"Is the ticket leading to higher artistic techniques?"
Gu Weijing studied the three picture frames on the wall, hoping to learn more about the mysteries of painting.
Even if they are several paintings that have not been truly completed.
You can still see it.
The sketch teacher draws every stroke with great care.
A painting that I concentrated on and worked hard to draw, and a painting that I made casually after dinner.
It is not possible to distinguish between high and low in terms of artistic taste.
But it is just like the camellia flowers arranged in crystal vases that have been carefully cut by housewives, and the wild roses among the luxuriant grass on the side of the tree-lined path.
Often in terms of style, observers who are familiar with each other can easily tell the difference at a glance.
The three paintings on the wall, to be precise, every watercolor work that Gu Weijing saw hanging on the wall in this studio was the former.
Professor Vattel, like many German watercolor painters of his generation, was influenced by the painting style of photorealism when growing up.
This is a painting line that goes against the trend of minimalist style and abstract art.
There is no limit to the complexity of the brushwork, and there is no limit to the precision of the painting.
They like to use extremely fine brushwork to create paintings with minute details.
The painter hopes to use the brush in his hand to challenge the imaging limits of modern glass lenses and digital optical OS, and transfer the scene in a photo to the canvas in front of him using the artist as the medium.
Continuously get closer to the imaging capture effect of photos, constantly restore, keep getting closer, and finally achieve the ultimate expression goal that comes from photos but exceeds the sophistication and depth of thought of photos.
Gu Weijing cast his eyes on the works on the wall for a moment, and could see how desperately Mr. Wattel beside him was running towards this goal.
The other party is carefully carving every detail on the watercolor paper.
The uneven brown-gray wall tiles on the outer wall of the Pergamon Museum, the Baroque-style majestic curved dome of the Bode Museum, which looks like an inverted red copper bell, is illuminated by the sun. In front of the Chinese Painting Gallery, the majestic metal sculpture of Friedrich Wilhelm IV on horseback shines brightly, as well as the long shadow drawn below the sculpture.
Even the ripples on the Spree River below the gray-white covered bridge that Gu Weijing just copied were drawn up bit by bit with extremely fine mink brushes.
It is even clearer than the waves of the river in the photo on the table next to it.
No need to dismantle calligraphy and painting appraisal techniques.
Gu Weijing could easily imagine in his mind that Professor Vatel rolled up his sleeves, revealing his pale arms with slightly thicker body hair. He used a small watercolor pen very carefully to paint little by little. Repeatedly sketching and modifying on the drawing board, it looks like a German watchmakerUse tiny tweezers and repair a delicate and complex watch movement.
Maybe.
After sketching for a while, the sketch teacher would take out the photo from the photo frame next to it, place it in front of the drawing board, and compare it repeatedly with a frown.
If what Professor Vattle said is true, he spent ten years painting this sparkling landscape photo.
This lonely and boring scene must have appeared repeatedly in the suite of this office over the past three thousand days and nights.
The sun rises and sets.
The only companion is the ticking of the alarm clock in the workplace.
"Surprise, I destroyed most of the works after painting them. What is hanging here is only a small part of the paintings that I think are the best."
Wattel was still staring at the picture frames on the wall.
He did not look back.
But there seemed to be too many people showing expressions similar to Gu Weijing's. He was fully aware of the consternation in Gu Weijing's heart at this moment.
"Oh my God, after ten years of painting, all on this theme, how many paintings have you painted in total Mr. Museum Island, don't you"
Won't you find it boring
Gu Weijing couldn't help but sigh, and at the same time he was very confused.
In the history of art, there are many specific painters who like to paint a specific theme over and over again.
They may regard this behavior as an anchor to test the progress of their painting skills, or they may simply prefer a certain landscape, or simply because this kind of painting sells better and is favored by painting equipment dealers. Customers order more.
A typical example is that when Dali was short of money, he used to draw sketches and illustrations for world famous books to make quick money.
Marquis Dali drew 192 illustrations of the same "Don Quixote Challenges the Windmill" alone. Then I discovered that this thing was selling really well and was just right, so I worked with a printing factory to print more than 30,000 copies and sell signed prints instead.
Van Gogh also painted 11 paintings of sunflowers.
Among the world's famous painting masters, he is the most famous artist who persistently studies a single painting theme.
It should still be Monet.
In the last third of his career, from 1899 to his death in 1926, Monet, who had already become a millionaire by selling his paintings, bought a large house and built a sunrise at home. in the garden.
I locked myself in the house almost all day long, thinking about the plants floating in the pond from day to day.
That is the famous "water lily".
Monet completed about 300 oil paintings about water lilies, and on average he completed one water lily every more than a month. It can be regarded as an example in the art world of loving a certain scene to the extreme.
Zhou Dunyi, who wrote about the lotus in the Northern Song Dynasty, would have known that eight hundred years later, there was a French kid who loved lotus so much that he was so crazy about it.the point.
I think they will become close friends after meeting each other so late.
Although it sounds exaggerated that Monet painted 300 water lilies for 27 years, in fact, every painting named water lilies is different.
Each one is a brand new work and a brand new attempt.
His water lily paintings can also be broadly divided into the water lily series, the water lilies under the willow series, and the Japanese bridge series. There are a large number of works with different tones and different styles of painting interpretation.
In the special issue celebrating the centenary of Monet’s birth published by Oil Painting Magazine in the last century, the cover began by commenting that the Impressionist master did not spend thirty years on a single plant; Plant the growth of plants withered, but try to seize the entire spring. Facts have proved that he did it. This is the symphony of spring he dedicated to the world. Monet infused the Normandy manor with the warmth of spring and left it in the world forever.
Note the name of Monet’s Oriental Garden.
The painter just creates wantonly under the same name.
Even if I have been painting for twenty-seven years, it is not easy to get tired of painting.
However, every painting hanging in Professor Wattel's office is exactly the same model and created with the same painting idea.
This teacher is a genuine painting that has been painted countless times.
Selling paintings
Unless this Dulwich professor is also secretly working part-time online selling cheap watercolor decorative paintings for more than ten dollars a piece, it must be a small shop with good sales.
Otherwise, it is not because Gu Weijing had a system that he would look down on this teacher who had taught him for many years.
With all due respect.
Even with the current signature of "Detective Cat", such a large number of single works can be sold in a gallery, even if the painting technique is one or two levels higher than Vattel.
Maybe the value that has been built up so hard will collapse.
Let’s talk again.
If you simply want to make money by selling paintings, without popularity, the price-performance ratio of photorealistic paintings is really low.
Not many people except Dulwich School know the name Wattle.
A watercolor painting that is as exquisite as a photo can be sold for 2030 euros more per unit than an ordinary watercolor landscape painting at most. I am really thankful that each painting can be sold for 200 euros.
The energy and effort required for painting are more than doubled.
No need.
Practice painting
In order to participate in the Singapore Biennale, Gu Weijing has already painted more than ten pictures of the Good Luck Orphanage in Yangon. He doesn't think anything of it.
This amount of practice does not reach the threshold of boring.
In addition, the rapid improvement of painting skills has diluted the boringness of repeated mechanical exercises, and there is a lovely soft girl like Sakai Katsuko accompanying him in the studio.
At least nowNow, he can still feel the joy of practice.
But what if the dozen paintings are turned into a hundred, two hundred, or hundreds of paintings
What if the time unit is extended to ten years
What if my painting skills are stuck at the first level of my career like Professor Vatel and cannot be improved?
Gu Weijing considers himself a person with a very upright and serious attitude toward artistic creation.
But thinking about this kind of thing, he also felt that he wanted to vomit from the moment he saw the photo of Museum Island.
In the evaluation of the system emotion table, hard work requires not only seriousness and hard work, but also a deep understanding of the artist himself and the integration of the soul of the work with the painting and a sufficiently moving artistic depth.
Purely serious, the highest evaluation can only touch the level of "simple work".
But Gu Weijing had to admit that
his high school teacher’s attitude towards this landscape painting had reached the level of “painstaking” in the sense of life.
Professor Vatel, this middle-aged teacher who likes to drink beer and watch football, seems to have a normal mind and is not a paranoid lunatic full of artistic temperament like Van Gogh.
So
What is it that supports the teacher around him, year after year, day after day, pouring all his efforts into this small photo?
What magic power does this ordinary photo have? It is like a magnet, attracting him and unwilling to let go
"A thousand photos"
" "What?"
"I haven't counted accurately, but I think I must have painted a thousand watercolor paintings." Wattel held out a finger.
"Maybe there are fifteen hundred, maybe more."
Gu Weijing took a gentle breath.
It takes much less time to paint watercolors of the same size than oil paintings. Many painters contracted by boutique galleries only put a few watercolors on the market a year, specifically to control the relationship between supply and demand.
Whether it is a thousand or fifteen hundred.
After ten years of practice, every number is normal.
However, if you put it into Mr. Wattle’s daily life, it still seems very scary.
It also seems cruel.
Ten years is enough time to bring about earth-shaking changes in ordinary things.
The so-called law of 10,000 hours to become a master.
In ten years, with some planning, you can make up several 10,000 hours.
After ten years of training to run a marathon, ordinary people can run within 3 hours.
It takes ten years to practice art.
The German uncle next to him is still stuck at the bottleneck of the first level of the profession, unable to make any progress.
In other words.
Vettel’s sketches, watercolors, and his grandfather Gu Tongxiang’s Chinese paintings have all been practiced for tens of thousands of hours, but the edge between v4 and v5The world is not about running a marathon under 3 hours, but running under 2 hours and 30 minutes.
At this level, the marginal effect of practice is already obvious, and it can no longer be overcome by just piling up time in the studio and on the treadmill.
It must be nurtured with enough insights and opportunities.
"Gu, it's not as boring as you think. When I was in school, the boys who could solve the Rubik's Cube were very cool."
"And the works of photorealism are so cool." It’s like trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube.”
“After completing the third and fourth levels, and becoming familiar with the fourth and fifth levels, spend two thousand dollars to buy a full-frame camera and press it lightly. With the shutter speed, you can get a digital photo with a grain density of 20 to 30 million pixels. For a basic drawing of 22x30 inches, a total of one thousand strokes is enough to achieve a difference of one ten thousandth. The same or even better visual effect is a very interesting thing."
"Continuously thinking about how to create the best and most realistic painting within the limit of the brushstrokes that the drawing paper can accommodate. The visual effect. It's like building a never-ending, delicate magic. Well, let's be honest, it's quite boring after all."
Professor Wattle smiled frankly.
“Well, if it were just about skills, I probably wouldn’t have spent ten years on the same painting. I would have given up this obsession long ago, go to work every day, and hold my hand in my spare time. After all, I don’t have much lofty artistic pursuits.”
“Working as a teacher at a remote Dulwich College campus, plus the stipend, is no more than an associate professor at some universities’ art schools. Low. I have saved a small amount of money over the years."
"Three years ago, I seriously considered quitting my job and buying a small house on the beach in Bangkok, where the climate is warm. , is a very prosperous metropolis, but the consumption is relatively low. Everyone says it is a very cost-effective place to retire. I like the sun, sea breeze and surfing. In my spare time, I set up a drawing board on the beach and act as a painter. I have never been a real painter in my life. It is not difficult to pretend to be an artist on the beach when I am old. Maybe a girl in a swimsuit will ask me to paint a picture for her or something like that in art movies made by French directors. There will be such a classic shot."
The sketch teacher pursed his lips and thought about a wonderful retirement life.
“When painting really changed from work to pastime, I let go of art, and art let go of me. At that time, there is a high probability that I can find the pure joy of painting that I had when I was a child.”
“But I can’t do it.”
“The bling tickets I’m talking about are not artistic rhetoric. They are bling in a realistic sense. Have you heard of kih "The bet of the century between President Miller and old Mr. Irina" please remember to collect it, the latest and fastest website without anti-theft and free reading