Almighty painter

Chapter 130 Reading for You
"On the first asteroid lived a king, wearing a purple-red bordered white glazed leather robe, sitting on a simple but dignified throne..."

The old-fashioned gas lantern on the stone table was dancing with flames. Anna was wearing earphones, holding a book of fairy tales with yellowed pages, and read softly.

In front of her, the setting sun was slowly setting among the mountainous valleys of Austria.

The high tower in the north is the highest place in the Irina family manor. The thick and solid rough gravel stones constitute this ancient building with a history of hundreds of years.

It is said that before the Elena family took this land, it once belonged to a duke of the Holy Roman Empire.

The watchtower was built to guard against the cavalry under the command of the Mongolian Khan. These nomadic peoples from the grasslands ran like fire. Historically, they have been fighting from Central Asia to the Danube River.

The guards with excellent eyesight will stand on the high tower and stare nervously at the distant horizon day and night. When they see the sand and dust raised by a large group of cavalry galloping, they will blow the warning horn. If it has not been pierced by the scout's sharp arrow.

Century after century has passed, and all the ancient traces of the Middle Ages in the manor have been wiped away by time, only this strong and sturdy spire remains.

When Anna's aunt took over the manor, she didn't significantly repair the historic site. The aunt just hired craftsmen to build slide rails on the stairs of the watchtower to facilitate the movement of wheelchairs, and then put the key of the watchtower and a This book was handed over to myself together.

"Saint Exupery said that every child needs a place away from adults, where they can watch the sunset and stars in peace," said the aunt.

That book is The Little Prince.

Anna is a literary girl, and "The Little Prince" is the book that accompanied her most since childhood.

The curious and kind little prince, the rose who is sensitive and eager to be loved, the smart and romantic fox, the vain king...

These fairy-tale characters accompanied her through one lonely sunset after another in a wheelchair in her childhood.

When Detective Cat asked her to look for a drawing with a fairy-tale temperament.

The first thing Anna thought of was the new version of "The Little Prince" that Scholastic was working on.

She really knows the book all too well.

The knife painting handed over by Detective Cat is beautiful, but lacks soul.

Judging from the standard of an illustration, it is qualified.

It's not just qualified, it's simply excellent.

There is only one small fly in the ointment. This is a very beautiful illustration, but it is not an illustration that fits the appearance of "The Little Prince" in her mind.

Or, Anna thinks—it lacks a bit of magic that can create sales miracles.

Illustration is the painting method that the painting dogs who study art have the most contact with, and the daily market demand is the highest.

There are tens of millions of painting art students in the world. How many of these people will eventually become serious professional artists who are regarded by galleries and art museums and earn millions in their middle years?

The vast majority of people have not gone into majors such as game original painters, print advertisements, fashion design, and publishing illustrations, and the most drawn are still various practical illustrations.

Illustration has a low floor and a high ceiling.

All are published illustrations.

What low-end illustrators do is "usable", while high-end illustrators hope to become "classic".

It is also a set of illustrations. The works of high-end painters can bring 10%, 20% or even 30% more sales to the publishing house. Their illustration posters hanging on the street can make more viewers walk into the cinema. .

The works of low-end painters are just a bonus to the book, while the big illustrators who won the Andersen Award can make well-known newspapers such as "New York Review of Books" write a special section of news to increase exposure.

This is why the value of the latter is hundreds of times that of the former.

To impress the audience and create a miracle of sales, in addition to the beauty of the painting, it is also necessary to paint with soul.

Ms. Detective Cat's knife painting is like a delicate doll.

The facial features are all beautiful, and the curves of the body are all charming.

Unfortunately, no temperature.

Readers will be amazed by such works, but they may not necessarily actively pay for such works when there is no demand for books.

truly magical illustrations,

It should be possible. One dusk afternoon, a tired office worker walked past the window of the bookstore, and inadvertently glanced at the beautiful new books in the window.

So, he stopped suddenly, staring at the books behind the glass for a long time, as if something was touched in his heart, and then went into the store to buy.

It starts with stunning, love starts with heartbeat.

What the paintings of Detective Cat lack is the heartbeat enough to make readers sympathize.

Anna felt that she was a bit picky.

There are not even one ten-thousandth of world illustrations that can become eternal classics like "Nils' Travels on a Goose" and "The Wind in the Willows".

Not even the Scholastic Group had such unrealistic expectations when they asked for a manuscript.

Anna is not reconciled.

The painting is already so good... It's just a little away from the classics, and she thinks that her agent should be able to help Detective Cat do something.

The classic fairy tale "The Little Prince" is full of various long-form book reviews and expert interpretations on the Internet.

Anna didn't think it would have any good effect to force the "chewed bread" of these book reviewers to Detective Cat, who didn't know much about this fairy tale.

What the painter needs more is the feeling of a sudden movement in his heart when he hears a certain sentence.

Therefore,
All Anna did was simply read books.

She took out the "Little Prince" that grew up with her from the drawer, asked the housekeeper to fetch the computer, sound card and wireless network card, and went to the watchtower that she often went to when she was a child.

Watching the sunset fall into the distant valley, she made an appointment, and connected with an illustrator far away in Africa through a language connection, and read quietly to her those classic passages that had left a deep impression on Anna.

……

blah—

Gu Weijing tore off a page in the sketchbook and shook his head in disappointment.

There is Mr. Sloth's unhurried and peaceful voice next to his ears. He is holding a paintbrush in his hand, and there are all kinds of scrap paper balls in front of him.

Mr. Sloth seems to take this "literature tutoring" very seriously, and has been reading to himself for almost two hours without interruption.

But Gu Weijing still misses the point here.

Mr. Sloth did not dismantle the fairy tales for himself, but brought together the deep meaning and literary metaphors represented by each character's character.

His only requirement is that whenever Gu Weijing hears a passage, a new fairy tale character appears.

It is necessary for him to listen to Mr. Sloth reading, and at the same time draw stick figures of the characters in his heart on the pen, trying to capture the character characteristics of the characters in fairy tales.

Gu Weijing worked very hard to do this.

The main plot of "The Little Prince" is not complicated.

Basically, it is the story that the protagonist "The Little Prince" visited seven different little stars in space, and met fairy tale residents with different personalities on each star.

And what Mr. Sloth read just now is the passage where the little prince came to the first small planet and met the "king" there.

While listening to Mr. Sloth reading, he tried to draw a line sketch of the king in his sketchbook.

In the fairy tale "The Little Prince", the "king" does not belong to the kind with a very complicated personality.

It is set in the original work that the king is the only resident on the first small planet "No. 325" visited by the little prince after leaving his own planet.

This king claims to rule over all, and his rule must be respected and inviolable.

Gu Weijing once specifically checked Wikipedia.

According to the encyclopedia, the king's personality is characterized by arrogance and arrogance, but he is a little cowardly in his heart.

He is an arrogant, hypocritical and incompetent autocratic aristocrat, who will be dissatisfied and complain about everything that is not in his favor.

My favorite thing to do every day is to take the calendar and "beep beep" to the sun, moon and stars.

Seeing these introductions, in Gu Weijing's mind, the image of the king is probably a combination of the old Empress Dowager Cixi and a crazy astronomy enthusiast in old movies.

But in my own paintings, there is still something missing.

Gu Weijing just couldn't grasp the feeling this "king" should have.

He has deliberately portrayed the image of the "king" as an enemy of the feudal class according to his own imagination.

But whenever Gu Wei wrote the scriptures, he could hear Mr. Sloth reading in his ears.

There will always be a sense of fragmentation.

This feeling is very similar to the feeling he had when he tried to draw a fusion painting for the first time last week, as if forcibly merging two different things together.

The last kneading is Eastern and Western art styles.

But this time, it is trying to force characters that do not belong to fairy tale characters into the body of the "king".

The only thing to be thankful for might be.

Mr. Sloth's gentle reading sound carries a reassuring tranquility.When he encountered setbacks while painting, disappointment was inevitable, but he didn't feel too impetuous to continue painting.

"Ms. Detective Cat, what's wrong with you, isn't it?"

He must have heard the frequent tearing of paper from the microphone here, and Mr. Sloth finally stopped reading. The two hours of reading aloud made his voice seem a little hoarse.

"Well, sorry, I can't find the feeling."

Gu Weijing was really embarrassed.

"I tried really hard, but the personalities of these characters are too complicated, like an onion, peeling off one layer after another. According to Wikipedia, this guy is arrogant, but he is a little cowardly inside. .”

"I really can't grasp the scale, the painting is very fragmented."

"Forget the encyclopedia." Mr. Sloth said suddenly.

"What?"

"Forget about wikis, Google Q&A, and book review discussions on Goodreaders (Foreign Douban). Forget about all the character analysis you're looking for."

"What?"

"If you want to draw a moving work, you must really enter the inner world of this book. The summaries of these outsiders are very good, but they are not your own." Mr. Sloth said.

"Ms. Detective Cat, what kind of character is the king in your heart?"

"Arrogant and hypocritical incompetent nobleman?"

Gu Weijing still subconsciously answered with the metaphor of characters on Wikipedia.

"What kind of person do you think a nobleman is?" Mr. Sloth asked.

"I do not know."

Gu Weijing shook his head, this term is too far away, he can basically only see it in history textbooks and at the televised wedding of Prince Harry of Great Britain broadcast worldwide.

How could he know what kind of a nobleman it was.

"Hmm... have you read Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" or Leblond's "France"?" Mr. Sloth asked suddenly.

"No, the latter hasn't even heard of it." Gu Weijing shook his head.

He has even heard of "Reminiscence of Things Past", but he has never even heard the name of the latter book.

"It was the winning work of the Goncourt Prize, the most important literary award at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Both books have extensively recorded the daily life of the nobles."

"The nobles are actually a very boring group of people, especially some rural lords who are far away from political life in peaceful times. They don't have to fight or work. Their daily life is riding horses, hunting, participating in various salons, going to theaters, and entertaining actresses and The courtesan got it on my bed." Mr. Sloth said coldly.

Hey!
Gu Weijing's eyebrows twitched wildly.

It's boring, every day life is to go to various places to play, and sleep with beautiful girls when you are tired.

This life is boring,

Do you have a conscience!

"It sounds very corrupt!" Gu Weijing sighed.

"It's very corrupt and depraved, but if there are too many days like this, you will feel bored. It sounds arrogant, right? But hunting, horse racing, sleeping with women, and gossip, you start when you are a teenager and enter the social season, Until you are so old that you don't even have the strength to sleep with a girl, your daily life is just these four things going back and forth, if there are too many, you will feel bored."

"The vast majority of the old-school nobles are not good things, nor are they extremely bad. They are just tired and boring, and they don't care about anything other than family honor that is higher than life."

said Mr. Sloth.

"In "The Red and the Black", Prince Korasov taught the protagonist Julien how to pretend to be a nobleman, that is, never get angry, and pretend to be tired all day long, because you are a great nobleman, and you have ridden the fastest My horse, there is a whole troupe at home to perform for you, and you can’t even count the number of beautiful women you have slept with. You have enjoyed all the best pleasures in the world, and you are not interested in anything.”

"This kind of life is really annoying, isn't it?"

Mr. Sloth spoke softly, as if he were talking to himself.

Before Gu Weijing could answer, Mr. Sloth continued.

"The author of The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry, was born in a noble family in Paris. Since the [-]th century, there have been many French army generals in his family. His mother came from a prominent scholarly family. Although Saint-Exupery Perry was deeply influenced by the Enlightenment movement that everyone is equal, but he must be clear about what a real nobleman is."

"Ms. Detective Cat, have you ever wondered why the king is portrayed as such a person?"

asked Mr. Sloth.

(End of this chapter)