Almighty painter

Chapter 61
In the video,
Thomas looked at the picture frame in Anna's hand.

He hugged his arms together and said to the judge lady: "I assure you that this is not a planned program effect. Two almost identical paintings, when I first received the draft..."

Even he, a video blogger, was a little unbelievable when he just received the art express.

Thomas thought that something must have gone wrong, that an artist had copied and sent a copy of one of his drawings.

He even had his studio employees double-check the order before he was sure it was two drawings by two completely different artists.

"They're all beautifully drawn, aren't they? Incredibly good..."

As a video blogger who doesn't know much about art, when Thomas saw these two colored pencil drawings for the first time, he was shocked by the vivid restoration of the brushwork.

"Totally wrong."

Anna mercilessly interrupted the other party's attempt to confuse the two illustrations.

"The illustration is excellent."

She placed the first picture frame turned upside down on the table, and stared down at the remaining illustration.

"And this painting...is truly incredible."

"But the two paintings look almost identical. What's the difference?"

Thomas rubbed his chin in confusion, and looked at the bearded man and the dreadlocked man.

They also shook their heads in confusion.

"Of course you don't understand, after all you..."

Anna hesitated for a moment, her good upbringing prevented her from expressing the evaluation of "mediocre" in the second half of the sentence to her face.

In her mind, 90.00% of the people in this world are mediocre.

These people may have a successful enough life in the eyes of ordinary people, but their souls are still chaotic.

Art appreciation - for Anna, it is the process of using one soul to understand another soul.

The mediocre can distinguish between beauty and ugliness, good and bad, but they can't understand the difference between excellence and excellence—the difference that seems infinitely close but infinitely far away.

The difference between 98 points and one percent has never been as simple as two points.

It is for this reason that historically wealthy merchants in Florence had the courage to point fingers at Michelangelo's sculptures.Van Gogh will disappear in the sea of ​​people, Gauguin will be regarded as a lunatic, generations of geniuses are lonely, masters are lonely, and only a lucky few can understand them.

I am such a lucky one.

"Miss Elena, I'm really confused now, can you tell our audience about the basis of your judgment. Why do you give completely different evaluations on two paintings that are almost the same?"

Seeing that the other party did not answer for a long time, Thomas asked.

The girl was silent for a few seconds.

Anna almost has a sickly obsession with art.

Being able to feel the excellence of this painting, she regards it as a special soul bond between herself and the master, and she is unwilling to share this bond with other ordinary people easily.

However, after all, I came to be a judge.

Out of professional ethics, she bit her lip and said: "If you can't intuitively feel the excellence of this painting, the easiest way is to ask your photographer to take a close-up shot and zoom in five times... no, ten times the zoom, as long as you can guarantee the clarity."

The video screen switched to a zoomed-in shot of the illustration in Anna's hand.

Thomas' video production team used Hollywood-level professional photography lenses, which are still clear and sharp after being magnified ten times, and there is almost no distortion at the edges of the picture.

"It's a beautiful hand sketch."

Mrs. Sakai exclaimed that when they were in the distant scene just now, they could only see the outline of the painting while watching the video.

Only Professor Sakai, who has the most experience in painting, can vaguely feel the difference between the two illustrations.

At this time, the picture is magnified by the lens like a magnifying glass, and the strokes become clear instantly, and you can even see the drawing direction of each line.

Leaving aside the content of the drawing, how well the drawing is done, the pen used for sketching is already at the level of a master.

"At this level, if it weren't for the colored pencil drawing, it is a painting method that has just been invented in the last century. It even makes me feel like visiting a palace art exhibition in the [-]th century, as if the old days are reappearing."

Professor Sakai is also looking at the pencil skills of this painting.

Whether the artistic expression of painting is spiraling upwards or not as good as it used to be is a cliché that the beholder sees the benevolent and the wise see wisdom.

But in terms of traditional painting techniques alone, compared with the masters of a century or two ago, today's painters may not dare to say that they are stronger than others.

For a long time before the invention of the camera, painters were considered people who could magically keep time.

Like historians, they have the responsibility of recording history and major events. Painting is not only a kind of artistic creation, but also a work of recording reality.

It was the golden age of realistic painting.

From the court ball of Frederick the Great to the art salon of Madame de Pompadour in Paris.From Napoleon's self-coronation, to Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne, to the life-and-death battle between Czarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the muddy fields.

Any historical occasion that shakes the world has the shadow of a painter holding a brush.

The wealthy ladies of the upper class and the handsome young painter are eye-to-eye.The great painters wore the medals given by the emperor on their chests, wore well-dressed tuxedos, and walked freely in the palace with their heads held high.

But today, this art form is close to decline.

The microphone in the hands of reporters and the buzzing camera in the hands of photographers have replaced the paintbrush in the hands of painters, and the art of painting has completely degenerated into a purely aesthetic form.

Practitioners are more chasing abstract concepts that can be sold for a large price. There are many people who are good at sketching, but those who are so good at drawing are rare.

But Professor Sakai felt that the power to impress him was not just a good sketch, it was as simple as that.

what is it?

"Wait, Shengzi, pay attention, it's not just a good sketch, this muscle line—"

In the right half of the video, there is a photo provided by Mr. Hyperion to the seven illustrators as a reference for their illustrations.

At this moment, Uncle Sakai finally seemed to have discovered something extraordinary.

He didn't even care that this was a cafe with people coming and going.

Professor Sakai knocked hard on the table and waved the coffee cup in his hand, as if he was watching the World Cup fan who found a world wave fairy ball.

"Perfect! Beautiful! This is amazing!" he exclaimed.

In the video,
Anna is also comparing the muscle lines on the photos and illustrations.

"In the realistic painting of figures, naturalness and precision are the highest praises for muscle lines. This is extremely difficult to achieve. Even a great painter can hardly fully restore a person's most subtle muscle activities. If he wants to imitate deliberately, he often Contrary to each other."

"Matisse, the founder of Fauvism, once put forward such an artistic slogan as [accurate is not natural]."

"Probably the best illustrator in this respect is Norman Rockwell, whom I mentioned to you, a pupil of the anatomical painter George Berryman, who inherited the old gentleman's virtues."

A trace of regret flashed across Anna's face: "Mr. Berryman is recognized as a top expert among anatomical painters in the world, but unfortunately, he has devoted his whole life to the study of muscle curves and teaching of drawing methods, but his own works of art are not very few."

"However, I didn't expect it at all. From this painting, even with a magnifying glass, I can hardly find any unnatural and uncoordinated muscles. This surprised me more than the artist's own sketching skills. He actually A perfect unity of nature and precision."

"So Mr. Matisse, you are wrong. Deliberate precision is not nature, but perfect precision can achieve harmony with nature. This painting is proof."

(End of this chapter)