Almighty painter

Chapter 168 Unlimited Danqing Hand

"Actually... painting this kind of painting can help you find useful tricks, or else, I'll teach you two strokes?"

Gu Weijing always knew that his grandfather was deeply impressed by the failure of imitating Castiglione's painting, so he asked tentatively.

Teach me two strokes?

When Gu Tongxiang heard his grandson's serious tone, the corner of his mouth twitched, not knowing how to answer.

Well, what I just said is in vain.

The old man was a little moved, but also a little angry.

After all, the grandson I brought up from a young age still cares about me very much.

The old man also admitted that during this period of time, Gu Weijing's painting skills have improved by leaps and bounds, and he has repeatedly made amazing moves.

However, when he heard that the other party said that he would teach him to draw, Gu Tongxiang, a strict teacher-type oriental parent, was still quite unconvinced.

"Why, with a famous teacher like Professor Lin, I will look down on your grandfather. Teach me... Hmph, let's talk about this after you graduate from university."

Old man Gu Tongxiang couldn't help feeling arrogance in his heart.

Masters like Lin Tao are amazing, but old man, I am one of the best Chinese painting masters in my three-acre land in Myanmar, okay?
Going to attend an art seminar or something, who can't respectfully call out "Teacher Gu"?

"Come on, come on, if you want to say that, then don't blame me for hitting you. Grandpa really wants to criticize your painting problems."

The old man muttered: "The painter is afraid that he will not be self-aware. If he can't even find out his own problems, then it's the end. Although your grandfather and I can't imitate Castiglione, after all, we have walked this road. I will tell you how to draw difficulties, and I can show you where to go. If the painting is wrong, it is simply easy to come by.”

Only one lamp on the table was turned on at night, and the light was a bit dim for elderly people to appreciate artwork.

Mr. Gu didn't care at all, this is not an antique appraisal.

The new body painting is very important to the overall look and feel, and it often makes the audience look at the painting, which belongs to the type of good or bad at first glance.

He is confident that he can find problems by scanning casually and looking at them for a few seconds.

Mr. Gu bent down, and his eyes focused on the rice paper on the desk.

So, he saw a lifelike bean flower.

Ok?
Looks like it's okay.

"The style is fragmented, the brushwork is rough, neither Chinese nor foreign..." The old man's sarcasm had slipped into his throat, and he was forcibly choked back.

Old man Gu rubbed his eyes.

He cranked one side lamp to its brightest, and turned on even the overhead spotlights in the gallery.

Gu Tongxiang's eyes twitched.

There is nothing wrong with your first impression.

The lines are natural and the brushwork is harmonious, which does not give him a bad subjective impression.

"This painting... just wait for me, I have to take a closer look."

After watching for a few seconds, Gu Tongxiang's heart skipped a beat.

He took a deep breath, and then almost trotted up the stairs with an agility that didn't match his age.

The old man found his reading glasses on the bedside of the bedroom, and then ran back out of breath, leaned over to look at the painting, his forehead was almost sticking out of the paper in a hurry.

this time,

Gu Tongxiang really saw clearly.

That's right,

The one on the rice paper is indeed a freshly painted delicate bean curd.The leaves are emerald green, the flower color is purple, and the color is fresh like dew.

The overall look is not bad, and the details are handled better.

Gu Tongxiang grew up in an atmosphere where his elders painted Chinese paintings.

Although he also practices Western oil painting, he is obviously closer to Chinese painting, and his appreciation level is higher than that of Western oil painting.

My grandson's colored pencil drawing of "Classic Mercedes-Benz", the details are perfect.

It is so perfect that it looks like it was drawn by a robot. Not only can Gu Tongxiang not make mistakes, but he even has a little trouble understanding how good it is.

However, this painting,

Gu Tongxiang could understand it completely.

Dulwich does not teach traditional Chinese painting. Gu Weijing's method of holding and using Chinese painting is taught by his father since he was a child.

So the old man can even see some kindness from Gu Weijing's strokes.

Just because I can understand,
Gu Tongxiang felt that his world view had been impacted.

"Yo! My grandson's proficiency in using brushes has improved really fast in the past two months. It's not much worse than me."

"Huh? You can still draw like this here, it's so beautiful... Wait, come to think of it, how did you draw this?"

"Damn, is this drawn by my grandson?"

The old man was a little messy, rubbing his hands on his chin.

"This is even more beautiful than the original work." He muttered something, and said an evaluation that came out of emotion, but he couldn't believe it even when he said it.

The original work that Mr. Gu Tongxiang talked about naturally did not refer to the original painting by Castiglione in the Dongxia Imperial Palace, but to the imitation in his shop next door.

Painting works like this,
There is always only one piece of the most shocking treasure, and the imitation produced by the printing machine can only try its best to restore the original and cannot surpass the original.

This 1:1 "Picture of Douhua", because it is a silk imitation, seems to be on par with the work that my grandson just finished painting, and it does not have the layering of hand-painted works on paper .

The old man knows the difficulty of Castiglione's works,
Since imitations are not easy to draw.

The one who is so powerful can only be a painter.

Gu Tongxiang's hairs were about to stand up in shock.

"My grandson is really... awesome."

With a straight face, the old man forcibly suppressed the surprise in his heart, and tried his best to maintain his majesty as an elder.

"The painting is really good, um, but you can't be complacent, you still need to practice more."

Gu Tongxiang was used to criticizing, and while talking, the corner of his mouth opened involuntarily.

good?

More than good.

If it wasn't for the fact that the painter who painted the painting was his grandson, the old man would jump on him and start licking it now.

If an adult painter wants to learn techniques, being able to flatter is the most basic.

Whether it is talent or coincidence, the techniques realized by painters are all precious.

It is similar to sprinkle salt on the painting paper to make snow patterns in watercolor painting, or add sawdust to the thinner of oil painting to form the graininess on the skin texture. The secret recipe of the school of painting that is not changed by gold.

The Italian painter relied on this skill to become the Pope's royal painter.

Especially the pen skills of this new body painting,
When painters paint, they will guard against outsiders like thieves. In the old society, if you were found out if you stole a teacher, the government would not care if you were beaten to death.

If you just lick your face and flatter you, you can learn new techniques, and you can wake up with a smile from your dreams.

I didn't see those middle-aged and elderly painters who are already known as well-known artists, but they are still obediently flattering in front of Mr. Cao. Don't they all want Mr. Cao to give some advice?

Of course, in the circle of painting and calligraphy,
The person with the strongest licking skills must be the agent, which is his profession.

Especially when a small agent meets a big painter whose original contract is about to expire, that is called flattery.

The old man looked at the paintings, then at his grandson, then at the paintings, and then at his grandson. After repeated several times, he finally couldn't help but smirk a few times: "If you can really imitate Castiglione, these paintings are displayed in our Isn't it really going to sell out in the gallery at home."

In Gu Tongxiang’s mind, the golden-haired tourists coming down the Yangon River are already waving US dollars and Euros OMG.

"It is estimated that someone will come to me to draw a custom painting." Gu Weijing thought for a while.

Serious painters don't like to paint custom paintings, and that's a great artist.

Ordinary small and medium-sized painters have no right to choose.
Painting portraits for employers, New Year pictures, and birthday pictures with specific themes are all one of the main sources of income for Gu's Book Gallery.

When encountering generous foreign embassy counselors, military attaches, etc., a custom painting can even sell for three to four thousand dollars, which can cover a whole month's sales.

"No, it can't be like this."

Gu Tongxiang shook his head again.

He stroked the rice paper at hand, and actively denied the idea that he had just raised: "Forget it, it's better not to put it out, you can just paint well now. The stage where you sell paintings should not be in this small shop. In the book gallery, our family is not in a hurry to make this money."

The stage in Yangon is simply too small.

Painter is another deformed profession,

Unknown low-level painters want to eat, so they have to sell a lot of paintings, and selling a lot of paintings will make your works even less expensive.

This is the death cycle of the bottom painters.

If you have sold [-] cheap oil paintings on the market, sorry, even if the capital group wants to push you, it will be difficult to push you.

It is also for this reason that unless illustrators can break through the circle with the help of modern media, they will belong to the lower reaches of the painting industry's chain of contempt.

Change it to before,

A custom-made painting worth thousands of dollars may make the old man excited.

It's just that now, especially after meeting Master Cao Xuan, many things that Mr. Gu didn't dare to think about before, now dare to dream about.

He didn't want to delay his grandson's future in order to earn this quick money now.

The dragon swims in the shallows, it is difficult to cast,
The stage where Gu Weijing made his debut should not be this small painting and calligraphy shop inherited from his ancestors.

Thinking of this,

"By the way, I originally wanted to wait another two years, but since you're up to date..."

Gu Tongxiang thought for a moment suddenly, and seemed to have made up his mind and said: "Some things, maybe now is the time to hand them over to you."

Gu Weijing saw his grandfather walk to the safe next to the counter, enter the password, and open the metal cabinet door of the safe.

The old man didn't care about some US dollars and Euro cash placed outside, but carefully took out a mahogany rectangular box from the innermost layer of the safe.

The box looks very old, flat in shape, and there are some traces of insects in some places, but overall it is solid and complete.

The mahogany box is engraved with the autumn scenery of the full moon and golden osmanthus in a hollow method, and a couplet of poems is filled with mottled gold powder——

【Infinite Danqing hands in the world can still produce spring and autumn. 】

This is a spliced ​​poem.

The so-called splicing poems are a pastime of the old Japanese literati in Eastern Xia.

Take Gao Zhan of the Tang Dynasty's "Infinite painting in the world, a piece of sadness can't be painted" and Liu Yuxi's famous sentence "In the hands of ordinary painters, it can still be born in autumn".

Such a fight, the rhyme remains the same,

However, he changed "painting is impossible" to "painting is successful", and changed "ordinary painter's hand" to "infinite painting hand", which is very elegant and self-satisfied for painters.

"You take it."

The old man stared at the mahogany box for a few seconds, then handed over the wooden box in his hand.

The moment he saw this box, Gu Weijing's expression suddenly became serious.

He didn't dare to be careless, rubbed his hands vigorously on his clothes, and then carefully took the mahogany box from his grandfather's hand, and placed it on the table respectfully.

Gu Weijing knew what this was.

When my ancestors came to Burma from Eastern Xia, there were only ten small yellow croakers made of one tael of gold and a mahogany painting box handed down.

The little yellow croaker helped their family survive countless turmoil and famine.

The last few small yellow croakers were also sold as start-up funds when the old man tossed the ancient paintings in the 90s. Gu Weijing's generation never had the chance to see them, but this mahogany painting box was passed down from generation to generation.

"Grandpa, why did you take it out? You can't do it." Gu Weijing bit his lip.

The mahogany box contains the seals and paintbrushes of the ancestors,

Rather than treating it as a precious antique Chinese painting tool, it is better to say that this family-inherited painting box has become a kind of emotional sustenance for Gu's ancestors.

It has been carefully stored in the safe, and it is used every year when worshiping the ancestors. When you come out, you can't wait to kowtow three times and worship nine times.

If there is a bump, the old man must go crazy.

"It's about time. My father left early. Your current level is much higher than when I took over this painting box from my father."

Gu Tongxiang smiled. He took out a dry towel from the safe, and gently wiped the spotless surface of the mahogany painting box again.

Only then did he gently unscrew the small lock on the top of the painting box, revealing the true content inside.

The painting box is divided into two layers, with three suet seals and a brass seal on the upper layer, and five brushes from small to large on the lower layer.

Gu Weijing once heard his grandfather talk about the origin of the things inside.

The brass seal is an official talisman, issued by the Court Academy of Painting, with the word [first class] inscribed, which is the highest honor for court painters in the Qing Dynasty.

My ancestors were only third-class painters,
However, due to being selected as a mission to the Gongbang Dynasty in Myanmar, the sky is high and the road is far away, mosquito plague, peach blossom miasma, and pig dragon (crocodile).

Therefore, he was promoted two ranks in a row, mentioned as a first-class painter, and enjoyed a seventh-rank food salary.

The three suet seals of different sizes are the ancestors' private seals, engraved with the family motto of "Diligence and Self-reliance", the symbol of "Master Gu", and the career expectations of "Writing with God".

As for the five brushes, they are Wudi bamboo carving brushes produced in Yishuier, Jiangsu. The five brushes just cover the complete set of tools for painting Chinese paintings.

Antique paintbrushes are expensive or cheap, mainly depending on the time and place of origin.

The market price of bamboo engraving brushes in the Republic of China is about 6 US dollars. If it is a well-preserved Wanli or Ming Dynasty bamboo brush from the Jiajing period, then the auction price of each one will be 8 to [-] US dollars.

This set of five paintbrushes, some are new and some are old, although it cannot be dated back to the Ming Dynasty, the latest one has a history of 150 years.

The five pens here alone are definitely not cheaper than the German master set that Lao Yang gave him, and the meaning is completely different.

(End of this chapter)