Almighty painter

Chapter 745 100 point

The two people at the coffee table had a few more in-depth conversations about Kara's true identity.

Most of them are topics that have been mentioned in papers.

Anna asked some questions and Gu Weijing answered them.

Occasionally, on the contrary, Gu Weijing seemed to vaguely sense that women had a strong curiosity about "Kara" as they called her, which was different from the curiosity between ordinary interviewers and interviewees.

He would ask some questions in return.

Some times.

Miss Elena will respond cleverly with her wit.

More often than not.

She just pursed her lips slightly, somewhere between silence and smiling without saying a word. It was not completely silent, but her smile was so faint that it seemed like an illusion.

Anna just stared at Gu Weijing quietly, and used the light music in the background of the cafe to keep him out of the secret door.

Beneath the thin golden mask lies the mysterious pharaoh.

Beauty is the gatekeeper of secrets.

As the conversation deepened, the woman took out a notebook and a pen from her handbag, and from time to time she wrote down some reminders and crossed out a sentence or two from the previously written page.

Gu Weijing guessed that what was in the notebook in her hand was probably the interview outline of the "Oil Painting" magazine team at the dialogue meeting a few days later. He pretended to casually look at the tip of Miss Elena's pen, and then he was slightly lost in thought.

That's German.

Except for the three umlaut letters A, O, and U with floating dots on them, the words that were almost identical to English formed a language wall that Gu Weijing did not understand at all, which expelled him from Miss Elena's inner world.

Gu Weijing couldn't understand what Miss Elena was writing.

However, he vaguely felt that he had seen such words somewhere before.

It gives people a vague sense of familiarity, not the familiarity of language, but the familiarity of pictures, treating words as patterns. There is a school of Western sinologists who appreciate brush calligraphy, which is to appreciate the horizontal strokes, bends and hooks of the brush as freehand abstract calligraphy and painting.

He pursued this memory and took a sip of the black tea at hand.

then.

That familiar feeling and the slight bitterness in the mouth blend perfectly together.

Gu Weijing had never sat in the cafe of the Raffles Hotel, holding a set of shiny bone china tea sets, and had afternoon tea like Elizabeth Taylor.

He was not familiar with everything here, but he was familiar with the taste in his mouth.

He was not familiar with the language the woman wrote in, but the thin handwriting seemed familiar to him.

Lipton black tea is a baked fermented tea bag with a strong taste. When you first drink it, it almost has the same strong taste as coffee, but the aftertaste is very light and quickly dissipates from your mouth.

This feeling is also very faint.

The moment the woman put down her pen and raised her head, the strangely familiar trance quickly dissipated.

……

Anna knew that the man opposite was looking at her hands.

She had already learned how to deal with the gazes of outsiders without feeling any embarrassment or discomfort.

"How about a deal?"

She turned her palms up, and her delicate fingertips seemed to be supporting air weights that only smart people could see.

"Answer my next question seriously, and you can watch it as long as you want." Her expression did not reveal any emotion, but her tone was actually humorous, completely different from that of a young girl.

Miss Elena is a young girl.

However, Gu Weijing always felt as if he had been talking to Queen Victoria. The youthful and humorous feeling here should not appear in such a majestic person.

Once it appears.

Even if it's just a brief moment, there will immediately be an indescribable contrast.

Gu Weijing thought for three full seconds before confirming that the other party was actually talking about his gaze.

Few people can say "look at me" as calmly and solemnly as "I'll give you a million pounds."

Gu Weijing couldn't tell whether the woman opposite him was teasing him or really "making a bid".

His face turned red.

He once looked directly into Brother Hao's eyes and told him that if he wanted to kill him, he could do it now, without any tremor in his voice. But at this moment, Gu Weijing looked away in embarrassment, pretending to look at the poster on the wall as if nothing had happened.

If you don't hum a song or whistle casually, it will not only fail to help ease the embarrassment, but also make you look too guilty.

estimate.

At this moment, Gu Weijing was like those middle school students in the cartoons who had done something "wrong" and was at a loss as to what to do, and he started whistling in an unrhythmic manner.

"Ah."

There was no change on Anna's face, but she was laughing softly in her heart.

She didn't know why she subconsciously made that slightly intimate joke, and even Anna didn't know whether it was a joke or not.

The words came out.

She felt a little bit of weirdness and embarrassment in her heart, but Gu Weijing's even more embarrassing reaction made her laugh.

If it was cousin Ole, or the kind of playboy, romantic man she had seen before.

They will probably just go along with it, raise their hands, and make some declaration that they know everything, or raise their hands and say something like, "I'd give you the world just to look at you."

Gu Weijing in front of him turned his head away at a loss, as if he was a petty thief who was caught in the act of doing something wrong.

Not the shy type who just meets someone.

But the kind that is more immature and more...cute.

It is interesting that a person who can look her "blade" in the face can be at a loss for what to do with a simple joke of hers.

Ok.

This guy still has a side to his personality that makes people smile.

Miss Elena has to say that sometimes the magician is in a panic on the stage, turning his head to the side, not knowing how to clean up the mess. Even if he is a little clumsy, it is much cuter than sticking his neck out and shouting "I am master of magic."

There is never only one way to make people happy and approachable.

Miss Elena did not expose the other party either.

She said calmly, "We just talked about a lot of things about Kara. The missionary's diary, Monet's letters, the archive directory of the Paris Telegraph Company's contacts... But all these things have been written in the thesis. Is there anything else you want to tell me about Kara's identity that is not written in the thesis?"

Gu Weijing turned his head.

"What do you mean?" He sounded confused.

"I mean anything, anything about the artist of the painting 'Old Church on a Thunderstorm'. Anything you think is important, you can tell me. Identity, conjectures, legends, anything about her is fine."

"About Carol..."

"About Kara."

This was the first time Anna made a drastic change in her body posture since the two began talking.

The woman leaned forward, clasped her hands together, and moved closer to Gu Weijing.

Her beautiful, speechless face approached Gu Weijing, her eyes revealing an earnest light.

"Even if it's just a vague guess, it doesn't matter, Mr. Gu. I don't care about it. I don't need you to have any solid evidence, and I don't need you to be responsible for it. You don't have to treat this as a formal interview. I can even promise you. The content of our current conversation will and will only exist on this coffee table. It will not appear in any written report without your consent."

Anna said seriously.

When she was a little girl, she often showed this posture of leaning over and gazing.

The girl sat alone by the watchtower of the manor, with her elbows resting on the stone pile beside the tower. The gray stones used to make the watchtower had an average history of nearly 600 years, which was almost as long as the time that the family name Elena could be traced back in history books.

They have been worn down by generations of people and rain, becoming wet and slippery. When the sky is clear and the sun is high, there is still a chill in the shadows where the sun cannot reach. Mosses grow in the gaps between the stones, and they feel like jade when touched.

Whenever she showed such an earnest attitude, she could always get what she wanted from her elders.

Whether it was missing a day of piano lessons or flying over the mountains of Austria in a hot air balloon, Anna rarely showed such an attitude in front of adults.

She just liked to sit alone at the highest point of the manor, leaning forward, looking at the blue sky and the shining stars.

In the eternal, vast and incomprehensible unknown, we can obtain eternal, vast and incomprehensible comfort.

As you grow older.

Even when she was alone, Anna showed such gestures less often and gazed like this less often.

The unknown will not give you a charity-like response because of your earnestness.

Finding solace in gazing at the blue sky is like interpreting one's fate and predicting good or bad luck through tea leaves and a crystal ball.

She will get comfort, which is real comfort and false comfort.

She became stronger and stronger, and she also understood more and more that a person has more than one destiny.

What people need is not to stare, but to move forward.

It is very dangerous to place great comfort on something as illusory, confusing and unpredictable as the changeable weather in Austria. The same is true for placing great trust in others.

But maybe it only happens a few times in a lifetime.

Anna was tired of this lonely guessing game. She stared at Gu Weijing and asked directly: "Did you know anything about Kara's identity in advance? Can you assure me that someone asked you to write this?" "If you have any concerns, it doesn't matter. I will protect you. This is my promise. It comes from the Elena family."

Before you came to this conclusion, were you tempted by the devil?
Whatever the answer is, I want to hear the truth.

It doesn't matter what the answer is, as long as it's true.

I don't even blame you.

I forgive you.

You have my cross.

People should have the opportunity to repent and confess. I can completely expose your greed, utilitarianism and even bad intentions.

Even though it only happened once in a lifetime, Miss Elena still gave him this opportunity.

……

Gu Weijing sensed the huge emotions surging from the woman in front of him.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

She was looking forward to what response she would make, but she was also afraid of what response she would make.

But that was something Gu Weijing could not understand at all.

He didn't know what it was.

He didn't know why women were afraid, and he didn't even know why they were expecting it.

In the end, Gu Weijing could only understand that Miss Elena was using a strange way to implicitly hint at whether he had falsified the information in the writing of his paper.

"No. If I knew any possible additional information about Ms. Kara, then it would have been included in my paper, wouldn't it?"

Waited for a while.

Under Anna's gaze, the man opposite, who seemed as mysterious and changeable as the blue sky of Austria, spread his hands and made his final answer.

Miss Elena stared at the other person.

The other person's demeanor had the texture of jade.

She wondered, if she touched it with her hand, would it feel like the stone of the watchtower, smooth and clear to the touch?

Anna leaned back in the chair, lowered her head, and wrote and drew in the notebook.
-
"Then let's not talk about Kara, let's talk about the work "The Old Church on a Thunderstorm" itself."

"Mr. Gu, you have a dual identity. You are not just an art scholar who studies Impressionism. The reason you are sitting here today and will soon appear in the exhibition hall of the Esplanade to talk to us about your thesis is mainly due to your other identity. You are a painter, an 18-year-old participating painter."

Miss Irina turned a page in her notebook.

“Which way is more direct for you to express yourself, writing or painting?”

"Paint, then. Painting is the common language of mankind, transcending time, race and language." Gu Weijing thought for a while, "For example, right now, I can't understand the words you wrote in your notebook, but you can understand my work. This feeling is wonderful—"

"It's just like the Tower of Babel in the legend. According to the legend, in order to prevent the emergence of this tower that defies the gods and reaches the sky, the gods created different languages ​​for the human world. They are used to separate each other. From then on, people in the world can no longer communicate smoothly, and can no longer easily feel the love and hate in each other's hearts."

the woman said.

She wrote the words "Turmbau zu Babel" (Tower of Babel) on a piece of paper and underlined the word with a long line using the tip of a felt-tip pen.

Artistic resonance is a very grand subject of painting.

Apart from the minor unpleasantness at the beginning of the meeting, the overall conversation process was more satisfactory to Anna than she had expected. She had basically made up her mind to personally host the next conversation.

What Anna is doing now is to make advance preparations and determine the general direction of several topics before the formal interview.

"Yes, this is a very apt metaphor." Gu Weijing nodded.

"As an artist rather than a scholar, what do you think of the painting 'Old Church in a Thunderstorm'?" Anna asked. "I guess, due to the form and word limit of the paper, many overly emotional emotions cannot be fully expressed in it."

Anna read the struggle and resistance contained in "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" in the photos in the thesis.

In her heart——

Candlelight, thunderstorms and lightning seem to be metaphors of fate written by Grandma Karazu.

The brightness in the works is not only a way of processing colors with subjective emotions, it is also the Promethean fire that defies fate.

It was for this reason that the moment Anna saw the painting, she tended to believe that it was Kara's own work.

Beautiful works will speak for themselves, and the importance and persuasiveness of the works themselves are greater than Katsuko Sakai’s resolute statement on the podcast and the results of handwriting identification.

Ms. Sakai's interpretation of that work is more of an analysis of the techniques.

Anna wanted to hear whether Gu Weijing, the other author of the paper, had any emotional insights.

"Yes." Gu Weijing nodded.

"As I mentioned before, in my heart, Kara is not just a person, she is an attitude. A person may be right or wrong, but the attitude solidified in the work and the emotions expressed by her brush will live forever."

Anna, who was making notes in her notebook with her head down, curled the corners of her mouth.

"Oh, what do you say?"

The woman asked.

"It was only later that I gradually understood it."

Gu Weijing blew the hot air from the teacup gently between his lips, "'Old Church in a Thunderstorm', I read struggle and resistance in this painting."

Anna's pen paused slightly.

Gu Weijing said: "In my heart - candlelight, thunderstorm and lightning, they seem to be metaphors of fate in the painter's pen. The light in the work is not only a color treatment with subjective emotions, it is also a burning Promethean fire that despises fate."

Anna's recording stopped completely.

She did not look up, her eyes still hidden in the shadows, and no attitude or emotion could be heard in her voice.

She asked slowly.

"You think so? Gu Weijing."

"Yes."

Gu Weijing ignored the change in the way Anna addressed him and continued.

"It's a very complicated emotion... very complicated." The woman said slowly, "Generally speaking, Impressionist works are famous for the brushstrokes filled with the painter's personal subjective attitude and call to the world. But even so, it is not easy to interpret such complex and mixed emotions in a painting."

"It's not easy."

Gu Weijing fully agreed with the female critic's point of view.

Even though he had the skills of calligraphy and painting appraisal to assist him, at the beginning, his understanding of the painting was far from that deep.

It was in the months after submitting his thesis that Gu Weijing speculated and copied one "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" painting after another. It was not until he stood in the Xihe Guild Hall and the sun jumped out of the horizon that he truly and thoroughly understood the true meaning of Kara's painting.

Some special paintings are not for everyone, they are for special people.

Painted for people who can relate to it.

In the vast universe, at this moment, there are people who can tune into the same radio frequency at the same time and have the same telepathic connection.

It tests a person's ability to appreciate art.

It has nothing to do with a person's ability to appreciate art.

It is only about understanding, it is only about the heart.
-
"Only when you fully understand can you learn to listen." - Heidegger
If you want to truly understand this painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm", you need not only to look at it, you also need to copy it. You need not only to copy it, but also to truly experience it all and truly know it all.

Really...understand it all.

A drop of blood drips onto the canvas, and at first it tastes fishy and sweet.

One day.

After experiencing the seven emotions, six desires, love, hate, and separation, the taste will be full of twists and turns.

"When I found this painting, I realized that everything on the painting, the standing church, the rolling thunderclouds, the dancing candlelight, are not only the scenery itself, but also have rich symbolic meanings."

Gu Weijing recalled the feeling when he used the calligraphy and painting authentication technique for the first time on that day in a corner of his Yangon calligraphy and painting auction.

"Even though it was still covered in dust, it still had the power to touch people's hearts. I knew immediately that it was different."

With this experience.

Later, when Gu Weijing had free time on weekends, he went to similar calligraphy and painting auctions or art flea markets several times.

The reason why precious things are precious is that they are hard to come by.

It is no longer the same as it was decades ago when Gu Tongxiang was trading his family heirloom goldfish for various 19th century collectibles. Good stuff usually sells out quickly.

Gu Weijing occasionally bought one or two works, but he never came across a work as special as "Old Church on a Thunderstorm".

"How is it different? Can you explain it in more detail? It is usually difficult for painters to perfectly express what they want to convey in their works. It is even more difficult for the audience to fully accept it. Just like... "The Last Voyage of the "Dreadnought" that was entrusted to disintegration."

Anna casually cited an example of Turner, "If it is just the picture itself, a steam tugboat towing an old sailing battleship sailing away in the sunset. This painting itself is full of emotion. However, only when people fully understand the maritime history of the British Empire and the dramatic history of "life" and "death" can they fully understand why this painting touched the anxiety of the British during the transition period and moved a whole generation of British critics. Do you have similar experiences?"

"Experience? Well, to be more precise, this painting conveys to me an emotion contained in the artist's brushstrokes. Just like a difficult poem, I may not understand what it is at first, but one day, this emotion revives in me one by one, and I recognize it without any hindrance."

"It's a very emotional experience." Anna nodded.

"Art is inherently emotional," Gu Weijing replied. "It is a kind of tacit understanding that comes from thoughts. Regarding that painting - regarding the creator of that painting, I can think of her..."

"What's up with her?"

“She’s trapped.”

(End of this chapter)