Almighty painter

Chapter 380 The Bet of the Century

"A ticket? A ticket to higher artistic skills."

Gu Weijing studied the three picture frames on the wall, trying to find out more about the mysteries of painting.

Even if they are several paintings that are not really finished.

You can still see it.

The sketch teacher draws every stroke with great care.

A painting that I concentrated on and worked hard to draw, and a painting that I made casually after dinner.

It may not be possible to distinguish between high and low in terms of artistic taste.

But it is just like the camellia flowers arranged in crystal vases that have been carefully cut by housewives, and the wild roses among the luxuriant grass on the side of the tree-lined path.

Often in terms of painting style, an observer who is familiar with each other can easily tell the difference at a glance.

The three paintings on the wall, to be precise... every watercolor work that Gu Weijing saw hanging on the wall in this studio was the former.

Professor Vattel, like many German watercolor painters of his generation, was influenced by the painting style of photorealism when he was growing up.

This is a painting line that runs counter to the trend of minimalist style and abstract art.

There is no limit to the complexity of the brushwork, and there is no limit to the precision of the painting.

They like to use extremely fine brushwork to create paintings with minute details.

The painter hopes to use the brush in his hand to challenge the imaging limits of modern glass lenses and digital optical CMOS, and transfer the scene in a photo to the canvas in front of him using the artist as the medium.

Constantly get closer to the imaging capture effect of photos, constantly restore, keep getting closer, and finally achieve the ultimate expression goal that originates from photos but exceeds the sophistication and depth of thought of photos.

Gu Weijing cast his gaze on the works on the wall for a moment, and could see how desperately Mr. Wattel beside him was running towards this goal.

The other party is carefully carving every detail on the watercolor paper.

The uneven brown-gray wall tiles on the outer wall of the Pergamon Museum, the Baroque-style majestic curved dome of the Bode Museum that looks like an inverted red copper bell, and the old Chinese painting gallery shining in the sunlight. The majestic metal sculpture of Friedrich Wilhelm IV on horseback and the long shadow drawn below the sculpture.

Even the ripples on the Spree River below the gray-white covered bridge that Gu Weijing just copied were drawn up bit by bit with extremely fine mink brushes.

It is even clearer than the waves of the river in the photo on the table next to it.

No need to dismantle calligraphy and painting appraisal skills.

Gu Weijing could easily imagine in his mind that Professor Watter's sleeves were rolled up high, revealing his pale arms with slightly thick body hair. He used a small watercolor pen to outline and modify it bit by bit on the drawing board very carefully. It appears that a German watchmaker is using tiny tweezers to repair a delicate and complex watch movement.

perhaps.

After the sketch teacher drew for a while, he would take out the photo from the photo frame next to it, put it in front of the drawing board, and compare it repeatedly with a frown.

If what Professor Vattel said is true, he spent ten years painting this sparkling landscape photo.

This lonely and boring scene must have appeared repeatedly in the suite of this office over the past three thousand days and nights.

Sunrise and sunset.

The only companion is the ticking of the alarm clock in the workroom.

"Surprisingly, I destroyed most of the works after painting them. What is hanging here are only a small part of the paintings that I think are the best."

Wattel was still staring at the picture frames on the wall.

He didn't look back.

But it seemed that there were already too many people showing expressions similar to Gu Weijing's, and he was fully aware of the shock in Gu Weijing's heart at this moment.

"Oh my God, after ten years of painting, all on this theme, how many paintings of "Museum Island" have you painted in total? Sir, you..."

Wouldn't it feel boring?

Gu Weijing couldn't help but sigh aloud, and at the same time he was also very confused.

There are many specific painters in the history of art who like to paint a specific theme over and over again.

They may regard this behavior as an anchor to test the progress of their painting skills, or they may simply prefer a certain landscape, or simply because this kind of painting sells better and is ordered more by painting dealers and customers.

A typical example is that when Dali was short of money, he used to draw sketches and illustrations for world famous books to make quick money.

Just for the same illustration of "Don Quixote Challenges the Windmill", Marquis Dali drew 3 illustrations. Then I discovered that this thing was selling really well and was just right, so I worked with a printing factory to print more than copies and sell signed prints instead.

Van Gogh also painted 11 paintings of sunflowers.

Among the world's famous painting masters, he is the most famous artist who persistently studies a single painting theme.

It should still be Monet.

During the last third of his career, from 1899 to his death in 1926, Monet, who had already become a millionaire by selling paintings, bought a large house and built a Japanese-style garden at home.

I locked myself in the house almost all day long, pondering the plants floating in the pond from day to day.

That is the famous "water lily".

Monet completed about 300 oil paintings about water lilies, and on average he completed one water lily every more than a month. It can be regarded as an example in the art world of loving a certain scene to the extreme.

Zhou Dunyi, a classmate who wrote "The Love of the Lotus" in the Northern Song Dynasty, would have known that eight hundred years after him, there was a French child who loved lotus to such an extent.

They will probably become close friends after meeting each other so late.

Although it may sound exaggerated to say that Monet painted 300 water lilies for 27 years, in fact, each picture titled "Water Lilies" is different.

Each piece is a brand new work, a brand new attempt.

His water lily paintings can also be broadly divided into the "Water Lilies" series, the "Water Lilies Under the Willows" series, and the "Japanese Bridge" series, totaling a large series of works with different tones and different styles of painting interpretations.

In the special issue celebrating the centenary of Monet's birth published by Oil Painting magazine in the last century, the cover line commented - "This impressionist master did not spend thirty years on a single plant; he was not grasping a certain kind of vegetation. The growth is dry and prosperous, but trying to grasp the whole spring. Facts have proved that he did it. This is the symphony of spring he dedicated to the world. Monet left the spring blossoms of the Normandy Manor (note) in the world forever. 】

(Note: Name of Monet’s Oriental Garden.)

The painter just creates wantonly under the same name.

Even if I have been painting for twenty-seven years, it is not easy to get tired of painting.

However, every painting hanging in Professor Wattel's office is exactly the same model and created with the same painting idea.

This teacher is a genuine painting that has been painted countless times.

Selling paintings?

Unless this Dulwich professor is secretly working part-time online selling cheap watercolor decorative paintings for more than ten dollars a piece, it must be a small shop with good sales.

Otherwise, it is not because Gu Weijing has a system that he looks down on this teacher who has taught him for many years. With all due respect.

Even with the current signature IP of "Detective Cat", such a large number of single works can be sold in a gallery, even if the painting technique is one or two levels higher than that of Vattel.

Maybe the value that he has worked so hard to build up will still collapse.

Say.

If you simply want to make money by selling paintings, without popularity, the price-performance ratio of photorealistic paintings is really very low.

Not many people except Dulwich School know the name Wattle.

A watercolor painting as exquisite as a photograph can sell for 20% to 30% more per unit than an ordinary watercolor landscape painting at most. I am really thankful that each painting can be sold for 200 euros.

The energy and effort required for painting are more than doubled.

No need.

Practice painting?

In order to participate in the Singapore Biennale, Gu Weijing has painted more than ten pictures of "Good Luck Orphanage under Yangon", but he doesn't think anything of it.

This little bit of practice won't stop you from getting bored.

In addition, the rapid improvement of painting skills has diluted the boringness of repeated mechanical exercises, and there is a lovely soft girl like Sakai Katsuko accompanying him in the studio.

At least now, he can still feel the joy of practicing.

But what if a dozen paintings were turned into a hundred, two hundred, or hundreds?

What if the time unit is extended to ten years?

What if the painting skills are stuck at the bottleneck of the first level of the profession like Professor Vatel and cannot be improved?

Gu Weijing considers himself a person with a very upright and serious attitude towards artistic creation.

But thinking about this kind of thing, he also felt that... he probably wanted to vomit from the moment he saw the photo of Museum Island.

In the evaluation of the system emotion table, hard work requires not only seriousness and hard work, but also a deep understanding of the artist himself and the integration of the soul of the work with the painting and a sufficiently moving artistic depth.

Purely serious, the highest evaluation can only touch the level of "simple work".

But Gu Weijing had to admit,

His high school teacher's attitude towards this landscape painting also reached the level of "painstaking effort" in the sense of life.

Professor Wattel, this middle-aged teacher who likes to drink beer and watch football, seems to have a normal mind and is not a paranoid lunatic full of artistic temperament like Van Gogh.

So……

What is it that supports the teacher around him, year after year, day after day, pouring all his efforts into this small photo?

What magic power does this ordinary photo have, like a magnet, attracting him and refusing to let go?

"One thousand?"

"what?"

"I haven't counted accurately, but I think I must have painted a thousand watercolor paintings." Wattel held out a finger.

"Maybe fifteen hundred, maybe more."

Gu Weijing took a gentle breath.

Watercolors of the same size take much less time to paint than oil paintings. Many painters contracted by boutique galleries only put a few watercolors on the market a year, specifically to control the supply and demand relationship.

Whether it’s a thousand or fifteen hundred.

After ten years of practice, every number is normal.

However, if you put it into Mr. Wattle's daily life, it still seems very scary.

It also seems cruel.

Ten years is enough time to bring about earth-shaking changes in ordinary things.

The so-called law of 10,000 hours to become a master.

In ten years, if you plan a bit, you can make up several 10,000 hours.

After ten years of training to run a marathon, ordinary people can run within 3 hours.

It takes ten years to practice art.

The German uncle next to him was still stuck at the bottleneck of the first level of the profession, unable to make any progress.

in other words.

Vatel has practiced sketches, watercolors, and his grandfather Gu Tongxiang's Chinese paintings for tens of thousands of hours, but the boundary between Level 4 and Level 5 is not running within 3 hours in a marathon, but running within 2 hours and 30 minutes.

At this level, the marginal effect of practice is already obvious, and it can no longer be overcome by just piling up time in the studio and on the treadmill.

It must be nurtured with enough insights and opportunities.

"Gu, it's not as boring as you think. When I was in school, the boys in school who could solve the Rubik's Cube were very cool."

"Painting photorealistic works is like solving a Rubik's Cube."

"After fighting for the third level, there are still four levels, and you are familiar with the fourth level and the fifth level. Spend two thousand dollars to buy a full-frame camera, press the shutter button lightly, and you can get a picture worth two to thirty million dollars. Digital photos with high pixel density. For a 22X30-inch basic drawing, a thousand strokes in total are enough. A difference of one ten thousandth to achieve the same or even better visual effects. This is a very Fun stuff.”

"Constantly thinking about how to create the best and most realistic picture effect within the limit of the brushstrokes that the drawing paper can accommodate. This is like trying to create a never-ending exquisite magic. Well... let's be honest, At the end of the day, it’s pretty boring.”

Professor Wattel smiled frankly.

"Well...if it was just about skills, I probably wouldn't have spent ten years on the same painting. I would have given up this obsession long ago and go to work every day. In my free time, I would hold a cold beer and play ball games. Entertainment. After all, I don’t have any lofty artistic pursuits.”

"I work as a teacher in a remote DCB branch, plus a subsidy. My income is no lower than that of an associate professor at some universities' art schools. I have also saved a small sum of money over the years."

"Three years ago, I seriously considered quitting my job and buying a small house on the beach in Bangkok. The climate there is warm, it is a prosperous metropolis, and the consumption is relatively low. Everyone said it is a very cost-effective place to retire. I I really like the sun, sea breeze and surfing. In my free time, I set up a drawing board on the beach and draw as a painter. I have never been a real painter in my life. It is not difficult to pretend to be an artist by the beach when I am old. Maybe ...There will also be girls in swimsuits who invite me to draw a picture for her or something. There are always classic scenes like this in artistic films made by French directors."

The sketch teacher pursed his lips and thought about a wonderful retirement life.

"When painting really turned from work into a pastime, I let go of art, and art let go of me. At that time, there is a high probability that I will be able to find the pure joy of painting that I had when I was a child."

"But I can't."

"The glittering ticket I'm talking about is not an artistic rhetoric. It's 'bling' in a practical sense. Have you heard of the bet of the century between President Miller of KIH and old Mr. Irina?"

(End of this chapter)