Almighty painter

Chapter 813: The atmosphere improved during the second meeting between Miss Anna and Mr. Gu (Part )

The candlelight in the church is as dim as a bean.

Quiet and plain.

Like a burst of phosphorescence floating in the air, it is so beautiful that it makes people feel uneasy.

……

Anna returned to Singapore in the afternoon.

As the plane was taxiing at Changi International Airport, she had the idea of ​​coming to St. Andrew's Cathedral.

Miss Elena didn't have any particular destination.

She just wanted to walk around the city and think about the interviews in the next few days and how she should face him.

Anna wanted to apologize, but she didn't know how to start.

She had to apologize only a few times in her life.

Say.

Her attitude was indeed not very good, but "Elena's family should go to hell"... these words were really hurtful.

Hao Ge sarcastically said that her so-called devotion to art could make her donate 5 billion US dollars with a wave of her hand, but could not make her choose not to be Miss Elena.

This statement really hits the nail on the head.

Anna knew that her personality was a little twisted.

She grew up listening to stories about family glory and glorious history.

Her deepest impression of her parents was that her father held her on his knees in the manor, holding a hardcover book "History of the Austro-Hungarian Empire" by Paul Louis Leger, and turning the pages one by one, telling about the Thirty Years' War, the Anti-French Alliance, the Battle of the Three Emperors, and how her ancestors charged towards the French on the battlefield of Austerlitz and died there to cover the retreat of Francis II.

The hardcover book made of cowhide is filled with stories about Elena's family.

Her father held her hand and said that Anna would become a great diplomat in the future. She would be able to bring the family back to the center of the European political stage after hundreds of years and restore the family's reputation.

Her aunt is better.

She never asked Anna to be a diplomat. Before she died, she appointed a guardian for her until she came of age, and told her:

She is now the sole heir and owner of an ancient family that has been passed down for six centuries.

She was one of the wealthiest heiresses in all of Central Europe.

But it is not important.

What's important to the Elena family is not wealth, estates, land, trust funds, or large amounts of mining company stocks.

“What matters is you.”

She, Anna Elena, belonged to the entire Elena family. These words surrounded her and affected her.

"I am everything to the Elena family. If I am no longer Miss Elena, then what will the Elena family have? Could it be that our ancestors handed over the family that had been passed down for half a thousand years to her, and when it came to her, it all turned into nothing?"

Anna dissected herself with the harsh spirit of a critic, and felt that she was really born Miss Irena, full of affectation and hypocrisy.

What they preach on the surface, but do completely the opposite on the inside—

One of the most glorious traditions of the Irene family, an old-school aristocratic family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Her ancestors confidently declared at the court salon that Irene's family was the patron of artists all over Europe. He loved painting and also loved painters.

“Art is more imperishable than glory.” Even our family motto is this. How can we still love art?
result.

When his daughter really went to Paris to become a painter, he was furious, thinking that engaging in such a job of painting for others was a complete disgrace to his ancestors, so he had his daughter captured and tortured to death.

Anna's great-great-grandfather, the old count, declared that he would establish the most authoritative and fair painting and art review magazine in the whole of Europe, inviting the most famous art masters in Europe to serve as judges, maintaining neutrality and objectivity, and not changing the magazine's position based on any personal subjective preferences.

result.

The name of the magazine was Oil Painting. The old count believed that in the category of painting, except for oil painting, other types of painting were not art at all. The art created by black people, in his mind, was probably just uncivilized graffiti like monkeys.

Is what the old earl did really any better than what Sir Brown did?
While her great-grandfather cursed the little mustache, he was indifferent to the suffering around him and the money that was pouring into his account. He felt that it was entirely the government's problem and had nothing to do with him.

It's really too much black humor.

Her ancestors never really loved art; they just loved the feeling of loving art.

What about when it comes to me?
Anna claims to be an impartial critic, but without really understanding the young man at all, she makes arbitrary judgments about him based on her own temperament and is full of subjective bias.

Her eloquence was unmatched. She defeated every enemy like a fencing master and was very powerful in the school's debate arena.

He tore apart those artists in his reviews, tore apart Van Doorn in his video programs, and tore apart Sir Brown at the European Art Conference and at the banquets at the manor.

She always wins.

Always winning.

As usual, she fiercely fought back against the godfather of counterfeit artworks, logically and clearly explained that he was changing the concept, pointing out his hypocrisy and cowardice. She had been arguing all the time, but was speechless before Hao Ge's last question.

Because what they say is the irrefutable truth.

She liked Kara, and she considered herself an admirer of Grandma Kara. She felt that Kara's greatness lay in her willingness to stop being Miss Elena and become herself.

Replaced by herself.

Anna had the opportunity to be Anna, but she didn’t give up the power to be Miss Elena.

It is a cage, a bondage, and a palace stained with blood.

She told Detective Cat that the so-called aristocratic life was filled with boring, hypocritical things that made people lose interest and feel tired, so -

"It's really boring, isn't it?"

Some wealth represents power, while some wealth is a cage that binds the soul.

Some wealth is both power and a cage.

She understands all the principles.

However, Anna did not have the courage to put it into practice. In fact, she hated her predetermined fate, but was also afraid of the unknown fate.

Anna lacks Kara's strength to give everything for love and to possess everything in the world when she holds on to something.

That's the problem, after all.

Not becoming Miss Elena is much heavier than paying five billion dollars.

Think about it.

Anna has been thinking on the plane, was it really the right choice for her to sign Detective Cat?
No.

exactly.

She would never regret signing Detective Cat.

But was it really the right choice for her to return to Oil Painting magazine?
Ever since leaving Good Luck Orphanage, Anna has been examining her own behavior.

She put herself naked on the dissecting table and dissected her with her harshness and sharpness. While stabbing herself until she bled, it also gave the woman a kind of almost morbid pleasure.

Anna sarcastically said that no matter how Sir Brown packaged himself as fair and objective, he could not cover up the fact that his Muse plan was to be both the referee and the athlete himself.

Think about it now.

What right does Anna have to say these things?
She was mocking Sir Brown while doing exactly the same thing.

On the one hand, she is the artistic director of the "Oil Painting" column, and on the other hand, she secretly works as Detective Cat's agent.

This is an irrefutable fact. Facts are facts, and crossing the line is crossing the line.

It is inexplicable and irrefutable.

Anna is unwilling to be a judge of the Singapore Biennale and will not write an art review for Detective Cat... these are all false self-consolation.

Anna said that although she is Detective Cat's agent, she has a pious heart and will remain neutral and objective.

Sir Brown has always said that although he took money from the Gallery Association, he also had a pious heart and would remain neutral and objective.

and.

The art criticism industry has always been an industry that expresses strong personal subjective thoughts. What exactly is neutrality and objectivity? Anna herself is not clear.

Of course critics like Detective Cats, that's the critics' right.

But being liked by an agent is another matter entirely.

Agents and painters are the closest partners on the artistic path.

Does she really not have any stereotypes when looking at other painters' works just because Detective Cat also participated in the Biennale and she wanted Detective Cat to win the gold medal of the Biennale?

If there is.

Even if it's just a little bit.

This is unfair to the entire Singapore Biennale organizers and organizing committee, to all other participating painters, and to all readers who are willing to believe Anna and therefore believe in the fairness and objectivity of Oil Painting magazine.

This shows that she is an unqualified art director.

if there is not.

Suppose Anna herself really managed to avoid suspicion completely.

Then.

As an art director who loves detective cats, she should have personally written an enthusiastic appreciation article for her in Oil Painting magazine.

Since she is DetectiveCat's agent, Anna can't do that.

What "12 pounds of real, warm brushstrokes weigh more than a mountain of nothingness."

She had thousands of words to say, but she could only keep them all in her heart and could not put them into writing.

in turn.

An article of praise that Detective Cat deserves and should have belonged to the series "Ocean's Twelve Cats" was lost because of Anna's dual identity.

Is this unfair to the detective cat who trusted her agent and believed that he would do his best to help her?
in the case of.

Even just a little bit.

It also shows that Anna is not a qualified agent.

A good agent who is required to think from the painter's perspective and devote himself fully to maximizing the painter's interests, and a column manager of "Oil Painting" magazine who is required to think from the critic's perspective and strive to provide the audience with absolutely neutral and objective artistic interpretations, are two inherently contradictory identities.

Just like the huge contradiction between her as Anna and her as Miss Elena.

She is alone.

She can only be one person.

She can only be a good person.

If you choose this, you shouldn't choose that.

Anna was clearly aware of this. She knew that if these two identities were exposed, it would be a huge scandal.

Sir Brown at least puts things out in the open. His Muse Project and his collaborations with major galleries and famous artists are publicized all over the world.

What is this about her?

Anna smiled bitterly.

She felt that she was the kind of person who was a whore while pretending to be a virtuous woman.

The 19th century was an era when Europe's old aristocrats gradually withdrew from the center of the historical stage. One by one, earls, dukes and even princes left the stage in the tide.

They were dissolute and frivolous, addicted to alcohol and gambling, and had almost no ability to survive other than their titles.

Therefore, the most mainstream way for those people to maintain a wealthy life at that time was to marry their sons or daughters to the heiress of a wealthy South American rubber plantation owner or a North American industrialist who made his fortune from oil or steel factories. To be more precise, they "sold" them in exchange for continuing their own extravagant life.

Some who are even more destitute, although seemingly prosperous and respectable, secretly work as socialites in salons and banquets, and some are even prostitutes.

As one of the richest families that withdrew from the political whirlpool early, the Elena family naturally had nothing to do with these things.

They were high above, looking down at the dust of the world, including the great and small nobles who had turned into dust.

But Anna felt that this was like a symbol and metaphor for the duality of her personal destiny.

"On the surface, he is cold and noble, but in private, he has lost all manners."

Anna launched a dose of Anna-style sharp criticism at herself, whose mind was stabbed like a knife and bleeding.

Even if there is no detective cat thing.

She was also a little confused.

Miss Elena thought of many ways to win over those galleries and fight against Sir Brown.

She would thoughtfully think of asking Secretary Elliott to attend the lecture given by the young painter at the CDX Gallery on her behalf and bring a gift. It would not be difficult to win over and divide Sir Brown's interest groups.

Hundreds of years ago, the Irena family was the most adept family in the European power arena and the most adept at palace intrigue.

a lot of things.

For Anna, it was as easy as breathing.

But she didn't know whether she should do this. She could defeat Sir Brown, but would the price of defeating Sir Brown mean turning herself into another Sir Brown?
She felt that Lord Browne could not remain neutral and objective while appealing to the interests behind the galleries.

Can she do it herself?

If she had reached a private agreement with Larry Gagosian, if she had reached a private agreement with Marcel Schmidt.

Be it an exchange of interests or buying off with money.

In short.

If everything succeeds.

think about it.

In the past decade or so, the situation of the Ma Shi Gallery has not been good.

At the dinner to seal the deal, she raised a champagne glass in a Paris restaurant.

Before clinking glasses, Mas III, who was sitting across the table, suddenly gave her a flattering smile and asked her in a flattering manner whether, in return for the favor given to the Irena family, she could say a few good words for one of his painters in the "Oil Painting" magazine?

As a gallery owner, it is normal for him to make such a request.

And in a crucial situation, could she refuse? Would she hesitate, weigh the pros and cons, and then grit her teeth and agree?

Even though she refused at the time.

In the midst of the intrigue with the board of directors, can Anna really keep refusing such requests?

How can she guarantee it?

(End of this chapter)