Almighty painter

Chapter 835 Da Vinci and Carroll

"We noticed that you have done research on the underlying brushstrokes, pigment layers, and brushstroke style of the work. The discussion is brilliant and sophisticated, not like that of an 18 or 19-year-old. I almost feel like I am reading the work of Mr. Bamcach, a senior scholar who has been trained in academic writing."

Gustave raised an eyebrow.

"Thank you for the compliment."

Gu Weijing put the tips of his five fingers together and turned his head to look at the other person.

"If you know him personally, please thank him for me, too."

"I can send you his email address." The doctor sat down behind the sofa. "Speaking of which..."

……

"Excuse me. But I have to make an interruption."

The Englishman, Rosings, patiently found a break in the conversation and spoke with a frown.

“When I said I agree that Salvator Mundi is a good example, I didn’t mean that the issues about Salvator Mundi provided an excellent example for later academic researchers. I’m not talking about whether Leonardo da Vinci’s research methods can be applied to other similar papers. What I just said is that it is because of the existence of Salvator Mundi.”

“It provides a lot of greedy people with a good way to make huge profits.”

He paused and stared at Gu Weijing with sharp eyes.

I'm talking about you, kid.

Rosings said with his eyes.

"Mr. Gu, let me ask you a question. How much did you pay for the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" in the art market?"

Rosings asked.

Gu Weijing looked at him scrutinizingly, tilting his head slightly.

He saw through the other party's intentions.

"Mr. Rosings."

"Today is supposed to be a purely academic discussion. I don't see why you're asking this question. That paper is an academic study on Impressionism. If you..."

"Sorry. I was hoping you could answer my question directly."

Rosings put his fingertips against his palm and made a prohibitive gesture.

"Unless you think this is a very shameful topic, or think there is some reason that cannot be spoken out, that's fine—"

“It’s not a concept.”

Gu Weijing explained in a good-natured way: "You asked about this matter simply because you wanted to apply the same business logic behind Da Vinci. But..."

"Answer my question, okay?"

Rosings dragged out his words, interrupting Gu Weijing's explanation again.

"About $1000. To be exact, it should be $1200. From what I've seen, he probably bought it in an anonymous bidding, similar to a common silent auction."

The person who spoke was not Gu Weijing, but the female host sitting on the sofa next to him.

Anna answered this question for Gu Weijing.

Her language was concise and to the point without any embellishment.

The host looked at Rosings——

"An almost identical incident also happened to Leonardo da Vinci, or what is suspected to be Leonardo da Vinci's work, Salvator Mundi. That happened in London in 1958, as part of the collection of Sir Herbert Cook's property. Salvator Mundi appeared on a second-hand flea market as a severely damaged and incomplete oil painting. The transaction price at the time was 45 pounds."

The woman told the story.

“Neither the buyer nor the seller of this painting knew that half a century later, when this work appeared at auction again, it would appear as the most expensive work of art in history.”

“This time, after fierce competition among buyers, it will be sold for more than $4.5 million.”

"The net worth has increased ten million times." Rosings added, smacking his lips and saying meaningfully, "Money moves people's hearts, money moves people's hearts."

Anna thought of this as an interesting stage play in her mind, but the woman had no intention of playing a double act with Rosings.

She asked directly and simply.

"Mr. Loggins, the point you are trying to make to all of us is that the process by which Carroll's work was found is almost identical to the process by which Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi was purchased—"

"I'm not an economist, but if you take inflation into account, maybe even the transaction price is about the same!" Rosings shouted.

Anna looked at him.

“So what you mean is that behind this similar story, you think that what prompted Gu Weijing to write this paper…is the same commercial logic as the painting ‘Savior Mundi’, rather than the same academic logic.”

She said in a declarative tone.

What is the same business logic, not the same academic logic?

Anna said this very elegantly.

To understand it in a positive way, she was saying that Gu Weijing first wanted to link this painting to a famous master and hype it up, and then used this as a driving force to write this article.

No one is perfect, and everyone has selfish desires.

There are such people among scholars.

Some people will compromise for fame and fortune, which is natural and common. When writing the paper, Katsuko Sakai and Gu Weijing did discuss that it was a waste to attribute this painting to an unknown female painter in history.

It's all guessing anyway.

It would be better to directly link her with Camille, the wife of Impressionist master Monet, which would bring much stronger public opinion traffic and market attention than a so-called Carla.

They did have this thought in their minds at one point.

The latter is human nature.

Even if they picked up a painting at the beginning, and then tried to find a famous painter in history to stick it on, they wrote this article with a target in mind - first shoot an arrow towards the place with the most hot money, and then slowly draw the target.

It’s not “too” excessive.

At the very least, Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko did find some evidence that could indirectly prove their point of view and wrote an article that looked decent.

Therefore, they are likely to be criticized on artistic ethics and academic ethics.

From a legal and ethical perspective...it should be quite difficult to define.

But if you look at this from a darker perspective, it is a direct accusation that the painting itself and the materials they have, all the evidence, photos, and arguments written in the paper, were all fabricated to imitate the experience of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi". It is simply a deliberate hoax.

The crime is unforgivable.

This was also the purpose of Rosings asking Gu Weijing where and how much he bought the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" - to compare the "similarities" in experience between the two paintings.

As soon as he opened his mouth.

Miss Irena saw through the purpose behind Rossinst's question.

She knew that Gu Weijing had also seen through it.

He didn't want to fall into Rosings's verbal trap, explaining over and over again, saying so many words.

So Anna gently raised her finger.

"Wave."

The woman pushed him casually and threw him in.

Miss Elena's purpose in doing this was not to kick Gu Weijing into a pit.

Instead, she realized that Gu Weijing was too inexperienced in handling such issues.

It's a good thing to realize Rosings's purpose.

But there are some traps that he can't avoid just because he wants to.

With Anna's rich experience in arguing with people and in the media, Miss Elena knew what Rosings wanted to do when he pouted.

This is not a casual question.

They came prepared and already had a preset answer in their minds.

There is no point in dodging such questions. Gu Weijing explained over and over again in a nice way, and said a lot, but the audience did not think that Rosings did anything wrong.

Get rid of subjective emotional factors.

There was nothing wrong with Rosings.

It is normal for disputes and disagreements to exist in dialogues. The similarities in the discovery process of "The Old Church in a Thunderstorm" and "The Savior" also exist objectively and were not made up by critic Rosings.

It's normal to have doubts.

Gu Weijing's behavior of explaining over and over again and trying to circumvent verbal traps, especially when it comes to the topic of money, can easily lead the audience to misunderstand that he is not sincere enough and has some shameful secrets.

Answer directly.

is a more effective response.

Therefore, while Gu Weijing was still trying hard to fight against Rosings, twisting and turning by the trap and trying to move in a coquettish way, he was pushed directly into it by the woman.

It is known that this pit will definitely fall.

Rather than letting Rosings dig a hole to bury Gu Weijing and then stomp on him.

It would be better for Miss Anna to bury it herself.

"Ms. Elena, you hit the nail on the head." Rosings nodded in surprise. "I just said that Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi played an important demonstration role. It provided a market model for the industry. This market model proves the point that a cheap old oil painting, the endorsement of some scholars and journals, plus a clever marketing strategy, like magical alchemy, can increase the price of a work by a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, or even ten million times in an instant."

"I even have a somewhat pessimistic view—"

Rossingston paused.

"Leonardo da Vinci is one of the three great men of the Renaissance, and he is probably the most famous one. The Renaissance sounds like a very distant term, but if you think about it carefully, it is only about four or five hundred years old. Compared to the pyramids, Troy and other archaeological discoveries, it seems as recent as yesterday."

"I noticed that Mr. Cao is down there now."

Rosings pointed with his finger and nodded respectfully.

"I mentioned him because he met Picasso. And among old gentlemen of this age, one can meet Picasso, two can meet Turner, and you only need five. If you connect the ages of five Cao Xuans from beginning to end, you can directly meet Leonardo da Vinci himself." He looked at Miss Elena.

"I understand what you want to say." Anna nodded, "But please make it clearer to the audience."

"I mean, Leonardo da Vinci is not far away. He lived in an era when documentary records were relatively developed. The Dark Ages had ended. While he was still alive, he became the most sought-after painter in Florence. Therefore, Leonardo da Vinci has never been a strange name to the academic world. We can find his date of birth and date of death in the documents, accurate to the month, day and week of the Julian calendar."

"We know who his father was, who his mother was, who his grandparents were, how many brothers he had, how many wives he had, how many children he had, where he learned to paint, who his teacher was, and we even know what the first painting Leonardo da Vinci sold was... the story about the shield."

Anna nodded slightly. "Let me explain to the audience. During his six years as an apprentice, Leonardo da Vinci once painted on a shield. The painting was later sold to the Duke of Milan through a middleman."

"Yes, there are too many records about Leonardo da Vinci. Every transaction of his works is big news. The academic community can even count how many drawings Leonardo da Vinci officially sold during his lifetime. Take the one in your family's hands, for example. How did it pass from the treasury of the Medici family to the treasury of the Irene family, and how did it enter your family museum now? When, where, and how did it pass through your hands? It's very clear and concise."

"Leonardo da Vinci is the most popular oil painter of all time."

When Gu Weijing was writing his thesis, he referred to research on Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci, who created "The Salvator Mundi", and Carroll, who created "Old Cathedral in a Thunderstorm", are both very extreme examples.

Leonardo da Vinci's works are explosively famous.

There are only a few of his works handed down to the world. I would like to write a book with a chronology listing how each work changed hands, from the Renaissance to the present, who were the owners of each work, and how were they purchased and traded.

There are also various rumors that seem to be true.

Researchers need to filter out truly effective information from a massive amount of interference images, just like finding the only truth among the phantoms of ghosts in a thousand mirrors.

Carroll was the exact opposite.

She was really close. Gu Weijing knew that she was very young in the 1870s. Judging from her age, Cao Xuan himself might have seen her as close.

By the standards of late nineteenth-century painters, her information explosion was modest.

Incredibly little.

He and Shengzi need to find the phantom-like ghost in the vast fog.

"Leonardo da Vinci has a clear and detailed record of his works. For a painter like this, if you say 'one more' painting, you can 'produce' one more painting through a few papers. A painting worth 45 pounds, after being named Leonardo da Vinci, suddenly becomes 5 million US dollars. A real transaction of million US dollars."

Since the debut.

Mr. Rosings, who had been attacking Gu Weijing like a hedgehog with its fur standing on end, actually had a look of compassion on his face at this moment.

"From my personal point of view, I don't think this is necessarily a good thing."

"It's not necessarily a good thing for our industry and the healthy functioning of the art market. Everyone has different opinions, but this is my opinion. If the painting is fake, then the whole thing is a farce full of black humor."

(End of this chapter)