Almighty painter

Chapter 840 Galloping Horses
After a brief but intense storm, the interview returned to the rhythm of the conversation that Anna had expected for more than half an hour.

Intense but not excessive.

The atmosphere at the dialogue site could hardly be described as harmonious, but the pace was fast and the information points were dense.

Questions were thrown out one after another. The scholar guests invited by Oil Painting to the interview site were all fakes. Everyone had unique opinions, including Rossings. During this process, his attitude also underwent a subtle change.

After Gu Weijing announced that he would donate the proceeds from "The Old Church in the Thunderstorm".

The young man told him.

He did not ask the other party to believe the authenticity of his paper because of his action.

This is neither possible nor realistic.

just now.

He and those scholars who did research related to "Salvator Mundi" were at exactly the same starting line.

Rosings once said that he believed that "Salvator Mundi" was the work of Leonardo da Vinci because scholars' research papers convinced him. So, please give Gu Weijing a chance to convince him.

"That's all."

Gu Weijing's attitude cannot be said to be unsincere.

Given his age and status, he would have been in a relatively weak position in the interview with Oil Painting magazine. This is an objective fact that cannot be changed.

Gu Weijing had originally come here with the intention of fighting with Miss Elena.

He was a little unsure about Anna's attitude now.

But compared with the attitude of Oil Painting magazine, Rossings's doubts are nothing more than an appetizer.

On the one hand, Gu Weijing calmly announced that he would give up the possible financial gains that "The Old Church in the Thunderstorm" might bring, and on the other hand, he used a heavy hammer to knock back Rosings' accusations.

On the other hand, he was humble and sincere.

It was this gesture that touched Rosings.

During the subsequent interview, the British were still nitpicking, but the object of their criticism had quietly shifted from Gu Weijing himself to Gu Weijing's paper.

Rosings did not make any further offensive remarks of a personal nature.

but.

His "kindness" in quotation marks was only towards Gu Weijing.

Rosings did not show such consideration to Mr. Alexander, another scholar who held a similar position to Gu Weijing.

As the conversation progressed, his character of complaining about everything and everything was exposed.

Unlike Anna's sarcastic and tricky style, Rosings is quite straightforward in his criticism.

What they play is reality.

At the interview, the focus of discussion on the painting was once concentrated on a wall of the old church. Rosings pointed out that he noticed that when Carroll was processing the painting here, judging from the color of the picture, the female painter should have used a special white pigment.

This situation is very rare.

According to the views put forward in Gu Weijing's paper, this painting should have been created in the late nineteenth century.

Clam white is made by grinding shell powder used in Chinese paintings.

The white pigment in traditional oil paints is all lead white.

This is also true even if we go back to the tempera period before the invention of oil painting, or even earlier.

In the history of Western art, the composition and preparation techniques of many pigments have changed, but white has almost never changed.

Except for bone meal used on special occasions, it was all lead white.

At most, it evolved from the vinegar vapor production method used by the earliest Romans, to the Dutch production method, and then to the later large-scale industrial production. In essence, they are all the same substance.

From the first sprouts of life underwater to the giant beasts of the Stone Age, Lead White has experienced a lot.

If a pigment can be used for thousands of years, it must have obvious advantages.

In terms of painting characteristics.

White lead is a very good pigment.

It has a warm color and a translucent texture like white marble. It has a strong covering power, is not expensive, and is easy to produce on a large scale. As early as the ancient Roman era, people used this pigment on a large scale in cosmetics, pottery decoration, and mural art.

Nowadays, almost no one uses this kind of paint to paint, and it must have obvious disadvantages.

When a pigment is called "white lead" and is associated with the ancient Romans.

Then.

It's easy to see what its shortcomings are.

That's right.

It is good for drawing with it, but it has only one small drawback: it is life-consuming.

This stuff is poisonous.

Many mineral pigments are toxic, but this one is not only very large, but also easily absorbed by the human body.

Some historians believe that.

Barbarian invasions and other things were secondary causes. The biggest reason for the collapse of Ancient Rome was that the upper class played with all kinds of lead products, which led to widespread metal poisoning and mental disorders, just like the famous scholars of the Wei and Jin Dynasties who took Wu Shi San every day.

There are a lot of famous artists who founded their own schools in the history of Western art. They became crazy and looked like neurotic in their later years. It was not because they had made breakthroughs in the realm of art, but because they had lost the great principles of painting. They became ominous in their later years and had red hairs growing on their backs.

Looking back with today's perspective, it's possible that a lot of them were suffering from lead poisoning.

For example, the severe pain suffered by the romantic master Goya, Turner's tooth loss and cognitive impairment, Caravaggio's anemia, and Monet's uncontrolled tremors in his hands were considered by some to be "the curse of art" at the time, but now it seems that they are all very consistent with lead poisoning.

Especially for someone like Van Gogh, there are records of him chewing paint when he was a child.

If he is not crazy, who would be crazy?

Another small disadvantage of lead white is that it looks good when painted on, pure, transparent and bright, but if the painting is kept for a longer period of time, its pigment will undergo oxidation reaction.

The other paints are fine too.

The problem is that white lead is a white pigment.

Lead turns black when oxidized, so it is particularly obvious.

If you go to an art museum to look at the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and others today, the white pigment will turn black or blue if they have not undergone special restoration later... This is the reason.

Early Impressionist paintings are now nearly 150 years old, and the white pigment still looks as bright as new.

Rosings noticed this.

He noticed that the paint used was not the traditional white lead.

This one is nothing.

As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, society had a clear understanding of the toxicity of lead products.

Not all artists are crazy people who are willing to risk their lives to paint.

In the 19th century, zinc white, a pigment made from zinc oxide, began to enter the market on a large scale as a substitute for lead white. Its advantages are that it is non-toxic and light-resistant.

The downside is… other things besides being non-toxic and light-resistant.

It clumps easily, forms powder easily, dries very slowly, has poor whitening effect, and has very poor covering power. And there are indeed crazy people in the art world who are willing to risk their lives to paint.

therefore.

Zinc white has been in the pigment market for many years. It is safe and harmless, but in the professional field, it has always been difficult to replace the position of lead white.

Humans have already landed on the moon, but there are still painters painting with white lead.

The pigments in the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" do not have the characteristics of zinc white.

Rosings noticed it keenly.

Carroll used neither white lead nor white zinc, but...

Titanium white.

This is a very exaggerated thing.

Titanium white, which is now the most common color in oil paintings, did appear at that time, but the large-scale industrial production method had not yet been invented, and the production process was extremely complicated. The titanium white pigment a hundred years ago is completely different from the titanium white today.

It has to be made entirely by hand.

You know, even though humans had already landed on the moon, there were still people using white lead to paint. Great painters might have done it for artistic pursuits, but small painters, in addition to artistic pursuits, were more likely to be poor. The price of white lead in the international market was only a few cents per pound.

It's like the difference between someone drinking from a glass bottle today and someone drinking from a glass bottle hundreds of years ago.

Is that a glass bottle?
No.

That is a glass treasure.

At the beginning of the 1950th century, the price of titanium white pigment per pound was about dozens of times that of zinc white. Only a few wealthy painters used it. Its price was not affordable until after .

This painting was painted twenty years earlier than the beginning of the 20th century.

Acid recovery technology is not mature.

Pure titanium dioxide is a scarce laboratory grade product.

Some people use titanium white to paint, just like eating Turkish Salt Bae's golden steak nowadays, they are the richest among the rich.

In ancient Rome, purple pigment was more expensive than gold.

The cheap chemical pigments that are now common on the street were much rarer 150 years ago than the dyeing process using precious natural lapis lazuli that is touted by today's painting supplies merchants and luxury clothing merchants. Painting with it can give you an authentic experience of the sour and refreshing feeling of the purple dye used by the ancient Romans.

It does not fit in with Carroll's identity as an unknown female painter.

Rosings believed this was a glaring omission in the work, which was one of the most fundamental reasons why he believed Gu Weijing's paper was a scam.

A very classic Achilles' heel.

"Titanium white, it's like the impossible stars that appear on fake paintings in Sherlock." Rosings spread his hands and said so.

There are many elaborate scams in the art industry involving tens of millions of dollars. The sellers arrange the background and origin of the works perfectly, imitate the brushstrokes, and the style of the times. After all the tricks, they often fall for a tube of paint.

A fake Impressionist painting that was sold through an intermediary and defrauded a German collector of $1200 million was finally exposed because a special pigment produced by Kronos in 1890 appeared on the work from the 1908s.

In order to prevent such problems, there are special "chemists" in Haoge's cost estimation team. When taking on large orders, they always manually prepare and produce pigments. If anyone makes the mistake of using lead white instead of titanium white, he might have to cut off a finger to apologize.

Alexander thought there was no need to nitpick over such little things.

Just because Kim Po steak is uncommon doesn’t mean you can’t eat it.

People are not allowed to spend money willingly or something like that.

Since this is possible, he can come up with different explanations.

Rosings only noticed the appearance of rare pigments in the picture, not the appearance of an impossible star on the fake painting as in "Sherlock Holmes". So please don't imagine yourself as Sherlock, and think you have solved the case by catching some seemingly plausible details.

"This is not a game of solving crimes by chance, this is an academic discussion," Alexander accused. "We are discussing a possibility."

In this regard.

Rosings fully lives up to his reputation as a troll.

I sprayed it back on the spot.

"Being very meticulous? This is called the rigor and responsibility of a professional scholar." Rosings made a tactical retreat on the spot, showing his disdain for Alexander to the fullest.

"Oh, a third-rate scholar like you who only knows how to make a gimmick to attract attention won't understand."

That gesture made Alexander furious.

He understood what Gu Weijing had felt before, and he wanted to rush over and punch Rosings in the nose twice.

In addition to the discussion about white pigment, there are several other similar controversies surrounding the paper.

The overall situation is still within controllable range.

All the questions that could be answered were answered by Gu Weijing one by one.

There were some questions that even Gu Weijing could not answer immediately, so the guests filled in the gaps.

The conversation guests around him were older than him, had more experience and much deeper professional backgrounds than him. Therefore, they dominated the progress of the entire conversation and provided Gu Weijing with many new perspectives for thinking.

For example, white paint.

He was not familiar enough with art history to know the evolution of different types of pigments, and he overlooked this detail when writing his thesis.

It was Mr. Alexander next to him who had been talking to Rosings on his behalf.

As for those issues that could not be discussed to a conclusion, they were temporarily put aside after everyone put forward their own opinions.

Miss Elena rarely speaks.

In the stalemate between Gu Weijing and the three guests, she took the greatest control of the interview with the fewest words.

Every time Anna opens her mouth, the other guests will shut up, and she will always get to the point.

Many times when a topic was about to become a heated argument, it was the female host who calmed the disputes between the guests.

She is an experienced knight.

He lets the horse run free, letting it gallop freely and display its wildness wantonly, until the interview on the stage reaches a Y-shaped fork, then he will clamp the horse's belly hard, grab the reins firmly, and let it turn somewhere according to his will.

at last.

When the interview in front of him heated up again and entered a stalemate with neither side giving in.

"It should be fine."

Anna said to herself.

All the attitudes that need to be expressed have been expressed, and all the views that need to be stated have been stated. After such a long discussion, no matter what position the audience holds in their hearts, they should have a comprehensive and multi-angle understanding of the situation of this paper.

well.

This time.

Miss Elena was no longer controlling her horse to turn towards a fork in the road.

"Crack, snap, snap."

Anna clapped softly.

The two scholars, Rosings and Alexander, who were arguing again, suddenly raised their heads when they heard the sound and exhaled long breaths, just like horses that were pulled back by the reins by the female knight and stopped with force, snorting and raising their front hooves high.

(End of this chapter)