Almighty painter

Chapter 740: The Sloth and the Tree (Part )

Ever since the reception started and curator Mika Tonks spoke on behalf of the organizers of the exhibition, there has been a constant flow of people in the venue.

The format of the artist dinner is almost like champagne on the waiter's tray.

The small circle formed by the male and female guests is like small bubbles suspended in the cup. The small bubbles are constantly disappearing quietly, and several small bubbles are constantly and randomly merging into new large bubbles.

Singing and laughing.

The wine was boiling.

As time went on, guests began to leave in twos and threes to discuss private matters in secluded places, and gas escaped from the surface of the wine glass.

Occasionally, late guests would enter the banquet hall, and new bubbles would appear at the bottom of the wine glasses.

Bubbles appear and disappear.

The door opens and closes.

The birth and bursting of bubbles, the departure and arrival of guests, all take place in silence.

Most people in this world are not that important. Whether it is the "reclusive" Gu Weijing or the "Cui Xiaoming" who is good at dancing with long sleeves, they can only influence a few people. Even Yang Dekang, who is like a butterfly flying through flowers, domineeringly killing people in the banquet hall, can fit into every circle, but can only fit into one circle at a time.

A gas molecule can only be part of a bubble.

Curators, top assistants, well-known scholars, executive editor of Oil Painting magazine, collectors, winners of the Venice Golden Lion Award, guest painters... This banquet has countless centers - everyone is important, and everyone is not so important.

What is important is not the formation and collapse of a bubble, but that the wine is still churning.

But this moment.

Even Gu Weijing, who was sitting in the corner like an outsider at the banquet, immediately felt the change in the atmosphere in the banquet hall.

Those who could come to this scene were all cultural celebrities, or VIPs who spent at least 2000 Singapore dollars to buy the "sponsorship package" that was a donation to cultural undertakings, and they were all respectable gentlemen and ladies. No one was shouting or yelling, and no one was "buzzing" and rushing to the door of the banquet hall like fanatical fans.

Everyone is reserved and everyone is quiet.

But anyone could immediately feel that in the huge conference hall, the atmosphere at this moment was completely different from the atmosphere at the previous moment. Even if you were standing in Yangon and looking across the vast ocean, you could immediately notice the huge difference.

Quiet.

Gu Weijing noticed the source of this different atmosphere, the sudden and unexpected silence that spread from the entrance of the banquet hall to the inside of the venue.

From the moment he stepped into the cocktail party, he was very familiar with this atmosphere.

If in the noisy banquet hall, someone's surroundings are always quiet.

Then.

He was probably not sociable and was not very adaptable to this kind of atmosphere. He was subconsciously excluded by the crowd of people singing and laughing. He also subconsciously excluded the singing and the crowd around him.

He was isolated by people.

And if someone's presence is present in a noisy banquet hall, everyone in the banquet hall will subconsciously be quiet for a moment.

If a giraffe three meters long and three meters tall hadn't accidentally broken into the room.

Then.

It was probably like the Queen in "Frozen" appearing and chanting a spell, which froze in an instant the swirling wine in the champagne glass, the liquid droplets on the wall of the glass that were about to drip, and the bubbles suspended on the liquid surface that were about to dissipate.

Column manager of "Oil Painting" magazine and No. 1 on the list of powerful figures in the art world, Ms. Anna Elena.

Attend the dinner.
-
Anna's residence is in the top floor suite of the Raffles Hotel. It is very convenient for her to attend tonight's artist reception by just taking the elevator down one floor.

It seemed that she was delayed by some extra matters and arrived later than expected.

She did not change into a very BLING outfit for tonight's party, a BLING high-end evening gown designed by a famous fashion designer, or a long dress with a back that almost dragged on the ground.

Very simple outfit.

It even looks a bit plain.

The women's formal coat and skirt are light grey with dark stripes. The collars on both sides are slightly mismatched, and an emerald brooch is pinned on the left chest.

There is a term about composition in the field of oil painting, called "Docalcomania", which is actually a painting technique of folding decals and transferring them, which originated from printmaking technology. The effect of the picture is similar to cutting paper-cuts, because the patterns printed by decals are mostly symmetrical, so it is also extended to "symmetrical design style".

There’s a natural sense of entitlement to this look.

The judge's robe and the red-dressed protagonist's ceremonial robe are all designed with patterns that are symmetrical on the left and right.

in contrast.

When cutting paper-cuts, cutting out asymmetrical shapes is much more challenging for the craftsman's manual skills than folding it several times to cut out left-right symmetrical and center-symmetrical shapes.

In oil paintings, it is more difficult to design an oblique triangle composition that is dynamic yet stable than a pyramid-shaped regular triangle composition that is stable.

The same reason.

Teenagers wearing their baseball caps at an angle, military and police officers wearing their clothes crookedly, or drunks on the subway with one leg of their trousers rolled up high, this feeling of imminent instability naturally carries a kind of ruffian quality in social concepts.

In the fields of architecture or fashion design, especially when designing solemn religious buildings and matching clothing for serious occasions.

Those who can create, wear and control non-"Docalcomania" styles are always a minority among the minority.

Miss Elena is one of those few.

The slightly asymmetrical design of the neckline adds a touch of girlish liveliness to her calm demeanor, but does not destroy the coordination of her body. The George IV-style emerald brooch on her chest is the finishing touch to her aura.

The woman was wearing a plain dress and sitting in a wheelchair, but her temperament was as if she was sitting in a daffodil field, looking out at the mountains.

Such an appearance can be described in the words of the fashion design industry - the basic structure and pattern of clothes are just a decoration, and matching clothes is like cooking delicious food. The beauty brewed and wrapped in the essence cannot be shaken by any decoration or color.

In the words of Mr. Yang Dekang, Mr. Yang -

Hey, Gu Weijing, all one needs to prepare for this kind of occasion is just to breathe softly.
-
Gu Weijing breathed softly.

Yang Dekang told him that to judge who is the most powerful person at a banquet, one just needs to see who people's eyes will involuntarily fall on.

Desire is iron filings, and it will naturally be attracted to the magnet that has the most power and can make people's dreams come true.

CDX Gallery's senior partners are strong magnets.

The top 100 local business tycoons are strong magnets.

Well-known curators, art professors, Venice Biennale winners, these people are all strong magnets. They are the center of the party and make the party revolve around them.

Even Lao Yang himself is a strong magnet.

When he stood beside her, people at the banquet more or less glanced over here and whispered something.

But when the people in the banquet hall saw who the guests were.

It is sublimated to the level of gravity.

After a moment of silence.

Spring comes to the glacier.

The party continued, the noise continued, bubbles of all sizes began to burst and reorganize, and circles of all sizes continued to talk to each other.

But they all slowly and at the same time looked at the new guest and approached the person in the wheelchair.

It's not like a magnet attracting iron filings.

It's more like the sun attracting the sun, moon and stars.

Curator Tonks moved closer, the partner of CDX Gallery was attracted over, and Lao Yang also walked over from the side, shaking his head and wagging his tail. When he passed in front of Gu Weijing, he greeted Gu Weijing again.

"Stay here and don't run around! Remember, if you have a chance to meet, smile. Don't stare at others, it's impolite!" He tapped his wrist with his hand, thinking of the tears at the airport that day. He was afraid that Gu Weijing didn't know the seriousness of the matter, so he solemnly reminded him softly -

"They are difficult to get along with. You never know how to make them unhappy. Real big shots can be very moody sometimes!"

Are you afraid of crying when telling jokes?

Just ask you if you are afraid.

After giving his instructions, Lao Yang raised his champagne glass high, put on a charming and enchanting smile, and walked over with his stock of jokes that had been upgraded over the past two weeks.

Ok?
Gu Weijing seemed to have sensed something, and he subconsciously turned his head to look towards the entrance of the banquet hall.

The lady who was the program manager of Oil Painting was also looking over.

It seemed as if she was staring at him.

The next second, the Venice Golden Lion Award winner walked up to the woman and said something to her. The woman in the wheelchair nodded, turned around, and kissed the suddenly enthusiastic French master on the cheek. A small laugh broke out in the crowd.

Just a few breaths of time.

A whole new social circle emerged around Miss Elena.

A new crowd bubble.

This bubble was not only bigger than all the bubbles in the field, but also brighter than all the bubbles in the field. The figure of the woman in the wheelchair immediately disappeared among the large circle of men and women that were revolving around her.

Illusion?
The other party should be looking at Lao Yang. Didn’t Lao Yang say that he had had contact with her before?

During the few hours in the hotel, Gu Weijing imagined it in his mind more than once -

Anna Elena, what kind of person is she in real life? If they really meet, what will they talk to each other and what kind of conversation will serve as the beginning of communication with each other.

They were now in the same banquet hall of the same hotel, only about 30 meters apart. If Gu Weijing thought about it, he would be able to appear in the crowd over there in ten seconds and be very close to her.

He only felt a sense of boredom.

Some people look at it from afar and think it is very beautiful, very good, and very pretty, like an illusion.

She is still as beautiful as ever, but she is becoming less and less lovable and more and more difficult to approach.

She is dignified, graceful and elegant.

She is also arrogant and moody.

She doesn't belong to the same circle as you at all.

Lao Yang told her that if she wanted to fit in and make Miss Elena resonate with him, she should know the size of her collar, the fabric of her dress, and the way she should hold the wine glass.

How you smile and how you please.

He also kindly gave himself a gold watch, which made Gu Weijing feel more powerful.

But no one cares what your work is like, whether you have worked hard to draw it, or whether you have thousands of words to say in your work.

Miao Angwen wanted to gain the sympathy of his classmates at school, so he had to pay attention to how to dance at a party and how to button up a formal suit to be in accordance with etiquette.

How to smile, how to please.

But no one cares about his grades in school, whether he works harder than all his classmates, or whether he has thousands of kinds of resentment and loneliness burning in his heart.

Gu Weijing has never liked Miao Angwen.

Miao Angwen had long since disappeared from his life and was left far behind by him.

But when he stood in the brightly lit hall of the upper-class banquet, the cold sneer he had directed at Miao Angwen at the campus dance many years ago still hung over him.

Looking at the figure surrounded by the crowd, the center of the crowd, like a queen being audienceed.

Gu Weijing suddenly became a little bored.

They had no resonance at all.

The Miss Irena whom he felt close to, the Miss Irena who was ridiculed by the Moon and made him angry, the Miss Irena painted on the canvas.

Never the real Miss Elena.

It is just a vague shadow that happens to satisfy the artist's emotional expectations.

When you get closer, it breaks.

Just like the detective cat that the other party admired, the lonely painter that she admired at the European Art Conference, and the detective cat that was used as the name of the family museum.

Probably never the real him.

It was just a vague shadow that happened to satisfy Miss Elena's emotional expectations.

You don't even need to walk in. She only needs to take a deep breath to know that you are not the same person.

Mr. Sloth is better.

There is true appreciation and love between Detective Cat and Mr. Sloth.

He and Miss Elena - they were just two vague shadows and two vague imaginations of two people.

Mr. Ye loves dragons.

Looking at each other with disgust.

This gap cannot be made up by whether or not you button your clothes or wear a gold watch.

Even if Miao Angwen had unbuttoned that button that day, he was still the taxi driver's son in the eyes of his classmates. Even if Gu Weijing wore Lao Yang's gold watch, in the other's heart, He Chang was not qualified to be by his side.

Gu Weijing casually placed the champagne glass on the table.

He turned around and walked away from the crowd, holding the book he brought from the hotel and continued reading silently.

At this moment, the banquet hall was divided into two completely different worlds.

One world is noisy, the other world is quiet.

Gu Weijing stood alone in a corner where he could not be disturbed by the noise, reading his book silently.

Keep quiet, this is the noisy world's snub to the quiet world.

Staying away from the noise is the courtesy of the quiet world to the noisy world.

If Tonks hadn't given him a reply yet, Gu Weijing almost wanted to leave.

"Wednesday, October 1823, 10."

"Tonight, when I was lighting the lamps, I saw Goethe again. I found that his eyes were bright and he was concentrating on something... He told me that the life of art lies in expressing the individual and the special."

"Don't worry about specific things not being able to resonate, don't worry about the emotions surging in your heart not being able to find similar shadows. Any personality, no matter how special it is. Everything, from stones to people, has commonalities."

"You need to know." - Goethe looked at me and said calmly, "You need to know that everything in the world will repeat itself. It only takes a special time to meet a special person. "

"..."

Gu Weijing turned a page of "Conversations with Goethe" in his hand.
-
Anna shook hands with curator Tonks.

"terribly sorry."

She said to Tonks.

Tonks knew that the other party was apologizing for not being with him this afternoon, so he waved his hand to indicate that he should not take it to heart.

"Mr. Swann," he read the name of the partner of CDX Gallery on his right. "He told me that environmental experts say that at the current rate of global warming and sea level rise, in another 100 years, or even earlier, at the end of this century, when many young people of today will see the day, more than 30% of Singapore's land area may sink to the bottom of the sea. In another two to three hundred years, the entire Singapore will be completely submerged by the Pacific Ocean. On satellite maps, the straits and waterways connecting the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean will almost completely disappear."

"If someone looked at satellite photos at that time, all that would remain of Singapore would be a tiny dot on Bukit Timah Hill, a small mound of a few hundred square metres above sea level." Mr Swann circled the top edge of the champagne in his hand with his fingers, indicating that Singapore at that time would probably only be left with a tiny area the size of the mouth of a champagne glass.

"Everything we have seen here today, all the neon lights of the city will completely disappear. Only a small mound of earth will be left. The 305-meter-high '8 Shenton Road' building being built by the Alibaba Group in Dongxia in the coastal area may have several floors exposed above the sea. If it can stand in the sea." Mr. Swann, who has a high nose, deep blue eyes, shrugged.

"It's a terrible thing. Just think, if we don't do something, all the hustle and bustle of today's human world will sink into the sea, just like the lost Atlantis."

The people around sighed in unison.

"So, this is what art is all about? It's called awareness. Phin, Phin, come here. Come to the front."

Mr. Swan snapped his fingers and asked the bearded Maldivian painter in the crowd to come forward.

The painter looked older than Swann, but Swann hugged him around the shoulders affectionately, as if he was introducing his own nephew.

"Many of you here must have seen PHIN's painting "Bukit Timah". It is extraordinary and he is amazing. I am not saying this because he is from CDX. He can become a member of CDX because he is amazing. He has been in CDX Gallery for five years and has achieved some results, but it is not enough. I know he still has potential and energy. Last June, when he put his idea for the painting "Bukit Timah" in front of me, I knew..."

"Phin, it's time." Swan turned his head and glanced at the shorter painter. "That's what I told you at the time. I said, it's time, Phin, today will be your year. The Singapore Biennale will be your stage."

"Awakening. This is the power contained in his work. That work makes people awaken." The partner of CDX looked at Miss Elena and said, "In a few days, Phin will have a personal art lecture. It will be in this hotel. Is Phin honored to invite you to attend?"

Miss Elena seemed to be thinking.

"Come on!" Mr. Swan said pitifully, "I know you like detective cats, but art has different ways of showing itself. You must understand this better than I do. I don't ask you to give him an interview. How can I have the qualifications to do so?"

"I just ask you to give him a chance? If you have time, come and listen to his lecture, just like a small gathering among friends. I guarantee that he is really a painter with great potential, a truly sober artist."

Anna seemed to be a little moved by Swann.

She didn't agree, nor did she refuse immediately.

"My schedule is very busy these days. If nothing unexpected happens, I may have to take a day off during the exhibition to temporarily leave Singapore. Phin, can I call you that?"

"Of course, of course."

A smile immediately broke out on the bearded painter's face.

Miss Elena stared at the smiling face for a moment.

suddenly.

She became a little bored again.

Bukit Timah is by no means a bad film, and even if it lacks the power of awakening that Swann talked about, it is not empty either.

The only problem is that it's routine.

Just like the stereotyped smile in front of me.

The painter seemed to be leaning forward actively to make it easier for himself to speak, with deep nasolabial folds piled up together, looking a little vicissitudes of life and a little bit funny.

Miss Elena has seen countless excellent works like "Bukit Timah", and their existence is the painter's attempt to please the judges.

Miss Irina had also seen countless smiles similar to the one on Mr. Phin's face. Their existence was also created by the painter to please Irina's family.

It is not the fault of the weak to seek flattery.

It just gets boring.

Every sentence sounds nice, and every sentence is meant to please the audience, so every sentence carries a similar echo.

In front of her was an infinite forest, with ten thousand trees shaking their branches desperately, rustling towards her.

But a sloth.

It is always difficult for her to find the tree that belongs to her.

"I've seen Bukit Timah. It's good, but a little too clichéd, isn't it?" Miss Elena looked at the other person with scrutiny. "So I ask you a question. I've seen a lot of excellent clichéd works. Why do I have to go to your lecture? What is it about you that can impress me?"

(End of this chapter)