1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Shi Tiesheng was already used to Yu Hua and the others' nonsense. He smiled and patted the wheelchair armrest, "You can sell my wheelchair, and you can take turns carrying me from now on."

Yu Hua smiled and said, "Then I'll sell you too."

"If you sell the wheelchair alone, maybe someone will buy it. But if you sell this thing together, I'm afraid no one will be willing to buy it." Liu Zhenyun said something even more mean.

……

A few people walked towards the art gallery, chatting and laughing.

Zhou Yan had been to this art gallery before, and he came with Joey Wong.

There were not many people in the art gallery, and the few people there didn't have any particular purpose, so they just wandered around casually.

The museum is not very large, and if you just take a quick look around it will probably take less than ten minutes.

However, Zhou Yan and his friends are not impatient people. Even if they do not appreciate the collections in the museum one by one, they will take a look at the historical introduction and stop to discuss if they find something of interest.

As they walked, Liu Zhenyun saw a painting on the wall and his eyes lit up. "This painting——"

The others looked up and saw a watercolor painting hanging on the wall that looked a bit messy at first glance, especially in the middle of the painting, where dots of watercolor were piled together, and it was difficult to tell what was painted on it.

But when everyone took a closer look, they found that the painting was of a street with cloth shops on both sides.

"The style of this painting..." Mo Yan felt that this style was very familiar, but he couldn't say the painter's name.

"It's Wu Guanzhong." Zhou Yan said.

Among the group, Zhou Yan was the one who devoted more attention to art research.

Zhou Yan learned a lot from making movies, art being one of them.

When filming "The Chorus" before, Zhou Yan specially looked at some paintings by Wu Guanzhong.

Wu Guanzhong's style is very special, the kind that can be seen at a glance.

From ancient times to the present, if artists want to become famous, they cannot escape the word "special".

Artists who are not special enough cannot leave their names in history.

History only has so much room for words, so why focus on you if there are others just like you?

The significant difference between Chinese and Western paintings is the spatial expression of the image of rain, that is, the difference in perspective.

Western painters like to use linear perspective, optical perspective and aerial perspective to create three-dimensional effects on two-dimensional planes, but Chinese painters do not appreciate scientific perspective, and the presentation of their works exceeds the objective distance and visual perception range.

It is not to say that Chinese painters have no sense of space in their works, but the sense of space in Chinese paintings is constructed by something other than lines, and has a more special personal expression.

Wu Guanzhong's words combine the characteristics of China and the West.

Many of his works may seem strange and untraceable at first glance, but they seem very realistic at a second glance.

"Yes, it's Wu Guanzhong." Mo Yan patted his head, "Mr. Wu Guanzhong has this style."

Liu Zhenyun took a closer look.

There are several columns of small, scribbled words in the lower right corner of the painting.

"Everyone talks about the Flower Cloth Street. In 1990, Wing On Street in Hong Kong, Tea, was indeed a painting by Wu Guanzhong."

Wu Guanzhong once used the name Wu Tucha, and many of his paintings were signed with the word "Tu".

"Here's another one."

Chi Zijian pointed to another painting hanging on the wall not far away, which was very similar in style to this one.

"Xiangjiang Avenue, Deyun Tea House, 1990, Tea."

Another painting by Wu Guanzhong.

Zhou Yan raised his eyebrows. He did not see these two paintings by Wu Daozi when he came to the art museum with Joey Wong last time.

He must have remembered it correctly. The art gallery is only this small and there are not many paintings inside. He must remember something as special as Wu Guanzhong's painting.

It seems that the art museum has added a lot of new things in the past two years.

A few people walked to the back and found that there were not only these two paintings, but also several paintings by Wu Guanzhong.

One painting of "Hong Kong", one of "Tsim Sha Tsui", one of "Street Scene of Hong Kong and Central", together with the first two, there are five paintings by Wu Guanzhong hanging on this row of walls.

Liu Zhenyun smiled and said, "This art museum may not be very large, but it is quite powerful. They can display five paintings, so I'm afraid they have more than just these five in their collection."

Others didn't think anything of it.

Needless to say, Wu Guanzhong's current status in the Chinese art circle is definitely at the top of the list.

But Wu Guanzhong's works are not rare. He has a high output and often paints a lot of paintings in one place. Works like these hanging on the wall are no different from sketches because he paints very quickly.

The most important thing is that Wu Guanzhong is still alive.

As a living painter, there are unlimited possibilities for output. Today, Wu Guanzhong is still active in collecting folk songs in various places and his works are frequently produced.

Mo Yan looked at the paintings on the wall and said with a smile, "To be honest, at first glance, I felt that I could draw these paintings myself, but the more I looked at them, the more I could feel how difficult they were. Moreover, these paintings all felt like they were done in one go."

Everyone nodded. Mo Yan was right. All of these paintings on the wall, without exception, had a feeling of being completed in one go. It felt like someone had casually scribbled them. They seemed chaotic, but there was a certain order to them.

"I want to learn to paint in this way. In the end, what I paint will probably be a black mass." Yu Hua smiled and looked at Zhou Yan again. "You are good at painting, aren't you? Can you paint like this?"

Zhou Yan rolled his eyes at Yu Hua, "What nonsense are you talking about?"

"I'll just ask."

Zhou Yan shook his head, "I will never be able to draw like this in my lifetime."

Drawing has always been Zhou Yan's weakness.

He had seen Tsui Hark's storyboard drawings before and was very envious. He also tried to practice, but later found that he really had no talent in this area.

To this day, his storyboards are still the same as Zhang Yimou's, very rigid and detailed, but without any artistic quality.

When it comes to drawing ability, he is definitely better than others in the same industry. Although he lacks artistic talent, he is definitely good enough for drawing storyboards.

Liu Zhenyun said with a smile, "It can be said that there are things you are not good at."

"There are many things I am not good at, and painting is just one of them."

People outside praise him as a versatile person, but in fact, he only knows a few things, but he does those things very well, and they are just suitable for film shooting, which makes everyone think he is quite versatile.

But in fact, there are too many things he doesn't know.

"Last year, Yanjing exhibited a new painting by Wu Guanzhong called "Red Dragonfly". I went to see it and was very shocked. I felt that Mr. Wu's artistic attainments had reached a new level. What impressed me most about the painting was not the red dragonfly standing on the branch, but the lotus pond in it. It was the first time I saw someone paint a lotus pond like this." Liu Zhenyun said. When Liu Zhenyun talked about lotus ponds, Zhou Yan thought of the lotus ponds painted by Wu Guanzhong.

Wu Guanzhong loves lotus ponds very much, and many of his works are related to lotus ponds. Among them, two more famous ones are "Withered Lotus and New Willows" and the other is "Lotus Pond".

The former later became widely circulated on the Internet because the painting looked very messy at first glance, like a child's graffiti, but people gradually discovered that the withered lotus was like that, and it could be said that the painting was very realistic.

As for the latter painting, it became famous mainly because it was sold at a high price, directly selling for more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars. Among all Wu Guanzhong's works, its auction price is also among the top few.

"Is that painting still on display? If I have the chance, I will go and see it when I return to Yanjing," said Yu Hua.

"I don't know. It should be gone. It's just an art exhibition. It definitely can't be there forever."

"pity."

Although none of them had any special interest in art, they were very interested in Wu Guanzhong's paintings. So they stood in front of the paintings and talked about them and Wu Daozi.

About five or six minutes later, a young man in his thirties came hurriedly over.

He glanced at the wall nervously, clapped his hands, and muttered something.

Liu Zhenyun approached Zhou Yan curiously, "What is this guy mumbling about?"

"I only heard a general idea. He said something like, 'It's broken, it's broken.'"

"Broken?" The others also looked puzzled.

The young man glanced at Zhou Yan and the others, then walked away without looking back.

This person came and went in a hurry, leaving Zhou Yan and others confused, but no one bothered about it anymore and continued to talk about Wu Guanzhong.

About three or four minutes later, the young man came over with two young men in their twenties, carrying a ladder.

When they arrived in front of the paintings, the young man directed the other two and said, "Quickly take down these paintings and put them back."

The two young men received the order, set up the ladder, and then went up to pick the painting.

This series of actions confused Zhou Yan and the others even more. Liu Zhenyun went up to pull the young man and asked, "What's going on? We were looking at the painting just fine, why did they take it down?"

The young man apologized repeatedly, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we made some mistakes, these paintings shouldn't have been hung up today, we'll take them down now."

The young man tried hard to speak Mandarin, and although his accent was heavy, it was understandable.

Mo Yan asked curiously, "Why shouldn't we hang them today? Since they are already hung up, why don't we take them off first and let us enjoy them."

"I'm so sorry, gentlemen. These paintings were originally supposed to be hung up during the event in two days. Now, due to the staff's mistake, they have been hung up early, which will affect the subsequent activities."

Zhou Yan and the others understood the young man's explanation.

They also expressed their understanding of this.

Yu Hua curled her lips and expressed regret, "We just looked at it for a while. It's rare to see Mr. Wu's paintings in Hong Kong."

Hearing what Yu Hua said, the young man laughed, "There are many places in Hong Kong where Mr. Wu's paintings can be found. There may not be many more paintings of Mr. Wu in the mainland than in Hong Kong. Especially the collections in our museum, I dare say that no museum in the mainland has as many as ours."

The young man was very proud when he said this, and it was obvious that he was not lying.

But since he said so, there must be more than just these few paintings by Wu Guanzhong in this museum.

"Sir, do you have many paintings by Mr. Wu Guanzhong in your museum?"

The young man nodded. "Well, Mr. Wu has been donating works to our museum since the year before last. What you have seen is only a part of it. If you like Mr. Wu, you can come to our museum in two days. Mr. Wu will also be there then."

"Mr. Wu is coming too?"

"Well, there is an exhibition of works, and Mr. Wu will be there."

"For such a big event, your museum didn't even promote it?" Zhou Yan asked puzzledly.

There were indeed a few posters at the entrance of the art museum, promoting events, but Zhou Yan did not see any events related to Wu Guanzhong.

"There were posters, but they were taken down today because they weren't done very well. They are being redone now."

Zhou Yan pursed his lips. Why did he feel that this art museum was a little careless in doing things? The exhibition was going to start in two days, but today they actually took down the posters and made new ones.

Also, hanging up the paintings in advance is not a mistake that most people would make.

"Do you need tickets for the exhibition in two days?"

"You don't need a ticket, just come over." At this point, the young man took out a business card from his pocket and handed it to Mo Yan, "I'm the deputy director Situ Yuanjie. If you need anything in our museum, please tell me."

At this time, the two young men had already taken down the painting. Situ Yuanjie smiled at Zhou Yan and the others, then took the young men away.

After he left, Mo Yan looked at the business card in his hand and said with a smile, "This deputy director is quite down-to-earth."

"He seems to be young, but he has already become the deputy director. He is young and promising."

"Is Mr. Wu Guanzhong's visit to Hong Kong the same activity as ours?" Zhou Yan asked.

Mo Yan shook his head. "I haven't heard of it. This event involves many aspects, so it's normal for someone from the art world to come."

"I didn't ask Mr. Wu when he would come to the site two days later. We had an event that morning, and I didn't know if he could join in the fun after the event."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Come on. Even if you can't meet Mr. Wu, you can still see his paintings. From what Director Situ said, there must be more than just these five paintings on display that day."

"That's right." Liu Zhenyun nodded. "Maybe we can see some bigger works. But Zhou Yan, you have activities tonight, right? Can you come with us then?"

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's not impossible if you really want to come. Our performance is at the cultural center next door. I can watch it for a while in the afternoon and then go over. It won't take much time."

"That's great."

……

After Wu Guanzhong's paintings were removed, a few people showed little interest and took a quick tour of the museum before preparing to leave.

However, after taking a few steps, Situ Yuanjie caught up with him.

When he got there, he gave each of them a postcard with Wu Guanzhong's paintings printed on it.

Zhou Yan took a special look at the cards in other people's hands and found that the pictures printed on each person's card were different.

"Everyone, I'm really sorry to have disturbed you from enjoying the paintings today. These postcards are small gifts for this event. I'm giving them to you in advance as an apology."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Director Situ is too polite. We are lucky today. The paintings that were not hung originally have been hung up ahead of time. We are lucky enough to appreciate them. How can we blame your museum?"

Situ Yuanjie smiled and nodded, "Thank you for your understanding. You are welcome to visit our museum at any time." (End of this chapter)