Almighty painter

Chapter 800 Gu Weijing's Code (Part )
It was just a random thought, but Anna was immersed in this question.

She stared quietly at the dilapidated old buildings outside the window - the remains of the dead "beauty" and the art treasures wrapped in the spider web of modern industry.

Open sesame.

Open sesame.

She needed a ritual, a decree, a magic to awaken the old and dead thing before her eyes, sweep away the cobwebs that had sealed it, and make the dead body open its eyes again.

How did Gu Weijing do it?
Why can he extract the elements of "beauty" from the buildings in front of him? Does he have any secret?
The woman knew about art history. She heard that two hundred years ago, the studios of great artists in Paris would publish purchase notices in newspapers. They would commission photographers to take landscape photos in front of interesting buildings around the city and mail them to their own studios.

Firstly, it makes up for the regret that they did not shoot on location.

Secondly.

Early cameras did not take clear pictures.

Depending on the aperture size and exposure time adjusted by the photographer, the photographed scene will form an image with different depth of field and brightness on the film.

Many painters particularly like this effect, which is their unique secret to perceiving beauty.

When painting a landscape, place a silver plate photograph and take only the blurred shadows and the outline of "beauty".

They try to ignore the mottled details that would make the picture no longer pure and become mediocre, fill it with their own inner imagination, and root their senses in the landscape.

Does Gu Weijing also have this little trick for observing architecture?

Anna held the little hand of Jasmine firmly with the hand that was not holding the stick. She was holding the bystander who had watched the young man perform the witchcraft ceremony in front of the easel.

She holds the key to beauty.

"Please, tell me, what exactly did Gu Weijing do? Jasmine."

The woman's tone carried an unusual pleading tone due to her eagerness to open the treasure chest in front of her.

I beg you.

Please tell me this mysterious spell.

Miss Elena said in her heart.

She believes that her devotion to art is rarely matched by others, and she can easily interpret the meaning of other people's paintings, but she is always trapped outside the easel and cannot find a way to combine the passion in her works with the mediocre scenery before her.

"How did Gu Weijing paint that landscape?"

Jasmine was stunned for a moment.

This question seemed to test her.

Many times, she would accompany Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko like a little tail while they were painting.

How to draw a picture——

It's nothing more than putting up a drawing board, drawing lines with a pencil, and painting on it with a brush and paint. What else is there to do?
The little girl in the blue skirt hesitated for a long time.

She also opened her bright dark eyes, looked at the orphanage in front of her, and finally spoke softly.

"Him? He just stood there, looking up, looking very attentively—"

"Ah."

Anna nodded to show that she was listening.

She squeezed Jasmine's hand gently, encouraging the person next to her to continue.

Jasmine said nothing more.

It was not until more than ten seconds later that the woman who had been waiting patiently realized that the girl next to her had already explained her impression of Gu Weijing's paintings.

"Look up and look at it. It looks like he is paying close attention."

This introduction, which could not be simpler, is the only and only memory in the little girl's heart after she witnessed the mysterious witchcraft of turning ugliness into beauty. It is as pale and mediocre as the church in front of her.

The woman let go of Jasmine's hand and said nothing.

"sorry."

Little girl Jasmine said softly.

"Sorry? Why should I apologize? You said it very well!" Anna quickly recovered from her loss.

She held the girl's hand again and smiled slightly to express her apology.

"That's great, you helped me a lot."

She patted Jasmine's shoulder.

"As a token of my gratitude, I will give you a gift in return. Is there anything you would like?"

She asked casually and politely.

It is really rude to blame a child for not being able to open the treasure in front of him!
Anna's momentary disappointment was not directed at Jasmine, but at herself. She laughed at herself for getting so carried away that she actually asked such a complicated and profound question to a child.

As an art critic, I don’t even know what answer she wants.

What answer can the child come up with?
If she wanted to understand the complicated ways of color transfer and get some mysterious and emotional artistic interpretation, she should go back to the magazine and read more previous issues of "Oil Painting" instead of asking a child for his opinion.

"Thank you."

Jasmine shook her head maturely and gave Miss Elena a polite smile: "But I don't want anything. Brother Gu Weijing has already given me a lot of things."

"You don't want my gift."

Anna looked down at the little girl who had no idea that she had just rejected one of the richest heiresses in all of Central Europe.

"And he gave you a lot of things?"

The focus of Anna's words is on the second half.

Children always have a kind of innocent childishness, follow a very simple social concept, and can even reject some temptations that adults cannot refuse - perhaps it is because children of this age do not understand the meaning of temptation.

As long as you have food to eat and clothes to wear, you can be happy and contented.

Miss Elena admired the fact that even though Jasmine was born in an orphanage in a slum, she was still able to retain her innocence and simplicity, just like the original color of the material can be maintained in the rusty green.

But Anna was really helpless.

She is really a person who is rarely rejected.

The strength of the Elena family was enough to make Sir Brown feel suffocated, and few people had the courage to refuse the kindness of the Elena family.

It was only two short days.

There are two people, one big and one small.

Just yesterday, someone got her 300 million euros back.

Today, the little girl also rejected her in a polite manner. When people are too polite, they often appear distant.

In children.

This emotional characteristic is particularly evident.

"Humph!"

A soft humming sound rang out in the woman's heart again. The timbre was exactly the same as the "do" in C major that Anna pressed heavily on the piano keyboard with the tip of her thumb when her piano teacher praised a talented piano student of the same age in front of her when she was nine years old.

"He was very kind to me and gave me many things, including oil brushes, clothes, and illustration books..."

When talking about young people, the smile on the girl's face was completely different from the smile she showed when facing Anna.

Jasmine's eyes reflected the woman's figure, the beautiful emotions brewing in her dark eyes intertwined with the graceful silhouette of Anna's body.

The laughter that exists in the spiritual world.

People who exist in the material world.

The two cannot be reconciled.

Anna studied the sparkling eyes.

"Alas." She sighed quietly.

In the Latin epic, the thirsty Tantalus stretched out his hand towards the rippling water in front of his chest, but the moment his fingers touched the waves, they passed by and turned into nothingness.

"You made a good model for him, too, Jasmine."

Miss Elena remembered the senior who exchanged a ballpoint pen for millions of views on YouTube.

"You have beautiful eyes."

"It's very expensive to hire a girl with such beautiful eyes as a model. He gets much more from you than he gives you."

Anna said in a complicated tone that she herself couldn't explain what she was thinking.

"Girl, don't think you owe him anything. You don't owe anyone anything."
-
It was noon when the "Oil Painting" team was about to leave the Good Luck Orphanage.

The bright sun hangs high above our heads.

The humid sunlight of the tropical rainy season further highlights the dusty and dilapidated appearance of the old church. An old, gold-painted carpet from Southeast Asia produced in the West.

When it was intact and had just been woven by an assembly line machine, the workmanship could not be considered delicate and exquisite. Moreover, at this moment, the criss-crossing tweed fibers were filled with more than a century of accumulated cigarette ash, and the damp heat had caused mold spots, so it was really no longer worth playing with.

The woman tried to walk back and forth on the blanket with the help of a cane, hoping to get some different feeling.

She saw nothing but the smoke and dust stirred up in the sunlight.

"I heard from Jasmine that you are an art magazine and you are very concerned about Gu Weijing's affairs. These things may be what you want and can be used when writing articles."

yard.

The dean came over and handed a file to Secretary Elliot.

"Thank you."

Anna sat back in her wheelchair, politely accepted the gift, lowered her head and casually opened it. The notebook was filled with various children's paintings.

Crayons, watercolors, pencils, everything.

There is no method and no tune.

It can't be called a work of art at all.

“Isn’t this his painting?”

"These are the cartoons that Xiao Gu taught the children to draw. He would put a small red heart on the ones he thought were good. I collected them all. Some of them were drawn by him while holding the children's hands..."

Miss Elena smiled knowingly.

She had no interest at first, but now, looking at those childish works, she suddenly found them very interesting.

This guy who is sharp-tongued and difficult to get along with has this side in front of the children——

It's a bit of a contrast.

"Great."

Anna praised.

This small notebook is the biggest gain from her trip to the old church. Anna has not yet figured out how to use it. Should she use it as the "black" history of the young artist in the report article?
Or the next time you meet, you can make some good-natured jokes to ease the awkwardness of yesterday.

Anna's fingertips brushed over Peppa Pig's big pink and red pig head on the notebook.

"At the Royal Salon of 1881, critics called Edwin Landseer a master of dog painting. In his oil painting, he painted a Labrador to look like Sir Chandler. Very cute. I think you have a talent for animal painting. If one day I get really tired of Sir Brown, perhaps I can entrust you with my help?" - How about starting with this topic next time you meet?
For someone like Miss Elena, even a smile from her to others during an interview is a great reward to that person.

Whenever she wants to meet someone, she would start the conversation with a joke that is venomous like Anna's but actually well-intentioned. It is really like saying, "I'm sorry, I may have been a little biased towards you last time. Can we reconcile?"

"It's very good."

The headmistress continued with Anna's topic - "Xiao Gu has always been a very good person. He is very caring and has donated a lot to the orphanage. Our place used to be old and run-down, and many of the furnishings were even left over from the pre-colonial era more than a hundred years ago..."

"All the modernization you see, all the lines and pipelines, were brought by Xiao Gu alone. He helped the orphanage a lot, and it adds up to tens of thousands of dollars... Moreover, he is always very patient with the children here... There was also a reporter before..."

Miss Elena seemed to have heard something that interested her.

She didn't seem to be listening carefully at all.

She turned a page in the notebook and found a news report cut out from a local newspaper tucked between the pages.

On the light grey newspaper page, a young man was holding the hand of a little girl who was much shorter than him and they were dancing together.

Miss Elena had a vague impression of this news.

Anna had her own way of judging things, so she had never commissioned a private detective to investigate Gu Weijing like Liu Ziming did. However, the housekeeper followed the woman's instructions and sorted out the relevant media information about Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko for her.

I vaguely remember.

One thing mentioned in the brief inquiry was that Gu Weijing seemed to often volunteer in an orphanage.

But this report was mainly about drug orphans, unlike the interview with Miao Angwen, where Gu Weijing appeared extensively. It was also very common for artists to be associated with charitable acts, so Anna did not pay much attention to it that day.

This was the first time Anna had seen this photo in the notebook.

The woman stared at the picture.

She was stunned.

In the photo, Jasmine's skirt was flying, and Gu Weijing was looking at the girl in front of him. Both of them were smiling, and their eyes were reflected in the same place.

Perfectly clothed.

The photographs in the newspapers didn't look very realistic.

The moment Anna saw this scene, she realized the harmonious unity of its temperament.

The smiles and looks on their faces had nothing to do with the shots being taken.

There is a kind of smile that is the smile that movie stars give to the spotlight, flawless and well-trained.

What is presented on Anna's fingertips is another kind of emotional expression without dramatic exaggeration or expressionism.

They are only loyal to each other.

They exist only for each other's present moment.

They bloom only for the simple beauty of each other's dance steps at this moment.

Austria is known as the country of court dance, and it is hard to find another city in the world with department stores like Vienna's. When Anna was in college, the shopping mall next to the university had an entire fourth floor dedicated to dance props, specializing in selling all kinds of professional dance dresses and party equipment.

The department store has a café on the first floor, daily necessities on the second floor, and the third and fourth floors are used as venues for private salons and customized dance dresses respectively. It is a 19th century historical tradition that meets the social needs of gentlemen and ladies of the era of Balzac and Zweig. The Printemps department store, once famous throughout Europe, was set up in this way.

Anna can dance, too.

Yes.

There is no conflict between the fact that she is a cripple and her ability to dance. How could the daughter of the Irena family, the contemporary "Countess Irena", not know how to dance?

If you think that dancing was an important social skill in the old aristocratic society, you are definitely wrong.

No.

Please don't misunderstand.

Dancing was never a social skill.

Dancing is a survival skill.

This is especially true for women.

A young lady who can't dance is like a fish that can't swim. She will surely drown in the white eyes of the waves of the social season! In the past six hundred years, anyone who appeared in Schönbrunn Palace and could be called Miss Elena could dance.

Ninety percent of them are celebrities in the social scene.

They use their charm to exchange for the men's affection. If they are willing, a cold look can make the other party hand over some palace secrets intact with both hands.

When Anna was born, her father had planned for her to become a diplomat when she grew up, and the various balls at the embassy were the best opportunities to build personal connections.

Anna can dance, of course.

The dance she can dance is definitely not the same as the dance Koko can dance.

Of course, bouncing and jumping dance steps are not allowed. If anyone dares to invite a woman in a wheelchair to do bouncing and jumping dance steps, don't think twice, just pour coffee on her face. Some gentle and soothing hugging dance steps are fine. She can even use her left leg as a support to do some relatively complex rotations.

Whether in high school or college, there are always endless dances in school.

Anna rarely actually goes dancing.

She didn't like such a stale tune. The strict rhythm of the court dance was the same as the "Rules of Etiquette for Ladies in the Church" in school. They were all part of the cage that trapped Miss Elena.

She didn't like this old atmosphere, which was mixed with filth amidst the splendor. The old empire collapsed into pieces, and in the tune of the waltz, she didn't hear passionate music, but rather some kind of funeral march that sounded in another world. When the violin sounded, everyone seemed to regard her as a symbol of something that had died.

She particularly disliked the seductiveness of the body when dancing.

Whose work said this?

Useful things don't need flattery.

Fawning means to please.

For example, a sword is scary enough as long as it is sharp. A sword that is not sharp enough and has lost its function needs to be wrapped in gold and silver to make others like it. And when she dances, she needs her partner's hands on her body for support, which reminds Anna of her weakness and powerlessness.

Coquettishness and weakness.

Anna disliked it doubly.

the last point.

It has been many years since Anna found someone suitable to dance with, but she still clearly remembers that in the afternoons more than ten years ago, when her aunt was still healthy, they often practiced dancing.

When my aunt was dancing with Anna, who was not much older than Jasmine.

This is the smile on their faces.

(End of this chapter)