Almighty painter

Chapter 298 Amy
"This is "LUNHUI (Reincarnation)" in my heart"

Professor Boggs said this in a rather weird Mandarin accent.

Judging from the way he put the cat on his shoulder and posed with his hands clasped together, he was no different from those Dongxia uncles and aunties who cross their arms and play with Buddhist beads all day long, and burn incense and walk around famous mountains and ancient temples.

"I am a layman!"

Seeing everyone's strange looks, Professor Boggs straightened his chest.

This tenured professor at the Academy of Fine Arts turned out to be a foreign Buddhist enthusiast.

Not surprising.

The Western art world has always been a hodgepodge of religious beliefs.

Zen, spirituality, and yoga enthusiasts are as common among artists as there are vegetarians.

The elders of the Jelena family used to donate charity money to Melk Abbey all year round, which is just a small microcosm of the interdependent relationship between art and religion.

Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Zen Buddhism, Shingon Buddhism... there are people who believe in all kinds of weird and small sects.

Buddhism is one of the most mainstream religions in the world.

There are many more foreign believers in literary and artistic circles than ordinary people imagine.

Arthur C. Clarke, Jackson Pollock, John Cage and many other celebrities have all created literary and artistic works influenced by Zen Buddhism.

Everyone was intrigued by Professor Boggs's words. They stretched their necks and observed carefully, wanting to see what extraordinary thing Professor Boggs had drawn.

It can be related to the name "reincarnation" that sounds very unclear.

On the seventh easel.

The theme is still a painting based on the life scenes of Tony and Amy.

The sunset falls from the sky.

Tony and the cat were sitting side by side on the swing.

Their shadows are dragged very long, all the way to the edge of the frame, where the horizon ends.

The painting technique of using an oil painting knife to press and mix colors mastered by Professor Boggs is really suitable for expressing this misty light and shadow effect.

The setting sun is mixed into a chaotic mist at the junction of day and dusk, with light and darkness blending into each other.

The sunlight was refracted into gray, and there was a little bit of frosty white in the gray.

It's like a place in the underworld that doesn't exist in the human world.

"that's it?"

After watching it quietly for a few seconds, the assistant raised his head in confusion.

In fact, he felt a little uncontrollably disappointed.

It’s not that this painting is not good enough.

The knife painting in front of me still maintains Professor Boggs's consistently high standards. Taken out alone, it is an excellent oil painting.

But Professor Boggs just said it categorically that he is Zen, a layman, and the highest pinnacle of art philosophy.

The expectation in the assistant's heart has been reached to an extremely high level.

Even though the painting in front of me is very beautiful, compared with the previous works, there is nothing particularly surprising about it!
The so-called high-level "reincarnation" in Professor Boggs's words.

He didn't see the reason at all.

“Where is the Zen here?”

Giving a deceptive and fake name to an art work is also a common practice in naming works at art exhibitions.

Especially expensive avant-garde art.

The name plays a large part in the selling point.

Just "Hot Bottom", "01010", "Coke and Blood", "Milton" and other nonsensical names that normal people can't understand at all. Critics would like to write countless voluminous books when interpreting them. paper.

If the same is true for Professor Boggs...

It is understandable that the assistant understands, but regret is inevitable.

"What a wonderful and skillful painting!" Professor Boggs held his head high.

He had the expression on his face that you can see the birth of such a cool work with your own eyes, it’s really a huge profit, and he was waiting for everyone’s praise and flattery.

“The knife’s touch with the lines is quite delicious.”

The assistant said nothing when he saw Jane Arnold.

Seeing that these paintings really attracted him just now, he kindly made a perfunctory remark.

"It just tastes good?"

Professor Boggs was not happy yet.

The old man looked at the assistant through his nostrils with disdain.

After seeing such a great work, I reacted like this. I can't even flatter you, it's really dull and muddy and can't float on the wall.

If this kid were a student of the Brooklyn Academy of Fine Arts, with such art appreciation ability, he would not be able to get a diploma.

"I have never seen such a scene in the relevant materials. It must be a fabrication by Professor Boggs. And..."

Ms. Anya murmured.

There are a large number of ready-made photo albums in the ranch. It is more convenient for her to browse through Amy's photos than Gu Weijing, and even the effort of scanning them into electronic versions is saved.

In her mind.

After reaching normal middle school age, Tony never sat on more than the small swing in the pasture with Amy.

The art of painting does not record rigid fragments.

It is a frozen film painted for all viewers, another unfolding dimension of the world.

The best works of art pursued by great painters contain a complete world view and philosophy in just one painting.

She guessed right.

Professor Boggs’ creative idea should be that the first six works are based on real-life stories of Amy and Tony’s time together.

The sad part about Amy's death is skipped in the middle.

The last six paintings are all supposed to be fictional imaginary scenes.

Half real, half illusory, the older children are put into the fairy tale space built by the professor to make up for Tony's pain.

What a brilliant idea!
Especially, the moment the pattern on the seventh frame appeared in Anya's eyes, an indescribable realization immediately filled her heart.

This feeling is so strong.

Anya vaguely felt that this painting was definitely not as simple as it first seemed.

Professor Boggs seems to have placed an extremely exquisite design in the picture.Under those lines and colors - there is an extremely sophisticated and beautiful mystery hidden.

As long as you can find that thread, you will instantly become enlightened. .

"Composition design? Contrast of light and shadow? What exactly is it?" The female artist tapped the floor with her toes, feeling itchy in her heart.

She glanced at the first six opened drawings.

Watching them together, Ms. Anya’s sixth sense of art becomes even stronger. "No, it's not technique, it's not composition."

"It's something more original, more similar to the philosophy of art... It doesn't require knowledge of painting, it only requires the instinct and intuition to appreciate artworks, it should be-"

"Gray shades of hair."

Jane Arnold said calmly.

The master illustrator looked at the picture frame in front of him in admiration and clapped his hands softly, "It is an extremely clever metaphor. The light and shadow design of the work is truly a work of art. It is like a profound poem written with an oil painting knife, which makes people intoxicated." .”

It turned out to be the case.

The assistant scratched her head in confusion, but the female artist slowly exhaled.

"I roughly know what the remaining five drawings are about. So simple yet so profound, this design is really great!"

Under the guidance of the master illustrator, Ms. Anya also discovered the secret of this set of paintings.

The gallery founder, who still retains his charm, clasped his hands tightly like a little girl who was delighted to see a magician conjure bright flowers from an ordinary top hat.

Her face showed dazzling excitement and joy.

ridiculous.

Anya has always been very fond of talking to collectors who come to the gallery, saying that the essence of modern art lies in the exploration and innovation of painting forms.

Compare it with the profound philosophical connotation contained in this set of drawings by Professor Boggs.

The creative form she carefully designed to paint with Tony became very superficial and inferior, just like the huge difference between the erotic vaudeville of gypsy prostitutes on the streets of old European towns and the prima ballerina of the opera house.

"Oh, so it's... like this."

A few seconds later, even Dr. Jin Anqing let out a soft exclamation and gave Professor Boggs a thumbs up to express his admiration.

"what happened?"

The assistant was immediately stunned.

He scratched his head and looked around, with a shocked expression on his face as to how the hell do you all understand, what the hell do you understand.

"You don't like pets, right? Have you never observed a cat up close?"

Ms. Anya tilted her head towards the assistant.

"This?"

"You have never loved a pet, so you don't understand."

The female artist came to a conclusion calmly.

The essence of Professor Boggs's painting philosophy is contained in the squinting grayscale of these drawings.

Many people who know cats are surprised to find that their kittens change color as they keep them.

The good little white cat turned into a little briquette in a blink of an eye, as if it had been replaced by a thief.

In fact, all cats in the world only come in two colors: black and red.

As for why most ordinary people see cats in orange, blue-grey, cream, and chocolate colors.

Black and red very positive cats are rare.

This is due to the influence of modified genes that play the role of diluting pigments in different cats.

The color of many newborn kittens and young cats is as pure white as snow, just like the kitten next to Professor Boggs.

As the hair pigment appears, during the shedding seasons of cats every spring and summer, their hair color will become darker and darker, and it will get closer and closer to the uniform color of the cat breed.

Common orange cats and native cats will have brown stripes and spots on their bodies.

Fold-eared cats of Amy's breed will retain the base color of their hair, but as they grow older, the grayscale gradually deepens, like rolling in the morning mist.

Kittens can grow into adults in 6 to 7 months, and the color of their hair is a good way to determine the age of kittens and old cats.

Professor Boggs cleverly integrated the cat's physiological characteristics into his creative ideas.

Each painting is mainly in black and white.

Mao Mi has always been that cat.

The only difference is that Boggs cleverly arranged the lighting conditions at different times in each picture.

From the bright sunshine in the morning, the light falling from the crystal chandelier in the banquet hall, the warm light passing through the window in the afternoon, to the flickering streetlight in front of the psychological clinic in the deep color.

Professor Boggs used the control of a precision chemical experiment to gently press-dye the gray mixed with a very small amount of ink blue and ocher pigments into the pearl white background.

Finally, a gradually deepening gray scale is formed.

From left to right.

If you observe carefully, you will find that not only the cats, but also the lighting of the environment, Tony's skin color and clothing... the color purity and contrast of the overall painting are constantly decreasing.

The changes in each work are not significant.

Add up.

On the first canvas on the far left, the drawing on the linen canvas still looks like a yin and yang fish with clear black and white. By the sixth work, the atmosphere has turned gray and turned into a blur of light and shadow.

Professor Boggs has processed all the color changes in a smooth and natural way into the shadow effect of the changes in external light. The moisturizing happens silently.

Originally the sixth painting.

In her twilight years, Amy is already an old guy with grayish-yellow fur. Her fur is far less beautiful than when she was a child. If she were a human, she would be what is called senile baldness.

Come to the seventh painting.

The cat on the swing is still a big gray cat, but the cat's hair has turned white again under the sunset.

It’s not the kind of white cat hair that develops white miscellaneous hair in old age due to insufficient pigment secretion.

It was a younger, brighter color, as if time had reversed.

"Just these twelve paintings can support the weight of a large-scale art exhibition. I am very lucky to be part of the background story of the creation of this great set of paintings. This is an honor as a painter and an honor as an audience." . If I guessed correctly, the remaining five drawings should have once again become chaotic gray and differentiated into distinct black and white. Complete a yin and yang change, which is what you call... reincarnation? "

Jane Arnold raised her eyebrows.

Professor Boggs finally nodded with satisfaction. Only when he showed his work to an audience who could understand the beauty of the drawing would he feel a sufficient sense of accomplishment.

He turned over the last five remaining easels, which had their backs to the crowd.

A kite-flying cat and a young man, a man taking a nap in a rocking chair in a pasture and a cat lying on his lap, a middle-aged man looking at the morning sun with his cat on his head...

From sunrise to sunset, and from sunset back to sunrise.

Twelve paintings of palindromic antithesis.

Tony is aging day by day in Jane Arnold's drawings, turning into a middle-aged man who is gradually growing wrinkles, while the cat's hair on the canvas is getting brighter, whiter and more energetic.

In the last drawing, it looked like the snow-white kitten on Professor Boggs' shoulder.

"The first time I heard about the world view of reincarnation, I was attracted by its magnificence and charm. The old monk from Lingyin Temple told me that the so-called ultimate of reincarnation is that everyone in the world at this moment is It is made up of countless reincarnations of the same person, and people are just getting along with their past selves or their future selves.”

“So to love others is to love yourself.”

"I think there is no difference between cats and humans. In the Buddhist worldview, cats in the world are all the same cat, constantly growing old, sick, dying, and reincarnated."

Professor Boggs dragged the kitten on his shoulder and said with the depth of a philosopher: "The shadow in Tony's heart that will never fade is Amy. As long as he can understand clearly, this kitten can also be Amy. "

(End of this chapter)