Almighty painter

Chapter 735 The Burning Goddess

For Anna Irena.

What can she do when she has high expectations of Gu Weijing but also deep vigilance and suspicion towards him?

It was nothing more than doing exactly the same thing as she did when she faced the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm", for which she had deep expectations and deep doubts.

She asked Katsuko Sakai if this painting was too coincidental and why she should believe that this was not a scam.

She also asked Katsuko Sakai if Gu Weijing was too impatient and why she liked someone like Gu Weijing.
That's how a solitary sloth would ask a question.

This is also the way the Countess of the Irena family asks questions.

She was the most beautiful of all beautiful women, the most artificial of all pretentious women, and the most proud and vigilant of all proud and vigilant women.

People will never find anyone else who can see a heart that is hard yet sensitive, cold yet warm, extroverted yet introverted, as they can in her body.

For better or worse.

She has reached the pinnacle.

She is the symbol of Irena's family and she is also the symbol of Oil Painting magazine.

She is Anna Elena.

She is Mr. Sloth.
-
Anna opened the armrest beside the wheelchair, pulled out a slender cane, unfolded it and fixed it in place.

She held the hem of her skirt, placed her right hand on the cane, supported herself and slowly stood up.

Curator Tonks saw this scene.

The British uncle thought that it was time to rush forward, so he trotted over to ask about the man's well-being.

This is the time for him to show his elegance as a British gentleman, care for ladies and care for the disabled.

He also envied the way Katsuko Sakai and Miss Elena seemed to be having a great time talking to each other when they first met.

It seems now.

Plastic sisterhood often comes and goes quickly.

Take a look.

It was you two who were talking and laughing just now, and it is you two who are breaking up now.

At times like this, it is time for a steady and reliable uncle like him to show his mature demeanor.

"Miss Elena, if you don't like someone's work, tell me! I won't talk back, I'll scold you along with me."

Tonks gave a barely perceptible grin, moved her feet, and prepared to rush over to support the woman.

The butler stretched out his hand and stopped him.

The British uncle gave this very clueless servant a strange look.

Mr. Adrar fixed his eyes on the young lady not far away and shook his head gently without giving any explanation.

Anna slowly stood up from the wheelchair.

She tried to take a step forward, left foot, then right foot, step by step, steadily, without any trembling or hesitation.

Few people can exude a powerful majesty simply by walking.

Especially since she is a young, disabled woman with almost no mobility in her right calf.

just now.

This charming majesty is fully displayed in front of everyone on the third floor of the art center.

Apart from the fact that Anna walked very slowly and held a dark gray cane in her hand, people hardly realized that she was a cripple who had to rely on a wheelchair to move freely.

……

“It is in great misfortune that people can better realize who they are.”

—— Stefan Zweig, Austria

……

Very strange.

There are tens of thousands of normal people with all their limbs intact in the world. They walk, run, sit and lie down tens of thousands of times every day. Everyone is used to it and no one makes a fuss about it.

When this kind of power that people are accustomed to appears on a disabled person.

Yet a solemn silence.

It is a feeling of using human spiritual power to overcome the majestic and ruthless power of nature.

David defeated Goliath, and Joan of Arc died peacefully in the burning flames.

There are only two ways for painters to create a sense of power that transcends the ordinary on canvas.

The bulging muscle lines on the arms of the boxer wrapped in bandages in "Fighter", the gladiator taming the lion with a lasso woven with hemp rope, the huge angular pectoral muscles dyed by sweat, like the body of a Greek demigod coated with olive oil, reflecting the sunlight, this is one of them.

In "Saint Sebastian", the slender young man tied to a tree with a melancholy calm, pierced by the Roman general's arrow is the only one left.

Miss Elena was walking forward with a cane, too.

She seemed to be using her body to tell everyone that she only submitted to her own power.

Her will permeates every line of her body.

No one can give her orders.

No matter if the opponent is a giant, fire, or a congenital disease.

When human will can defy human laws, when they succeed in transcending ordinary life, in the eyes of bystanders, it is no longer just human will.

In a moment, it became something that only gods could possess.

It overcomes all the helplessness in the world.

So, David became a hero in religious legend.

The heroes in mythology are half human and half god.

While Jeanne d'Orleans was burned at the stake by the British, she was sainted by the French.

Even Director Tonks, who was about to pounce on her and give her a good lick, became subconsciously dazed when he saw Anna's figure.

The light and soft handmade loafers embellished with flowers fell to the floor, just as lightly and softly, almost silently.

The hem of the low-waist dress fell just to the feet. From a distance, it looked like a goddess floating on the ground instead of Miss Anna walking on the ground.

The first day of the exhibition's opening will be a very important and unforgettable day for the two women, Katsuko Sakai and Anna, who had just had a quarrel.

this day.

Katsuko Sakai shook off the spring mist around her and walked out of the long night after the rain.

this day.

Miss Elena also walked down from the shrine where the statue of the goddess was enshrined, and walked among the people, leaning on a long sword surrounded by flames.

Tonks sighed inwardly.

The curator understood why the butler had tried to stop him.

Such a woman does not need any pity, and he is not qualified to give her pity and care as a "British uncle gentleman".

In the face of this unspeakable scene.

Even though he was the curator and the owner of the exhibition, all he could do was to watch from afar, craning his neck and looking up respectfully.

then.

Tonks really stood there, far away, without saying a word, stretching her neck and looking up respectfully to watch Miss Elena gradually go away.

The butler pushed the empty wheelchair and followed silently behind at a distance.

"Tsk, this aura, this appearance, this kind of conversation, today I really learned something new."

The feeling that solidified people's hearts disappeared only after the woman walked away. Director Tonks turned around and called his curatorial assistant, Lampche.

The assistant lady also looked very touched.

"Yeah yeah."

She nodded.

Tonks took two steps towards her office, and suddenly, she was stunned again.

what.

Did you forget something?
He looked at his empty curator's office in silence, then turned his head to look at the empty third floor of the exhibition hall.

Woof! It's the meeting I scheduled!

Woof! This is the private meeting I managed to schedule with great difficulty!

What about people?

Where is the manager of the visual arts column of Oil Painting? Where is Miss Elena herself whom I am going to lick?
You don’t play like this!
Do you know how hard I worked on my PPT? Do you know how many times I practiced for the meeting this afternoon? Are you kidding me? I even practiced my smile so hard that I didn't even have time to drink my tea!

"How can someone just leave like this?"

Tonks watched the scene like a statue.

The British uncle's hair was flying in the wind.

……

「Special Booth No. 58-71, Area C3」

"This is it."

Anna, leaning on her cane, stopped in front of a hall on the second floor and rested for a while.

She is not tired.

Miss Elena actually has very good physical strength, not like someone who sits in a wheelchair every day.

Since she was young, she has had a professional private doctor develop a rehabilitation plan for her.

In order to ensure that the muscles on both sides of her legs do not atrophy and the lines are smooth and symmetrical, she receives professional training day after day, including stretching, yoga, Pilates... She even has a fencing level that can be selected for the national delegation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This journey did not make her weak and breathless.

She was experiencing the feeling of standing.

Anna has difficulty controlling her right calf when walking. It has muscles, but it is difficult to exert force.

Whenever the woman stood up or did the corresponding exercises, her right leg did not seem to be on the ground, but rather on the clouds, on a flexible "stilt". This feeling was not pleasant.

This feeling is not uncomfortable.

This feeling made her clearly aware that she was alive and that she was fighting against something.

Destiny has never been so clear.

As long as Anna stood up, fate was no longer some invisible and intangible metaphor. Fate immediately turned into this tingling feeling, and fate was trampled under her feet.

same.

As long as she stood up, Miss Elena would realize how insignificant she was. She would know that there were things in this world that she could not change even with her wealth, status, and intelligence. Such things were not even outside, but inside her body, in a part of her body.

As long as she stands up, Miss Elena will become very quiet.

She walked very slowly.

From the third floor to here, she took a total of 326 steps, and it took her more than minutes to take these steps, just like a lonely sloth.

in the Legends.

Sloths can only crawl on branches using their front limbs, and it takes a whole day for them to climb up a tree and then down.

So some people joke that sloths have a long life because they have plenty of time to think about everything they do.

Anna also had a lot of time to think.

She made a rare change to her schedule.

Something in Katsuko Sakai's words still touched her.

Miss Elena didn't like Shengzi's attitude, but her last sentence was not wrong.

She was willing to say such words at the European Art Annual Conference in front of the most powerful group of people in the entire Western art world. She must be serious and have a purpose.

And if an eighteen-year-old girl is willing to say such words in front of her, she must be serious and have a reason for it.

He was willing to pay the price of offending Elena's family, and what he wanted to express was worthy of Elena's family's serious listening, and worthy of Anna changing her schedule to respond seriously.

60, 61, 62...

Anna walked into the booth, which was located in a small "side hall" with few visitors. Finally, she stopped in front of an oil painting in the depths that was golden in color with warm and gentle brushstrokes like the sun.

「Booth No. 67:《Good Luck Orphanage in the Sunshine》」

「Artist: Gu Weijing」

“It’s really a beautiful piece.”

Anna thought to herself.

Excellent works of art each have their own brightness and beauty. Some works are bright just for the sake of being bright, and beautiful just for the sake of being beautiful.

Pretty and bright are their only purpose when they are painted.

Their meaning exists for this and ends for this.

This kind of "beauty" is like the lesser goddesses in ancient Greek mythology, or the beautiful blonde supporting actresses from Eastern European countries in the old 007 movies produced by Hollywood in the s and s.

They are highly "sexualized".

Although the lesser goddesses have the title of goddesses, although they are immortal, although they walk in the clouds in dresses woven of gold, and although their facial features have the beauty inherited from their fathers or grandfathers, the real gods, their only use, whether they appear in the legends of bards or in the pens of painters, is to be "used."

Used by Apollo, used by Poseidon, used by Zeus who was always like an unsatisfied stallion. In hundreds of Rococo paintings, used by hundreds of different gods, using the entanglement of her body to show the gods' power and majesty.

Just like those vase characters in the early 007 movies, no matter whether they have the image of "female agent, female killer, scientist, politician, rich man or oligarch's daughter", they will be fascinated by James Bond's "British charm" at the moment of meeting, and will be taken to bed within the next 30 seconds to 15 minutes.

Use your charming body to show the desire for conquest and vanity from the so-called advanced civilization.

The meaning of their existence has been condensed to the point where it is no different from the pillows on the bed.

This is the limitation of Rococo artwork.

As soft as a puddle of water.

"Beauty" is the most important meaning and the whole meaning.

After entering the 21st century, few modern painters would take Rococo-style artworks as their entire personal creative direction, but this limitation still exists.

Beauty is just beauty.

Slogans are just slogans.

The entire expression of a work that calls for environmental protection can be summarized into a slogan of appreciation: "We must protect the environment." The entire expression of a work that calls for the protection of children can be summarized into a slogan of appreciation: "We must protect children."

In Anna's mind, truly beautiful and bright works should be powerful works.

The difference between a lesser goddess and a true goddess is not whether she is the bedfellow of Ares, the god of war, but whether she can jump onto the burning lion chariot.

They should be works that resound in other people's hearts, not works that resound in tour guide commentaries.

It not only makes people happy, but also makes them cry, be silent, and meditate.

It can even be painful.

Just like the 12-pound warm brushstrokes Anna felt on "Cats", just like when she stood in front of Katsuko Sakai's entrance painting, she felt the mysterious, deep, and empty music rushing towards her.

This is the point - among all the works at the Singapore Biennale that deserve Anna's attention and have the potential to win awards, "Bukit Timah" is one of the worse ones.

The brushstrokes are rich but the emotions are dry.

Anna commented that it is a mature, classic, formulaic and excellent award-winning work.

It is to art awards what biographical works like "Shakespeare in Love" or "The Theory of Everything" are to the Oscars.

There are definitely no big problems.

But people in the industry can see at a glance that it has been a typical Oscar-winning work since the project was launched.

It has a somewhat industrial assembly line feel.

Cui Xiaoming’s “New Three Bodies of Buddha” is much better, but it can still be fully described in a few paragraphs.

The work in front of you.

It is a very simple Impressionist figure painting with a straightforward composition, but each person's posture, lines, and expression speak for themselves, and so does each person's eyes.

It was placed silently on a pedestal in a remote booth, with few tourists around.

It is telling thousands of words about this emptiness and loneliness.

Anna's eyes fell on the children in the orphanage, on the little girl Jasmine under the shade of the tree, and finally on Uncle Alai who was washing Jasmine's hair.

"Artists, what weapon do they rely on to conquer everything? Isn't it the harmony that bursts out from their chest and captures the world and enters their hearts? Nature has given people the right to be human. It is supreme and sacred. When nature carelessly winds the long line of eternity around the shuttle of fate. When all living things are presented in a chaotic manner, making a noisy and annoying sound. Who is using the brush——"

Again.

For the second time that day, Anna couldn't help but recite the long poem softly in her mind.

When Goethe was eighteen years old, he wrote this dedication about the hustle and bustle of the world and used it as the frontispiece of his long poetic novel "Faust".

The next sixty years.

He lived an extremely great and glorious life.
-
There are many different opinions in later commentaries about how Gu Weijing and Miss Elena met for the first time in their lives.

In the famous Central Cafe in Austria, a full-length wax figure of Adenburg, once the most popular poet in Vienna's literary world, is placed by the entrance counter. He has one hand on a notebook on the coffee table, leaning sideways, staring at the street outside the window. It is said that it was here that Adenburg casually put his draft on the table, and met Schnitzler, a famous stream-of-consciousness writer at the time, who read it and appreciated his work, which led to his entry into the literary world.

This legendary story is the beginning of Adenburg's lifelong artistic creation, and it is also the beginning of countless legendary stories surrounding Vienna's Central Café and countless legendary encounters.

At the turn of summer and autumn in 2023, Singapore’s Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay will be just like the Central Café in Vienna in the late th century.

What can be confirmed is.

According to reliable records.

Because of the flight change, Gu Weijing unfortunately missed the opening ceremony of the Singapore Biennale and the group photo of all the participating artists that morning.

So.

The first formal meeting between him and Miss Elena in their lives was on July 2023, 7, the first day of the exhibition's opening, at a social dinner in the evening.

But rumor has it that it was on the same day, just hours before they met.

Anna Elena, then manager of the visual arts section of Oil Painting magazine, and Katsuko Sakai, daughter of Kazunari Sakai, the most influential Asian neoclassical oil painter at the time, had a brief but very intense argument on the third floor of the Esplanade in front of the staff and the curator of the exhibition, Micah Tonks.

The two sides broke up unhappy.

The focus of this dispute was precisely on Gu Weijing and his first painting for exhibition, "Good Luck Orphanage in the Sun."

Rumor also said.

After the argument, Katsuko Sakai left in anger, while Anna Elena went to Gu Weijing's booth and stood alone in front of his works for more than an hour.

Nobody knows.

No one knows what Anna Elena was thinking at that time, and no one knows the specific content of the quarrel.

This is destined to be a night where all kinds of legendary stories will evolve in strange and bizarre ways and will inspire the imagination of countless biographies.

According to the mainstream narrative, Anna Elena was moved by Gu Weijing's paintings when she first saw his works.

Just like when Schnitzler picked up Adenburg's manuscript for the first time, he was impressed.

But there are also some unsociable opinions.

According to some essayists who like to collect gossip about artists, Miss Irena was not a very professional scholar in the field of Oriental art at that time. She did not like Gu Weijing's paintings at first, and even disliked Gu Weijing as a person.

She even questioned Katsuko Sakai once: "How could you like someone like Gu Weijing?"

This is an artistic processing that makes it hard to tell whether it is real or fake.

It undoubtedly deepened the legendary nature of the life story of Gu Weijing and Elena.

but.

There are always some people in this world who know the truth.

That afternoon, curator Mika Tonks, who felt very aggrieved for waiting in the office, secretly went to Exhibition Hall C3 on the second floor.

When walking leisurely at the door of the exhibition hall and peeking inside furtively.

Tonks did not see the Miss Anna described by some people, and when she saw the work, she burst into laughter and was ecstatic.

Tonks also didn't see Miss Anna show any disappointment or disdain for the work.

He only saw...

In the deserted exhibition hall, the housekeeper and secretary were waiting in the distance, while a beautiful young woman was leaning against the wall. She sat in the sun, gazing at the paintings opposite, holding a collection of Goethe's poems in her hand.

(End of this chapter)