Almighty painter

Chapter 718 The truth?

Traditionally, salons, banquets and various social balls were the classic occasions for European noble ladies to find husbands and for young earls to find wives.

Social banquets are extremely expensive when they are held on a larger scale.

The cost of one night of Louis XIV's court ball could be as much as a small baron's annual territory income in a remote area.

Those great lords don't care about the spending of money, but they care about the breadth of choices.

The participants of the banquets held in one's own manor are relatively fixed, all of them are familiar faces from the local area, so it is inevitable that the mobility of personnel is low.

Fortunately.

In order to find more "high-quality" spouses, the manor cannot be moved, and the heirs can wander around on their own.

Thus, the official social season was born.

Every spring, when the roses bloom, at the entrance of the Ritz Hotel on the north side of the Place Vendôme in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, Portuguese barons, ladies of the Windsor family, the Grand Duke who came all the way from St. Petersburg, and the Princess of Luxembourg... carriages printed with various gold-plated logos stop here one after another.

Men and women walked into the hotel lobby arm in arm.

The new generation of political alliance of the heirs of kings, princes and ministers was gradually woven into shape amid the loud chants of waiters in tuxedos, the clinking of crystal wine glasses and the fluttering of dance skirts, where a diamond brooch could be worth ten years' income for an ordinary working-class family.

The Industrial Revolution brought about an unprecedented surge in social productivity and also led to an unprecedented disparity in the absolute amount of wealth.

on the one hand.

Various tragic events occurred day after day in the colonies. Even a few kilometers away from the Ritz Hotel, in the industrial areas of Paris, workers worked more than 14 hours a day on average.

Everywhere you look you can see children working who have lost fingers and toes due to industrial accidents and are as young as 14 years old.

on the other hand.

Amid the tinkling sound of gold coins deposited into accounts, the never-ending waltz will echo through spring after spring.

The precious coral ring around the waist makes the common people weep.

Especially during the years when Miss Kara lived, the last sunset of the golden age of the aristocracy, with the invention of steam engines and ships, the world's transportation industry had developed to a considerable extent.

Jules Verne believed that based on the tickets provided by shipping companies and the train timetables in newspapers, it would be possible to travel through Europe, Asia, Africa and America within 80 days.

Travel a full circle around the globe.

The Elena family not only has its own special train carriage, but also a family yacht.

The kind of large yacht that requires dozens of crew members and sailors to operate.

The lords of Germany and Austria all love yacht racing.

At the European Yacht Races of all ages, emperors and kings of various countries would often attend in person. Newspapers described it as a "world war" without the smoke of gunpowder. Owning a good boat was the best way for big families to show their financial strength and maintain similar interests with the emperor to strengthen personal friendship.

"On July 1877, 7, after the race, the Duchess of Wasselle said during lunch that Prince Albert was very dissatisfied with the result and would order the factory to build a large ship that could be more than 9 knots faster than the current one, with a completely new keel design... This is like what is being done in many aspects, giving Prussia an advantage and a head start in the competition with the British. But it has nothing to do with me. The weather in Marseille is very good, and my journey begins just like that."

Anna pulled up a scanned diary photo that she had saved in her favorites and specially marked with an asterisk.

The text in the diary was brief and light, with the last German letter pulled out into a long upward tail, indicating that its owner was in great excitement when she wrote this text 150 years ago.

1877 years.

Five years after the publication of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.

Prince Albert, who had just come of age and would become the future last German Emperor Wilhelm II, lost the French yacht race for the second time and angrily ordered the construction of the large yacht "Hohenzollern" to symbolize the royal family.

Meanwhile, Miss Kara's spring social mission in France also came to an end.

She will take her yacht "White Edelweiss", which has just participated in a race, from Paris back to Central Europe, change to the railway in Istanbul to reach Lake Van, then from Lake Van via Tehran to Mashhad, and finally cross India to Myanmar.

She would travel from Mandalay to Rangoon on the railway built by the British.

Then take a ship from Yangon Port, make a brief stop in Osaka, Japan, and finally return to the center of Europe.

This was the largest and last grand tour of Grandma Karazoo's life.

Although she did not travel around the world in eighty days like the protagonist in Jules Verne's novel.

However, it took him nearly 500 days to cross Central Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, carrying only two personal maids and a male servant with a gun.

Apart from the start and end times of the trip, many details of Kara's itinerary are difficult to verify.

Anna pulled up the next starred photo.

There was no text in the diary, only a simple sketch of a flower.

The shape of the flowers and bracts in the painting resembles a lion's paw, which is the unique symbol of Edelweiss.

During the journey, Kara hardly kept a diary. She would only write a few words after a long time, mostly complaints about train delays or broken tracks ahead.

Miss Elena felt that this page was different.

On the previous page of Edelweiss, Carla wrote that her personal maid contracted malaria in India and had to postpone her trip for a week. That was on October 3, 1878.

And on the next page, it was already January of the following year, and she was in Japan.

In the middle was the Christmas of 1878.

According to her schedule, she was most likely in Yangon at that time, which matches the time when she met the golden-red-haired female painter in the church pastor's diary.

Anna used to think that this simple sketch of flowers might have been drawn by Kara when she was spending Christmas Eve in a foreign country and missing her hometown.

Think about it now.

The special mark on the diary... does it... refer to the painting she left at the end of the world?

It makes sense logically.

The only flaw is the original text of the missionary's diary quoted in the paper. The pastor recorded that the female painter left the port of Yangon after Christmas and returned directly to Europe, instead of going to Japan like Kara.

After all, it is a diary left by a bystander one hundred and fifty years ago.

It was only a week later that the pastor asked others for details, and some of the differences and errors were acceptable to Anna.

The results of the investigation into this pastor have also been reported by the Church of England.

Unfortunately.

The archives are not very comprehensive. Not all pastors in the British Indian colonies at the time were registered, and the Protestant Church has not found detailed records of the pastor who wrote the diary.

The good news is that at the level of priest, the files are quite complete.

During the thirty years from 1860 to 1890, there were only two priests with the surname Anderson among the missionaries sent by Britain to India.

One of them happened to be in charge of a local church called St. Joseph in Rangoon in the 1870s.

It also corresponds to the pastor's mention of Father Anderson in his diary.

In addition...

Last weekend, Anna also learned a very, very important piece of good news - handwriting identification.

The identification of oil painting brushstrokes is an extremely difficult point in authentication.

Judging whether two paintings were painted by the same person by looking at the colors and brushstrokes on them, especially imitation paintings that are deliberately painted in a very similar style, often makes different scholars puzzled.

The identification of notes containing written letters is relatively simple.

There is no need to invite Sherlock Holmes to appear.

For a small amount of money, any sufficiently qualified laboratory in the world can perform handwriting identification, and the conclusions can be authoritative enough to be used as reference evidence in court.

Almost all of Carla's paintings were burned, but some of her written materials, such as letters and diaries, were preserved.

After Anna turned to the article in "Asian Art", the first thing she did when she left the airport was to ask the housekeeper to do a handwriting identification on the signed photo of "CAROL" on the back of "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" and the original text in the diary.

Compared with ordinary text, the difficulty of this matter lies in the fact that when writing with an oil brush and writing with a fountain pen, even if the handwriting is left by the same person, the writing habits will be slightly different.

The sample size for the five letters "ＣＡＲＯＬ" is very small.

Note identification is even more difficult to do.

The housekeeper contacted a well-known senior expert in the field of judicial identification in Munich on Anna's behalf and told him that Irina's family did not need him to issue an authoritative conclusion report at the judicial level.

Miss Elena only hopes that the other party can give a subjective judgment based on his many years of work experience - the question is very simple, in your mind, are the person who wrote the signature "ＣＡＲＯＬ" and the person who left the handwriting on the photo in the diary the same person?

The experts’ answers were rigorous.

"It's hard to say. The writing tools and materials used are completely different, and there are so few characteristic features in the handwriting. I can't tell you directly whether it was written by the same person or not. I can only say that the characteristic features of the three letters I found in this signature all have corresponding references in the diary material."

"So you think it's true?"

"Well, 30%, if you insist on asking me to give an answer, then yes, subjectively, I believe that the person who wrote this signature is the one who wrote this diary. But objectively, with the current sample size, I am at most 30% sure."

The butler relayed the scholar's answer to Anna.

30% certainty——

This is the problem Anna is facing now.

Subjectively.

The woman believed that the painting "Old Church on a Thunderstorm" was Kara's work hidden at the end of the world.

Objectively.

Although the information provided in the paper in "Asian Art" is limited, the several characteristic points it provides almost all correspond to Kara's life experience.

One or two can be said to be coincidence.

There are so many similarities that it is beyond the realm of coincidence.

The answer given by Katsuko Sakai can also be perfectly embedded here... It is either a destined encounter, or it can be completely confirmed that it is a premeditated trap.

This is because the lair of one of the largest underground art counterfeiting gangs is located in the same place where "The Old Church on a Thunderstorm" was discovered.

Objectively speaking, Miss Elena is only 30%, or at most 50% sure.

Anna is a keen critic and an excellent interview editor.

Compared to facing these evidence materials.

When it comes to making the final judgment, Anna wants to meet the two authors of the paper and have a direct conversation between people and hearts.

Listen to their voices, and listen to your own.

If we say that Miss Elena believed 50% of this paper when she saw it.

So when Miss Sakai risked her own reputation and even her father's reputation, asserting that this was either a coincidence or their joint crime, there was no other possibility.

Anna already believed it 70%.

"This content is probably not false, right?" The woman in the wheelchair thought quietly in her heart, recalling the tone of voice used by Katsuko Sakai when she said this.

Even though he was choked by Katsuko Sakai.

She was in a good mood after getting the answer she wanted.

"...You inferred in your paper that the artist of this painting was the hostess of a studio on the banks of the Seine, whose name was Carla, and who was briefly mentioned in Monet's letters."

on the phone.

The podcast is coming to an end.

"Excuse me, who made this judgment, you? Gu Weijing? Or all of you? The paper seems to leave a lot of unanswered questions for readers, doesn't it? Do you have any other guesses about Kara's identity and her life?" Mr. Sloth asked.

"It was done by Gu Weijing."

Katsuko Sakai replied.

"While writing the paper, we searched a lot of relevant materials from that era, hoping to find clues about the identity of 'Carol'. Unfortunately, we didn't gain much, only a few discoveries..."

Anna listened to the sound in the headphones intermittently.

In fact, it doesn’t matter whether Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko have other thoughts or not.

As long as this painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" is really Kara's painting - as long as this point is not false, the rest are just details in Miss Irina's mind.

If they didn't realize that they had accidentally found the treasure of Elena's family... that would naturally be the best.

She could first try to buy the painting back.

Think about what to do next.

It can be placed in the family collection room or donated to the family museum.

If they had heard some inside information when they were writing, and wanted to please the Elena family...even if they had the thought of "Wow, we are going to get rich!" when they first started writing.

He wanted to "swindle" a large sum of money from Elena's family.

As long as the information related to this painting is not false.

To be honest—Anna would recognize it too.

Just treat it as a business negotiation. Even if the other party offers a sky-high price, it is what they deserve.

Those who dig out the treasure should be rewarded.

"——Finally, the person who met all the stringent requirements of a female painter with striking golden-red hair, who was related to Impressionism, who could be found in historical records, and who was almost forgotten by the academic community, was the closest candidate, based on the literature that Gu Weijing and I had. The studio hostess mentioned in Monet's letters was the closest candidate."

Katsuko Sakai seemed to be shaking her head slightly as she spoke.

Sounds like it.

She didn't have too many associations with Kara's identity.

"I know the paper is not perfect and it leaves many unanswered questions. But sometimes academic writing is not a non-fiction novel. It can be based on real backgrounds while adding a lot of personal imagination and wild speculation of the creator."

"Feel sorry."

"We have made a lot of efforts, but we also have to admit that no one can go back to Christmas Eve in 1878 and talk to the female painter with golden red hair who appeared in front of the old church and find out who she was."

"With limited materials, we can only make limited speculations. This is a blank left by history."

Mr. Sloth smiled and said, "Blank - sometimes, leaving a blank can give people endless imagination about the story that happened 150 years ago, right?"

"It's imaginable, but it's just imagination after all." Katsuko Sakai sighed.

"Well, thank you Ms. Katsuko Sakai for coming to Mr. Sloth's Art Salon. With that, this episode is coming to an end. In today's show, we talked about contemporary art society--"

Mr. Sloth began to use a few sentences to quickly summarize and generalize the content of this salon conversation.

At last.

She said.

"I know you are in Singapore right now, preparing to participate in the first Biennale in your life. When our program is broadcast next week and listened to by the audience, the exhibition should have officially opened. Ms. Sakai, I sincerely hope that you can achieve satisfactory results in the exhibition and have no regrets."

“The results are not important, the painting itself is important.”

Katsuko Sakai was probably still a little unhappy about Mr. Sloth's statement that Gu Weijing was "faking" the facts.

Having a good personality and having no personality are two different things.

Miss Shengzi has a good personality.

She is by no means a girl without character.

In her final moments, she expressed her dissatisfaction.

but.

Katsuko is different from Anna.

Even when she is talking to people, she seems gentle.

"For me, I have already submitted my best paintings. I once told others that I have prepared for this exhibition, and that is enough. Whether there are regrets or not is not determined by whether or not we win awards. It is not up to us."

"Whether you have regrets or not is determined by whether you have painted the best painting. As long as you are satisfied with your work, you have no regrets."

“As far as the work is concerned, I have no regrets.”

Mr. Sloth was silent for a moment.

Laughing dumbly.

She probably never thought that one day someone would say such words to her.

“You’re right, art should only be about art.”

"Goodbye then, Mr. Sloth."

"Wait a minute - one last question, a very brief one. It's a pity that we couldn't invite Gu Weijing to be here today, he is another author of the paper."

"Ms. Sakai, you mentioned that if Gu Weijing were here today, he would definitely leave a deep impression on me and the audience. Can you give a brief description of what kind of person he is in your mind?"

Before saying goodbye.

Mr. Sloth asked one last question completely on impulse.

It's just a paper they co-wrote, so the relationship is definitely not distant, but if we say it's close... it may not be much closer than the group of classmates doing class assignments together.

In academia.

It is a perfectly normal situation.

Miss Elena has interviewed and collaborated with at least 100 artists, if not 80.

Since Gu Weijing didn't come, she didn't want to ask too much about Gu Weijing.

But Anna noticed the change in Miss Sakai's mood.

Miss Elena found it a bit strange that she would not argue about these things with a girl who was three years younger than her.

Katsuko Sakai's reaction was strange.

Mr. Sloth's question of "Is there any fraud?" can even be said to be an interrogation, and his tone is certainly a bit sharp.

but.

It comes down to it.

Out of respect for the guests who were willing to participate in the podcast, Anna never directly questioned Katsuko Sakai herself from beginning to end.

Most of those doubts and sharp comments were directed at Gu Weijing.

Hint indirectly to create some waves.

Katsuko Sakai's reaction... was much greater than Anna expected.

If the other party is the kind of irritable and difficult-to-serve artist, it is normal for her to just roll up her sleeves and walk away when faced with these questions that make her unhappy, as this is not a formal and serious interview.

Miss Sakai is obviously not such a person.

Based on Miss Elena’s experience, although she is young, her stage presence is very steady and she appears to be accustomed to and adept at dealing with the media.

Since such people do not leave at that time, they will often hide their dissatisfaction in their hearts.

Maybe he won’t come to her show as a guest next time.

but.

There is a high probability that he will still appear to be smiling and talking on the surface.

"If there is fraud... then this is not a risky move by a nobody like Gu Weijing alone, but a premeditated joint crime by them all."

This is a convincing answer, the answer Anna wants to hear, and the answer that can gain traffic.

Only only.

This is definitely not the smartest answer from someone who is good at dealing with the media.

even.

From the perspective of the PR team, this is a very wrong answer.

When it comes to winning awards and gaining attention, creators fight over who gets one more interview, who gets one less interview, who says privately that "someone's credit is my credit" - these can all make other creators so jealous that they almost fight.

When fraud, plagiarism or negative scandals are uncovered.

People often run faster than each other.

Jumping ship.

I was afraid that the reporter's flash light would stay on me for even a second.

Anna has seen and heard a lot of these kinds of faces.

Katsuko Sakai and Weijing Gu are both the first authors of the paper "The Forgotten Female Painter", and their status in terms of attribution is the same.

During the interview, she said that Gu Weijing's contribution to this paper was much greater than hers, and many important conclusions were made by Gu Weijing alone.

On the other hand, they say that if there is something fishy about the paper, it would be a joint crime between the two, tying the two people together.

This was the first time Anna had encountered such a reverse operation.

(End of this chapter)