Almighty painter

Chapter 106 The Burning Painting
Grandma Carla stated in a letter from France—“At dusk in Paris, my friends and I saw fiery red light hovering over the Arc de Triomphe, and my dream floated on it... A brand-new art path slowly opened before my eyes. Unfolding. In the burning sky, I saw a dreamy river of colors that can extend infinitely. I feel that this will be the destination of my life."

In the nineteenth century.

The career path of the nobility is very single,

Men went to the military for a military officer's title, or to the parliamentary cabinet for a civilian job.

Girls specialize in being a good wife and a decent mother.

Painters, especially female painters, are very unrecognized professions.

Although art is sought after by people, the status of a painter... how should I put it, can be compared to famous actors in the traditional society of Eastern Xia,

Highs are limited.

Except for great painters.

If you can draw to the point where Menzel became a close friend of the Prussian royal family, going in and out of the court is like eating and drinking, and the social status is quite high.

but,

How can a girl become a great painter?

In the mainstream values ​​of the wealthy class, expensive works of art, just like horse races, salons, beautiful post office typists, and ballet dancers, are consumer goods that bear the main daily pastime of male aristocrats.

You can play,

To be a painter by yourself is quite different.

In those few years, the elders of Elena's family almost went crazy. They first stopped Grandma Kara's family annuity, and then kept sending letters to reprimand her, hoping that the other party would "return from the wrong way."

Grandma Carla is also a strange woman.

Facing the fury of her elders, she only responded by giving her family a self-portrait without clothes as a confession.

Nude portraits, never vulgar.

On the contrary, it has always been considered the finest and most elegant form of aesthetics.

Take Austria as an example. The most famous painter born here, Klimt, is famous for his love of painting nude models.

Numerous national galleries are proud to have a Klimt nude.

However, painting the nude was once only the prerogative of male painters.

Even the private lives of European aristocrats are chaotic, syphilis is frequent, and illegitimate children of lovers are everywhere.

But even if an upper-class lady just steps into a studio with nude models, she will be considered very "slutty" and "disorderly".

Kara's behavior is even more rebellious.

Painting herself in the nude—this is her mockery of social and family discipline.

The elders of the Irina family were so enraged by Carla's rebellious behavior that their brains were almost congested. At that time, they sent the butler and servants to rush to Paris by train, and forcibly tied the girl who had ruined the family's reputation back home.

Closed, sent to the monastery, whipped, tied into the cellar and imprisoned.

This medieval legacy of treating disobedient girls has remained in European high society for longer than most people imagined, and it has continued until after World War II at the latest, with sporadic reports.

In the nineteenth century it was even more commonplace.

They burned all of Carla's works, including "Self-Portrait," in front of her.

Every time Anna reads Kara's story, she will be moved and lonely.

She went to Paris more than once when she was a student, and wandered around where Grandma Karazu's studio used to be.

The studio was bought by a furniture contractor and is now the office of an investment bank in Paris.

All the traces of a hundred years ago have long been blown away by the wind, and there is no trace to be found.

However, just a few blocks away is the famous Moulin Rouge nightclub and the blue Seine.

It used to be the birthplace of modern art in the world.

Monet met the master painter Bishah here; Seurat painted the masterpiece "Sunday Afternoon on Dawan Island" here; in 1876, 35-year-old Renoir was here with his passion for art and life. Love, dropped the first pen of The Ball at Pancake Mill.

Just at the crossroads outside the traffic lights not far from the investment bank, there is a statue of Miss Mary Stevenson Cossatt.

On a marble plinth, Mademoiselle Marie holds a drawing board and gazes out over the Seine.

She is smiling, her skirt is flying, and the bottom of the sculpture is full of flowers and thank you letters from art students and admirers of Miss Mary from all over the world.

This Impressionist goddess was selected together with Madame Curie in the list of [-] outstanding independent women in human history selected by Time Magazine.

Today, International Women's Day is celebrated every year.

Representatives of the American Women's Federation and the embassy in France will come to Miss Mary's sculpture and place a bouquet of roses to commemorate the outstanding contribution made by the first female painter of Impressionism.

Whenever she sees the statue of Miss Mary, Anna will think of her grandma Carla.

They have similar backgrounds, the same life circumstances, the same independent progress, and they also regard art as a lifelong career.

One hundred and fifty years later, one of them became famous, shining in the painting world, and there was an endless stream of commemorators.

One person's life's hard work turned into flying dust, leaving only a small tombstone in the monastery.

This is the impermanence of the painter.

After being imprisoned by her family for a year, Grandma Karazu died of tuberculosis in a depressed mood.

Before she died, she left a short suicide note—"There are only two works that I am satisfied with in my life. One self-portrait was destroyed by fire, and the other painting, I hid her at the end of the world. The courage to pursue beauty is My drive to fight against fate."

The second half of this sentence also became Carla's epitaph.

Probably the elders of Elena's family were moved by her persistence, or maybe it was a little pity and unknown regret.

After Kara's death.

The identity on her epitaph is 【Malerin Coral】.

Malerin is a feminine word for artist in German, meaning female painter or female artist.

Apart from the painting that was "hidden at the end of the world", the only work left by Carla is the burnt fragment of the self-portrait.

Anna had seen the remains of the self-portrait preserved by the family.

Most of the canvas has been burned, leaving only a few strands of long golden-red hair fluttering on a picture the size of a baby's palm.

Judging from the fragments, whether it is the brushwork or the texture of stippling, both are the master's handwriting.

But it is the master's handwriting, so what?

In the painting industry, the artistic life of every painter is fragile.

They are like crystal and fragile ice sculptures.

After polishing by the sun and the moon, painstaking efforts, and finally the painting enters the room, you barely reach the bottom line of success.

leftover,
Look at the destiny, look at the nobleman, and look at the opportunity.

And any rain or wind, or fate's knives and axes, may destroy their lives.

Those who have seen the cold wind blow, know the pain under the cold wind.

"Don't let me down, Ms. Detective Cat."

The reason why Anna is willing to make this call is that she hopes that Detective Cat's artistic path will be smoother than that of Grandma Kara, whom she admires.

She gently placed the remaining rose in her hand on Kara's tombstone,

Turn away.

……

Dulwich school.

Mona put down her paintbrush and made a cup of free coffee from the coffee machine in the side bar.

Her gaze scanned the crowd in the public studio.

International middle schools are relatively rich, and there is an entire art building dedicated to students.

The upper floor is the campus theater and auditorium for drama rehearsals and social dances, and the entire first floor is a large public studio.

Various easels, canvases, drying brushes, and plaster models are stacked in the studio. There are water bars and sofas in the corner for rest.

The public studio is the place where art students spend the most time in their daily lives.

Probably because the school recruiting fair is approaching.

Even if today is Sunday, most of the 13th grade students in the school have come to the studio, splashing ink hard in front of the drawing board.

Mona sees,

At this time, many students were pointing at the row of easels in the corner of the studio.

"Awesome, the pen, the composition... It's really not bad, the lines are as accurate as if measured with a ruler."

"This has the skills of a professional painter, but why only draw half a picture?"

"What do you know? Maybe it's this idea. Art knows."

"No way... Although Ms. Shengzi is very powerful, but the angle of licking is really novel." A male student mocked angrily.

"What about you? Miss Shengzi, you're so affectionate, do you agree?"

The others retorted not to be outdone.

Mona stood up curiously, and glanced at the easel in the corner.

There are four oil paintings lined up.

The brush strokes of these oil paintings are surprisingly beautiful, especially when compared with other student paintings that are drying in the studio, it is as obvious as the difference between the papers with [-] points and [-] points in the exam.

"This is the work of the transfer student Katsuko Sakai this week. Isn't the picture amazing? This is the daughter of a great international artist."

Kou Kou, who wore a punk-style silver single earring, sighed in front of the drawing board.

"Compared with others, we are like country girls. I thought your little boyfriend's paintings were good enough. But the pictures and brushwork of this transfer student are simply hopeless."

Mona nodded subconsciously.

These four paintings are all of the same theme and composition.

Judging from the finished shape, it should be something like a church or a classical castle.

Unfortunately, I don't know why,
Maybe Sakai Katsuko himself is not satisfied?These four paintings have just finished painting the background of the dark thunderstorm background, and the painting stopped, and the buildings in the middle only have the simple configuration of the initial stage.

Like a charming beauty,
But only half of the face was drawn.

pity.

"By the way, Gu Weijing is not my boyfriend, so don't talk nonsense."

Mona seemed to have thought of something, and gave Kou Kou an angry look.

Kou Kou smiled playfully.

"Just be happy yourself. Let me advise you kindly. You can meet so many people you like. If you let them run away, you will really lose them. You don't really like that Jerry, right? This kind of playboy Even I can't see it."

Mona glanced around the studio and snorted coldly in her heart.

Since the beginning of this semester, she has hardly seen Gu Weijing in the public studio.

Mona knew that Gu Weijing's family opened a small gallery, and there was also a studio for painting at home.

But so what?
She can also paint on the balcony of her own bedroom.

But normally, the painting atmosphere at home is different from that at school.

Similar to the dormitory and the library, you can study, but for ordinary college students, the learning atmosphere and efficiency of the two are different.

In the public studio of the school,

The peers around you are working hard to prepare the portfolio, and you will be busy unconsciously.

At home, people with poor self-discipline will waste their time because of this.

That's what the environment does.

Gu Weijing used to be a frequent visitor and king of papers in the public studio on campus, but in such an important semester, he disappeared.

Still on the premise that she said she would agree to date the "king" at the school recruitment fair.

"You don't care about me at all."

This is what really annoyed Mona so much.

She can forgive the other party for his hard work but no successful results.

Anyway, I'm about to graduate, even if the other party doesn't get the most offers, as long as I can go to the same university as myself, it's not impossible to go back on the bet or something...

But she must at least see Gu Weijing's attitude.

You hang yourself up every day and don't use your time on the right path, what's the matter?

"Why does the transfer student Katsuko Sakai only draw half a picture at a time?"

Mona was not interested in hearing that Kou Kou, who had never been very good with herself, had a superior tone of a teacher teaching a student, pointing out her love life.

She changed the subject.

"It's because I'm dissatisfied." Kou Kou stuck out her tongue.

With the convenience of the same girl, the transfer student Sakai Katsuko was not as indifferent to Kou Kou as he was to those wild bees and butterflies on campus.

Even if she is still far from the goal of "taking down" this chick, she at least managed to add friends with Sakai Katsuko under the pretext of asking about art issues, and she can still speak a few words every day.

This made Kou Kou quite excited.

Food needs to be eaten bite by bite, and beautiful girls have to be broken into bends step by step.

You come up with a vulgar look that is greedy for other people's bodies, and people are scared away by you.

Kou Kou heard from Ms. Sakai that she had seen someone draw a thunderstorm with the same theme, and the painting was much more vivid than her own. She wanted to know where her problem was.

"More vivid than her painting?"

Kou Kou only thinks that the person Miss Sakai is talking about is Professor Kazusei Sakai.

This kind of great artist who seems to be floating on the clouds from a distance, probably only an artistic genius like Katsuko Sakai can have a comparative interest in his heart.

"It's not satisfying, God... I really don't know what this little artistic princess is doing in Yangon."

Mona also sighed.

She secretly compared her own works, and the gap was too great.

The painting environment is like a well.

The people around you are the walls of your well. After staying in Yangon for a long time, you may sit on the well and watch the sky.

Mona originally thought that a peer like Gu Weijing was already very good.

Maybe that's true,
But this kind of "small town painter" in Yangon is compared with the heirs trained by the real great artists through precepts and deeds.

There is still a gap between cloud and mud.

"Oh, I might know why she came to Burma."

Kou Kou said with a mysterious face at this time.

(End of this chapter)