Almighty painter

Chapter 708: The Attacking Sloth and the Attacking Cat (Part )

"How long will it take to fly there?"

Anna didn't look up. She just wrote the last two names "WeiJing Gu" and "Sakai Takakura" on the note with a pen, put a big question mark behind them, and then asked calmly.

"About two hours, right? The crew can take off at any time, and the route can be applied for quickly, so these are not a problem. It's just... the news said that Myanmar is in a state of civil war, and it's very unstable there."

The butler stated.

"We originally planned to stay in Singapore for only half a month. Your security team did not come with us, and it will take time to re-prepare. It will take at least two to three days for the personnel to be in place."

"I don't think it's necessary. Would those weird extreme right-wing cosplay groups travel thousands of miles to Southeast Asia to secretly shoot me?"

Anna asked back.

In private, she doesn't like to laugh, but her tone sounds very humorous.

"Isn't this a bit too much trouble?"

"Adrar, you've been a little nervous lately. Don't let a few threatening letters written by ignorant children make you nervous. During this period... we are not in Austria. You don't have to insist on staying with me. You can go to the beach to relax."

The woman suggested.

She tore off the note in her hand and stuck it somewhere among the first few pages of "Asian Art", and once again took the other documents from the table that she had asked the butler to prepare.

"I'm flying around like this. Even if there really are assassins, it's not as easy for them to find me as it is to find a woman wearing a sun hat in Macy's Department Store. I believe it's as difficult as picking one out of a million. My luck shouldn't be that bad."

(Note: The most famous chain of high-end department stores in North America, famous for selling high-quality women's shoes and hats.)
Miss Elena opened the folder in her hand.

This entire folder is all about Katsuko Sakai. The first page that catches the eye is a beautiful promotional cover page made for her on the official website of Tokyo Gallery.

The background of the photo is probably an art museum in Tokyo.

The fourteen-year-old girl sat next to an easel that was almost as tall as herself, and looked sideways toward the camera.

The girl had a little bit of baby fat on her cheeks and her face was rosy, making her look completely bathed in the art gallery's fill light, with traces of a Eurasian on her face.

If you really want to trace it back.

Miss Elena herself can be considered mixed-race.

The geopolitics of the Balkan Peninsula is particularly complex. The old Austro-Hungarian Empire was known as a hodgepodge of ethnic groups, a little like the United States today, with people of all races. The Austro-Hungarian Empire even had a large group of strange chaplains, officiants, and priests in the army.

There are soldiers of all religions.

The Irina family is a very powerful family in Central Europe.

The "family tree" on their family tree is a hodgepodge of a hodgepodge.

Austria, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Russia, and even Islamic countries like the Ottoman Turkey.

I have relatives from all over the world.

Political marriages of all kinds.

Miss Elena's facial features and body shape, the whole person looks very European. She is tall and fair, with distinct facial features. Her dark hair and eyes will glow a little golden in the sun, like chestnuts in the late autumn sunset.

The black background is sprinkled with fine gold powder.

In the photo, Katsuko Sakai looks more like an Asian, except that her hair is slightly curly and her eyes are black with a hint of blue.

She has a baby face, double eyelids, a gentle and pretty face, and a friendly smile.

The dimples on her cheeks reminded Miss Elena of Rubens' paintings that were full of stories and had delicate brushstrokes.

In the photo.

Next to Katsuko Sakai is a large bronze trophy with the Japanese inscription "Tokyo Gallery Kanto Art Competition Gold Prize" engraved on the base.

Miss Elena doesn't understand Japanese.

However, the gallery's homepage kindly noted in English that the fourteen-year-old Katsuko Sakai won first place in the children's art competition jointly organized by Tokyo Gallery BTAP and Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, and became the global youth artist promotion ambassador signed by Tokyo Gallery.

This Singapore International Biennale marks the official debut of Gu Weijing and Katsuko Sakai in the art field.

but.

Miss Sakai and Gu Weijing are still different.

Gu Weijing is a pure amateur. This is his first time participating in an art competition of this kind. He is a 100% "clear newbie".

Before Ms. Sakai participated in her first formal international art exhibition in her life, she had already won numerous awards in children's and youth art competitions.

Not only his dad is awesome.

She really leveled up by defeating monsters along the way.

For example, Tanaka Masakazu, who was born in a fishmonger's family, was a super soldier that the little girl Katsuko killed casually while she was leveling up by killing monsters.

Katsuko Sakai has won almost all the awards that Japanese child painters can get.

There is also a lot of information left on the Internet.

Anna's gaze lingered on the face of the little girl in the promotional leaflet for a moment, then she turned her gaze to the drawing board beside Shengzi, and then she sighed imperceptibly.

Envy.JPG.

Anna's work on the drawing board seems to lack a little bit of "life".

If this was the work of a 41-year-old adult artist, it would probably trigger Miss Irena's "Anna Sharp Review" passivity, and like Van Doorn, she would criticize it as having soulless lines.

but.

If this was a painting drawn by a 14-year-old girl.

This level of grand pattern and minor key, this level of transition between light, grey and dark, this level of ability in using the brush.

Even someone as sharp-tongued as Miss Elena could only secretly envy her in her heart.

Katsuko Sakai at the age of fourteen drew better than Anna at the age of fourteen.

Fourteen-year-old Katsuko Sakai draws better than twenty-two-year-old Anna.

If nothing else happens.

It is probably about the spirit of painting.

When Anna was 28 years old, twice her age, she was still not as good as the girl in the photo who had drawn the picture when she was 14 years old.

Miss Elena flipped through the pages of the document in her hand, and she became more determined to find the two authors of this paper and have a face-to-face chat with them.

Before that, she wanted to fly to Yangon to see the old church where the female painter Carroll took the picture described in the paper.

"Miss, I'm not a neurotic. I have served in the paratroopers."

"We were told by our instructors that the failure rate of the NATO T-10C military parachute is 0.00034%. Theoretically, the possibility of both the main parachute and the reserve parachute failing would only occur once in million jumps, but that is not zero. The mortality rate of the paratroopers' exercises is also much greater than one in million, or even much greater than one in ."

"So I just know that the real dangerous events are often caused by some accidents that people think will not happen."

He said.

"Queen Elizabeth was stabbed to death by a random file during an ordinary walk in the streets of Geneva. The assassin's original target was not even her, but he changed his mind after accidentally reading the news in the newspaper. Archduke Ferdinand had escaped the assassination with only minor scratches. He thought nothing would happen, so he pretended to be calm and attended the welcoming ceremony of the city government, and drove to the hospital. As a result -"

The housekeeper was still persuading Anna to change her travel plans.

His voice sounded calm, but anyone in the manor who was familiar with Mr. Adrar, from the cook in the kitchen, the head butler, the gardener, the watchmaker, and even Anna, the owner of the manor, knew him.

They could all hear those subtle nuances of tone in his voice.

When the butler of Italian descent spoke in this tone, it was like making a very serious and heartfelt suggestion to him.

The only time Adrar could not resist adding Italian words like "Dio mio (Oh, my God)!" into his speech was when he expressed his feelings more seriously.

There have only been a few times in history.

Mr. Butler's tone was filled with an Italian accent.

That was almost equivalent to him screaming with emotion in his heart at this moment!
"Don't worry, if I'm going to take a walk on the street or drive to the hospital, I will keep your advice in mind." Miss Elena's eyes were still on the file in her hand.

"But I'm not Ferdinand. No one will come to trouble me again and again. Of course... I mean the kind with guns, not the kind of trouble that Sir Brown caused."

The woman's voice was calm, almost relaxed.

She glanced at her watch.

"It takes less than five hours to go back and forth. Well, that means if we move quickly, we should be able to return before tomorrow morning. It won't even delay tomorrow's interview schedule."

"Whether you are Lincoln or Hitler, there will be people who want you dead, and there will be assassins who will kill you. Lincoln was shot in the back of the head and died in the theater, but Hitler was not. Is it because the latter is more favored by God than the former? No, chance is never determined by personal moral qualities, chance is only determined by chance."

"Dio mio!" the butler complained.

"Miss, I strongly advise you not to call those people a cosplayer group or ignorant children. You should not express contempt in a way that disregards your own safety. Especially when the manor has received threatening letters five times and the police have no idea where they came from."

"It's all over, nothing happened."

"Maybe nothing happened, it's just because of your good security. The itinerary of the Oil Painting magazine team is public, and the takeoff and landing of private planes can be easily photographed. As long as someone is paying attention, it is not difficult to find you. It's just a matter of a plane ticket!"

"When he was alive, the gentleman always said that the past is never dead, and the past is never even past."

In the suite on the top floor of the Raffles Hotel.

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet for a moment.

The butler probably felt that his words were a bit too harsh. He shook his head and bowed slightly.

"I'm sorry, you are the mistress of the manor. I will ask the crew to apply for the route immediately."

Butlers have a unique cultural position in large European families.

Their work has the different characteristics of two professions: retainer and butler.

When Anna's father was still alive.

Adrar's loyalty is only to her father. He must respect Anna's requests, but he can disobey, report the matter to the head of the family, or even express his opposition explicitly.

but now.

Anna is an adult.

She is not just a young woman, she represents the entire Elena family.

He can make recommendations and his duties include clearly stating the risks.

But whether to listen or not was Anna's business. Anna's orders should be orders to him.

The lord's orders cannot be refused by the subjects.

Even if Anna wanted to donate all the family collections, as long as it was her own decision, the butler could only execute it.

"No. Wait."

Anna looked up and called the housekeeper.

Miss Elena closed the portfolio of Katsuko Sakai's works.

She took out the journal "Asian Art" that she had placed beside her. It was already covered with more than a dozen sticky notes.

After leaving the airport.

Anna immediately began to collect all the information she could about the paper on Asian Art.

These notes were made by Miss Elena, who condensed the news that she thought was worthy of attention and rearranged them in chronological order.

"December 1876, 12 - A British priest named Colonial recorded in his diary for the first time that a female painter with "golden red hair" and sculptural features had appeared many times next to a church in Yangon to collect materials, which left a deep impression on him. (When was "Old Church on a Thunderstorm" created?)"

"On December 23, , just before Christmas, the priest met the painter for the last time."

……

"In early 1878, Kara "returned" to the Elena estate... Four years later, in June, she died of tuberculosis in the cellar."

"On June 2023, 6, the research on the female painter Carroll was published as the cover article in the journal Asian Art."

"On June 2023, 6, a research team from Yale University, in——"

……

For Oil Painting magazine, the new paper published by Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko was just a very ordinary one among the countless major and minor events that happened in the art industry every once in a while, and it was simply mentioned in a few words on the page.

For researchers in the field of Impressionism, this was earth-shattering news.

Some people have subscribed to "Asian Art" and some have not, whether they have seen the relevant paper overview in "Oil Painting" or heard about it from their peers by word of mouth.

A month has passed.

A large number of researchers in related fields, who are not too closed-minded, have at least heard of the existence of such a thing.

Those who should discuss, question, and criticize each other... have all started to take action.

same.

Only one month had passed since the paper was published in Asian Art.

In such a short time.

Whether the scholars want to stand up and "support" the views of Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko, or want to jump out to disrupt the situation, it is definitely too late to write another paper.

An old-school approach.

If you are really interested in the research of this paper, you will contact the author to discuss the paper, invite exchange visits, participate in academic conferences, or even hold seminars. These are the only ways.

There are indeed people like Dr. Gustav from Yale University who contacted Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko in accordance with the regulations, hoping to follow up on the research of the paper.

Unfortunately.

They were busy preparing for the art exhibition. Katsuko Sakai was taken away by Uncle Sakai again, while Gu Weijing was fighting to the death with Brother Hao in the Xihe Hall.

Neither of them had time to pay attention to the news.

The enthusiasm of scholars for academic discussions (and arguments) will not be dampened just because they cannot find the authors of the papers.

Now it’s all internet-based.

The big guys can passionately debate with each other in offline physical academic forums.

Online is also possible.

When it comes to this paper "The Forgotten Female Painter Carroll", the main battlefield for researchers' discussion is concentrated on various academic forums.

Just right.

Although the main content direction of "Oil Painting" is that of a serious top-level art review magazine, rather than a serious top-level art academic journal.

However, Oil Painting magazine has the largest online forum in the world with the largest number of users, the most functions, and the largest number of scholars with real-name authentication.

In the magazine's website and mobile app, there is a dedicated section related to 'Impressionism'.

There has been a lot of discussion about this paper.

If Anna was not in charge of the operation of the online section of Oil Painting, and if she was not very busy during this period, she would have to deal with the exhibition of Detective Cats and arrange various tasks for the project team during the Singapore Biennale.

She should have noticed the news before Lao Yang stepped off the plane with "Asian Art".

The views of these discussants are... complicated.

Generally speaking, there are roughly three categories.

The first category can be roughly described as “Wow? There is such a thing, let me see what’s going on.”

This is an ambiguous paper that may or may not be right.

No one secretly took a penny from Katsuko Sakai's father.

"The Old Church in a Thunderstorm" was sold at a sky-high price, but they didn't get a penny from it.

No one will come up and strongly stand on the author's side, and be 100% convinced by the opinions and conclusions.

This view is led by the user whose authenticated identity is "Dr. Gustav from Yale School of Art".

He published a long article on the forum, in which he used his own research perspective to elaborate on the possibility that an important Impressionist painter had been buried and obscured by history.

Gustav's current views can be summarized as follows:

“It’s possible that there was an undiscovered female Impressionist painter in the 19th century. It’s also unlikely that there was an undiscovered female Impressionist painter in the 19th century.”

This kind of thing is different from the German scholars who dug out the ancient city of Troy from the Anatolian Peninsula with a shovel.

It's even different from the Leonardo da Vinci that the British Museum dug out from the waste paper pile.

Even if the epic is true.

The destruction of Troy was a post-Bronze Age event. Even if a huge city was really eroded and covered by loess thousands of years ago, it is possible that no one has discovered it for hundreds of years.

Leonardo da Vinci was also a painter of the Renaissance. It is understandable that some of his works have been lost after hundreds of years of inheritance.

But the "Carol" mentioned by Gu Wei in the text was a French painter in the late 19th century, when the newspaper industry was highly developed and all kinds of paparazzi were roaming the streets.

Because cameras were not yet portable enough, many painters worked as paparazzi in their spare time to earn extra money.

There were some things that the paparazzi at the time were reluctant to touch.

But painters, especially female painters, are the favorite subjects of tabloids.

Her status is equivalent to that of a famous ballet dancer or a socialite in the social scene.

Erotic gossip newspapers like The Moon are not exclusive to modern society. For example, the Impressionist painter Miss Mary Xart left many reports about her.

There are positive reports here.

Some newspapers affirmed her contributions, and some people worshipped her as a goddess.

of course.

It is inevitable that there will be some highly discriminatory and even obscene articles that believe that girls engaged in such professions are dissolute, obscene and indecent. Even Miss Kosat's parents, who are business people, once wanted to announce that they would break off relations with her.

But no matter what.

Putting aside the criticism from later generations from a historical perspective, these reports have at least been passed down.

Everything that has ever existed must have traces.

Suppose Carroll was really the first female Impressionist painter in history, and suppose that "Old Church on a Thunderstorm" was really the first Impressionist work ever created by a woman.

Then.

Why didn't the same thing happen to her?
Why did the tabloid paparazzi keep silent about Carol's appearance?

Especially according to the missionary diary used as evidence by the author of the paper - she also had golden red hair and sculpted facial features.

This seems even more contradictory.

Objectively speaking, precisely because the art industry is full of uncertainty, it is possible for a female painter to exist and be forgotten by the world.

But in France in the 1880s, it would take too many coincidences for such a thing to happen.

The second point of view is naturally to hold an opposing attitude, "Wow? There is such a thing, stop talking nonsense."

Needless to say.

Kazunari Sakai's reputation may help his daughter get her paper on the cover, but it certainly cannot convince all scholars.

Scholars and painters are two different groups.

Uncle Sakai doesn't have much face among this group of people. There are even some who want to use Sakai Kazunari's bouncy belly as a trampoline and step on him to get to the top.

Moreover, there are many people in the art field who are skeptical or even disgusted by the painting "The Savior".

They will think it doesn't matter whether the conclusion is correct or not.

The British Museum regarded "Salvator Mundi" as a work of Leonardo da Vinci based solely on research and speculation. However, the act of selling it at a sky-high price is shaking the foundation of the entire art market.

Evil sin.

Now that a similar thing has happened again, they naturally don't look happy.

It's not surprising that people hold these two views.

What’s really strange is that there is a third point of view - "Wow? There is such a thing? Come on, they are all wrong, and what I say is right."

Miss Elena looked at the last line of the note in her hand.

"June 2023, 6, Danish scholar Alexander: "The Forgotten Female Painter Carole - The Mystery of the Identity of Monet's Wife Camille""

(End of this chapter)