Almighty painter

Chapter 828 The Decisive Moment

Liu Ziming turned on the camping reading light on top of the Suv, put the backrest of the driver's seat in the most reclined position, and lay down against the seat.

On his knees was an old photo album containing works by many famous photographers.

Turn the pages one by one.

There are insects landing on the grass leaves, beech trees swaying in the wind in autumn, couples turning their heads to look at the camera inadvertently in a coffee shop, and movie stars walking out of a 1950s Cadillac muscle car with a flamboyant flaming tail fin on the streets of Santa Monica Bay, smiling brightly...

Liu Ziming likes to draw sketches.

concise.

solemn.

Thick.

All the complex colors in the world are simplified on the drawing paper into subtle changes in the levels of black and white, light and shadow. With just a pencil, a painter can create five, ten, twenty or even a hundred different levels of light and shadow in a painting.

Liu Ziming's love for black and white sketches also extends to his love for black and white photographs.

The cover photo of this collection of famous photos is a boy wearing a round-neck shirt and shorts.

He held a bottle of wine with a rubber stopper in each hand, walking home in the sunshine. The boy had a clear and confident smile on his face, as if he had just completed an important task. His smile and his footsteps that were about to fall outside the frame were all frozen in time in this 125/1 second exposure.

"Boy" - an extremely famous black-and-white photo, taken on the streets of Austria in 1958. The photographer was Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is known as the father of modern photojournalism.

Liu Ziming stared at the black and white photo on the cover.

Close your eyes.

The boy holding an iced soda in the sunset and the woman's face full of life behind him, which he saw more than 20 years ago, also appeared in the eyes of the middle-aged man. Finally, the lens of memory was fixed on the swaying red blessing decoration knot on the cart behind them.

Liu Ziming tore open the letter with trembling fingers.

"The way we look at the world determines who we are... I once thought about having a serious talk with you about this. Considering that you have been a delicate and sensitive child since childhood, I later felt that the question "Who am I?" should be answered by yourself rather than by others."

"So I have always been concerned about your situation in my own way."

"…Today, you asked me why you, a person who hates vulgar images, were struck by a very vulgar scene? This is a good question, but first, let's clarify a question, what is a vulgar scene? The fake roses in the vase that have been painted ten thousand times, or the wild flowers on the roadside that have never been painted, which one is more vulgar?"

"The former or the latter?"

"Of course everyone can have a different answer, but if you ask me, my answer is - none of them is vulgar. You told me a story today, so why not listen to me tell you a story. In the last century, I visited Pablo in southern France. Picasso was the longest-lived and most productive painter of that era. I was curious about how he maintained his vitality and peak creativity for decades. I was even more curious about how he observed the world. During lunch at Notre Dame de Ville, I noticed that he was staring at a basil leaf on his plate."

"I asked him, Pablo, what are you looking at?"

"I'm looking at the cow's butt, he replied, or the Alps."

……

Liu Ziming's fingers unconsciously moved the corner of the letter paper, looking at the words written by Cao Xuan twenty years ago.

The black ink stained the old letter paper, and the deep and light strokes were like a pen sketch, outlining his inner thoughts.

"I am a person who hates master worship. I am writing this experience at this moment, not to tell you when you can see a cow's butt, the Alps or some other mysterious and complex things on the basil leaves on the plate to become Picasso. No, people don't have to be willing to be Picasso. You are my student, but that doesn't even mean you have to be willing to be me! You are not a copy of me, and I am not my teacher's..."

"But Ziming, whether you like it or not, you will always be yourself."

"One's life is made up of countless moments. Zen Buddhism says that one thought is worth three thousand. One moment, one thought, often contains countless different possibilities. Heidegger believes that the moment is the critical point where the past and the future intersect and overlap. What works of art often do is to capture the moment. It captures not only the breath of the moment, but also the infinitely extended possibilities formed by the intersection of the past and the outside world."

On the letter paper, Mr. Cao wrote in a thin handwriting: "It depicts the blossoming of emotions in an instant."

……

"When you see a basil leaf, do you see a cow's butt or the Alps? Or do you just see a basil leaf like me? The answer itself does not contain any moral judgment. It is difficult to say which one is better or worse. Just like the wild flowers on the roadside and the fake roses in the vase, it is difficult to say which one is better or worse. The only question is which scene touches you more. And the way they touch you determines who you are."

"I don't want to define your life. You will have countless moments in the future that determine and define yourself. You have countless possibilities and countless futures. But people only have one way to come. Remember what I said? The moment is the intersection where three thousand different futures overlap with the only given past. It is not only related to the future, but also to the past."

"You are a very talented child. Smart and gifted. You can speak French like the French, English like the British, and Italian like the residents who have lived in the Mediterranean for a long time... Needless to say, these are all very good things. But at that inadvertent moment, when you heard the voices of "Son, Fils, Filglio and A-zai" in your ears, which word made you subconsciously turn your head in the back seat of the car, it meant that you were touched by something in that instant."

"This is by no means a vulgar far-fetched assumption, but our true reaction to the world, which comes from the love in our hearts. The truth of art is hidden in such moments. The essence of art is love, that "Ah Zai"."

“A moment is eternity. Artworks should use frozen time to depict an infinitely extended world.”

……

"The moment is eternity."

Liu Ziming looked at the photo album in his hand.

He understood why Cao Xuan asked him to look at more photographic works.

The action of pressing the shutter button of the camera is like using the amber of film to freeze the insect of time.

It carries an inherently strong symbolic quality.

By adjusting the shutter speed, the photographer can freeze the "moments" of one thousandth of a second, one hundredth of a second, half a second, one second, two seconds, or even several hours, a day or even several days in a frozen photo.

“That’s why I suggest you read more of Cartier-Bresson’s works.”

“I think Cartier-Bresson is very similar to Impressionist paintings, both of which are about the changes in light and shadow frozen in an instant, and from such changes, infinite possibilities are born. Cartier-Bresson’s works may also have Cartier-Bresson’s problems, perhaps there is an overly strong “gaze” perspective... But I can see my thoughts on art in his works.”

……

At the end of the long letter.

Cao Xuan wrote:

"Whether it is vulgar or not is not important. For art, love is a more fundamental logic than those grand philosophical theories. When you feel lost and confused, you might as well think about it more. In this decisive moment of life, what is the essence of the fluctuation in your heart..."

What made his heart waver when he saw Gu Weijing's "The Hustle and Bustle of the World"?

Liu Ziming held the pipe in his pocket.

He was lost in thought holding the letter in his hand.

The sound of waves in the distance shattered his mood into pieces, mixed with the needle-like ink lines of his mother's pen in his hand, and sewn together into the mist on Gu Weijing's canvas that was stained by light.

Love is a more fundamental logic than those grand philosophical theories.

Caravaggio turned himself into a bloody head held by the young man.

Gu Weijing only painted his own death, but with his courage and love, he turned Liu Ziming's hesitation into the severed head of a giant in his hand.

"puff."

Liu Ziming took out tobacco, a briefcase, and an antique kerosene lighter from the armrest box.

He walked to the beach and pressed the spring.

Unlike the time with Basong, bright smoke came out.

That day, Liu Ziming stood on the beach and smoked his second cigarette in one day for the first time in twenty years since he learned to smoke.

While smoking, he lit up the documents in the folder that he was going to send to Gu Weijing one by one, and watched the ashes of the documents turn into fireflies in the sea breeze. He then threw them all into the sea along with the video storage card that Liu Ziming had bought from the paparazzi for $200,000.
-
The weekend is two days away.

On the morning of the interview of "Oil Painting·Gu Weijing: The Discovery and Research of Impressionist Female Painter Carroll".

Old Yang twisted his belly, stepped out of the elevator, and stood in front of Gu Weijing's hotel room door.

"Open the door, open the door." He raised his chin towards the cat's eye.

Squeak.

The sound of the door lock turning was heard, revealing Gu Weijing's face.

"So early?"

"Go earlier, go earlier. We can't be late. Maybe the interview team from Oil Painting will need to put some simple makeup on you first."

Without waiting for the door to be fully opened, Lao Yang shrank his stomach and hurriedly squeezed in through the crack of the door.

"Are you ready?"

"almost."

Old Yang smiled and said, "It's okay. It's normal for you to be nervous at your age. Even if you stutter, it's not a big deal. Just follow what Miss Elena says when you are talking to her. No one will expect too much from you."

"It depends on the situation. This is not my choice."

Gu Weijing's expression was a little complicated.

"Be slick, be slick, be smooth. No one expects you to say something shocking."

Old Yang naturally interpreted the young man's expression as a sign of fear when facing Oil Painting magazine, and consoled him, "Don't think too much. There's no point in being nervous now anyway."

He walked into the room.

Lao Yang was originally prepared to sit down on the bed with his arms and legs spread out.

The striped cat lying on the bedside table turned over and meowed.

Old Yang hesitated for a moment, turned around, pulled a chair from the desk and sat down.

The ginger tabby cat glanced at him and raised its chin. Yang Dekang guessed that it was probably confused in sleep and changed its posture randomly, which had nothing to do with him, so...

Old Yang was still very obedient and dragged the chair a little further away.

Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief.

"Suit on!"

As soon as he left Awang's launching range, Teacher Yang immediately resumed his tough-guy attitude. He threw the handbag in his left hand onto the TV cabinet and snapped his fingers with his right hand.

"Brother Yang, what are you doing?"

"Nothing. I bought you a set of clothes. Go and see if they fit you. We were too late to go to the cocktail party that day, and now we have to attend an interview with Oil Painting magazine, so we have to dress up."

"Look at your brother Yang's taste."

Yang Dekang raised his chin and patted the big shopping bag he brought. He pretended to be very proud in his tone, as if it was a trivial matter not worth mentioning at all. However, he cunningly showed the thermal shopping receipt "Spent 2350 Singapore Dollars at MBS Sands Shopping Center" in his hand.

"Do you know Versace? Versace is a big international brand. It's the same style as the one I'm wearing, Brother Yang."

"That's so respectable!"

Old Yang raised his thumb, looking like a leader, his face shining with oil.

Do you know what Teacher Yang means?
Tactical retreat.JPG
If you want young people to be impressed and bow down to you as their big brother, you have to behave like a big brother.

It's not nice to be so stingy and petty.

On the way to pick up Gu Weijing to attend the artist dinner that day, Lao Yang talked a lot about how clothes make the man, how formal suits are men's swords, and what peak lapels, shawl collars, linen, and silk are.

Do you really think Lao Yang is just bragging?

Ah.

pattern.

The layout is too small.

This is called setting the stage for emotions and creating atmosphere.

Showing off is Lao Yang’s biggest hobby in life. He is serious about showing off, and to show off requires professional ethics and attitude.

You can't just sit there and talk and brag.

You have to spend real money.

It is meaningless to just paint a rosy picture for young people about what the world is like.

Only when the other person is standing in the lonely cold rain, drenched by the contemptuous looks from all around, can the old wizard suddenly drop from the sky and give the other person crystal shoes and pumpkin carriage? Only then can he be considered a truly sophisticated old wizard.

It’s time to cultivate your own network.

Edward Yang has always been willing to spend money.

He is not stingy.

Teacher Yang didn't have the courage to take sides in the dispute among Cao's disciples, but he didn't mind giving out more favors if possible.

He has such courage, and it is very great.

The key to investing is to keep the old stove burning and to act as early as possible.

Now, if he buys Gu Weijing a formal suit before he attends an interview, he will be grateful to him for the rest of his life.

Eighteen thousand dollars.

It's just the money for a major maintenance on Lao Yang's Porsche sports car.

If Gu Weijing could pass this level.

If he really becomes successful in the future and reaches Tang Ning's level, his threshold for facing temptation will be raised.

If Lao Yang wants to do a favor again, he may have to give a whole Porsche sports car instead. Seriously, not everyone may even be interested in his 718.

"Well, this is called the philosophy of investment."

(End of this chapter)