be said that this painting contains the cry of death.

That may not be the case.

In this painting, there are also thunderclouds, but the brushstrokes are more delicate, more refined, softer and more balanced than in Van Gogh's painting.

"Church paintings" are the most enduring painting subject in Impressionism.

Many painters paint a lot of churches in their lifetime.

Among all Western oil painting schools, Impressionist painters are the type who particularly like to paint churches.

but.

The more Anna looked at it, the more she realized that this was not one of those common religious paintings in churches, nor was it even the kind of frantic shouting that Van Gogh left on his canvas.

Miss Elena would think so if there were only thunderclouds in the picture.

But there is that candlelight in the middle.

The atmosphere of the picture changed suddenly in an instant.

It turns the work from a state of disappointment to a state of ardent hope, from a state of frenzy to a state of balance.

From disappointment in reality to an answer to fate.

It also transforms this painting from an ordinary religious painting, from the conversion and pursuit of the Savior Christ and the Virgin Mary, into a challenge and exploration of life itself.

"A certain harmony of senses and perceptions."

Anna is not good at drawing.

But in the field of art appreciation, in terms of the subtle capture of emotions in paintings, to say that Miss Anna is sitting in a wheelchair, using both legs and one hand, and beating eight Gu Weijing at the same time is bullying him.

Gu Weijing worked hard to copy "Old Church" countless times in front of the drawing board. Finally, he figured things out by the lake of Xihe Guild Hall.

Even though the cover of "Asian Art" is just a photocopied photo, it still does not reach the level of printing in professional art albums.

Miss Elena still saw everything at a glance.

"At dusk in Paris, my friends and I saw the fiery red light hovering over the Arc de Triomphe, and my dreams also floated on it... A brand new artistic path slowly unfolded before my eyes. In the burning sky, I saw a river of dreamy colors that could extend infinitely. I felt that this would be the destination of my life."

Staring at the old church with thunderclouds on the cover.

Looking at the candles in the deep night, through the stained glass of the church, the arc of light reflected seems to be a rainbow floating in the dark night.

I don’t know how.

Miss Anna suddenly remembered what she had read in the letter from Grandma Kara.

Probably - many outstanding Impressionist painters have had similar feelings at some point in their lives.

Same moon, same clouds, same stars.

Shining on the sensitive and brave heart that is also good at capturing colors.

It's natural to have similar feelings.

The woman's suspicion caused by Liu Ziming's words just now mostly dissipated, and her eyes became softer.

"Maybe... not all of them are fake. At least the painting itself is pretty good."

Anna nodded slightly.

I heard from Liu Ziming that among the authors of this paper, in addition to Gu Weijing, there is also Sakai Katsuko.

She knew who Katsuko Sakai was, and that she was Kazunari Sakai's daughter.

The art industry is a small circle, and the top social circle has only a handful of people.

Sir Brown convenes an annual European art conference, hoping to gather all the leading figures in the industry in Europe at one venue.

Miss Elena even met Miss Sakai once in Japan.

Japan is a major country in the field of Impressionist collection.

Because of historical reasons.

At a time when Impressionism was suppressed by the academic school and unpopular in its native Europe, half of the major collectors of Impressionism in the market were Americans, and the remaining half were almost all Japanese tycoons.

There are a lot of Impressionist paintings circulating in Asia.

"With Kazunari Sakai's connections, it's not impossible to dig up a very rare early Impressionist work."

Miss Elena flipped to the cover page of the thesis.

next moment.

The Female Artists Forgotten by Time: The Color Entanglement and Visual Dimension of Dark Tone Impressionist Works.

A huge English title comes into view.

Anna glanced at it and continued to scroll down.

suddenly.

The woman's fingers froze, and she subconsciously felt that something was wrong.

The forgotten female Impressionist painters

Carol?

Carol?
Memories are like a loud thunderclap, which stirs up the world's thousands of tides.