In the video,
Thomas looked at the picture frame in Anna's hand.
He folded his arms together and said to the judge: "I assure you that this is not the effect of the arranged show. The two paintings are almost identical. When I first received the sketch..."
Even he, a video blogger, was a little in disbelief when he just received the art delivery.
Thomas thought there must be something wrong. An artist must have made a copy of his painting and sent it over.
He even had employees at his studio double-check the order before confirming that the two paintings were by two completely different painters.
"They are all so beautifully painted, right? They are all incredibly outstanding..."
As a video blogger who doesn't know much about art, when Thomas saw these two colored pencil drawings for the first time, he was simply shocked by the vivid and realistic brushwork.
"A complete mistake."
Anna ruthlessly interrupted the other party's attempt to conflate the two illustrations.
"This illustration is excellent."
She placed the first overturned frame on the table and stared down at the remaining illustration.
"And this painting... is truly incredible."
"But the two paintings look almost identical. So what's the difference?"
Thomas touched his chin in confusion and looked at the bearded man and the braided man on one side.
They also shook their heads in confusion.
"Of course you can't understand, after all you..."
Anna hesitated for a moment, but her good upbringing prevented her from saying the second part of the sentence "Mediocre" to her face.
In her mind, 99% of people in this world are mediocre people.
These people may have a successful life in the eyes of ordinary people, but their souls are still chaotic.
Art appreciation - for Anna, it is the process of using one soul to understand another soul.
The mediocre can distinguish between beauty and ugliness, good and bad, but they cannot discern the difference between excellence and excellence - the difference that seems infinitely close and yet infinitely far away.
The difference between ninety-eight points and one hundred points is never as simple as two points.
It is for this reason that historically wealthy businessmen in Florence had the courage to point fingers at Michelangelo's sculptures. Only then would Van Gogh disappear into the sea of people, and only then would Gauguin be regarded as a madman. Generations of geniuses are lonely, and masters are lonely. Only a few lucky people can understand them.
I am such a lucky person.
"Miss Elena, I'm really confused now. Can you tell our audience the basis for your judgment? Why do you give completely different evaluations to two almost identical paintings?"
Seeing that the other party didn't answer for a long time, Thomas asked.
The girl was silent for a few seconds.
Anna has an almost yandere-like mysophobia towards art.
Being able to feel the excellence of this painting, she regarded it as a special soul bond between herself and the master, and she was unwilling to easily share this bond with other ordinary people.
However, he is here to be a judge after all.
Out of professional ethics, she bit her lip and said: "If you can't intuitively feel the excellence of this painting, the simplest way is to ask your photographer to take a close-up lens and zoom in five Times... no, ten times the zoom, as long as you can ensure the clarity."
The video screen switched to a magnified shot of the illustration in Anna's hand.
Thomas's video production team used Hollywood-level professional photography lenses. After ten times magnification, it still feels clear and sharp, and there is almost no distortion at the edges of the picture.
"This hand sketch is so beautiful."
Mrs. Sakai exclaimed that when they were in the distant view just now, they could only see the outline of the painting when watching the video.
Only Professor Sakai, who had the most experience in painting, could vaguely feel the difference between the two illustrations.
At this time, the picture is magnified by the lens like a magnifying glass, and the brush strokes instantly become clear, and you can even see the direction of each line.
Regardless of the content of the painting, how well the painting was done, the brush used for sketching is already at the level of a master.
"Such a level, if it weren't for colored pencil drawing, which is a painting method that was just invented in the past century or so. It even makes me feel like visiting a palace art exhibition in the 19th century, as if the past has reappeared."
Professor Sakai is also looking at the pencil skills of this painting.
As to whether the artistic expression of painting is spiraling upward, or whether it is not what it used to be, it is a cliché that benevolent people have different opinions.
But when it comes to traditional painting techniques alone, compared to the masters a century or two ago, today's painters really don't necessarily dare to say that they are better than others.
For a long time before the invention of the camera, painters were considered to be people with the magic ability to preserve time.
Like historians, they have the responsibility to record history and major events. Painting is not only an artistic creation, but also a job of recording reality.
It was the golden age of realist painting.
From the court balls of Frederick the Great to the art salons of Madame Pompadour in Paris. From Napoleon's self-coronation, to Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne, to the muddy battlefields where Czarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire battled to the death.
Any historical occasion that shakes the world has the shadow of a painter holding a paintbrush.
The wealthy ladies of high society and the handsome young painter flirt with each other. The great painters wore medals given by the emperor on their chests, wore well-dressed tuxedos, and walked freely through the palace with their heads held high.
But today, this art form is on the verge of decline.
The microphone in the hands of reporters and the clicking camera in the hands of photographers have replaced the brushes in the hands of painters, and the art of painting has completely transformed into a pure aesthetic form.
Practitioners are more pursuing abstract concepts that can sell for big prices. There are many people who are good at sketching, but there are very few people who are so good at painting.
But Professor Sakai felt that the power that moved him secretly was not just good at sketching, it was as simple as that.
what is it?
"Wait a minute, Katsuko, pay attention. Not only is the sketch good, but these muscle lines-"
The right half of the video shows a photo that Mr. Hyperion provided to seven illustrators to use as reference for illustrations.
At this time, Uncle Sakai finally seemed to have discovered something terrible.
He didn't even care that this was a cafe with lots of people coming and going.
Professor Sakai knocked on the table hard and waved the coffee cup in his hand, as if he was a fan watching the World Cup who discovered a world-beating magic kick.
"Perfect! Beautiful! This is amazing!" he said loudly.
In the video,
Anna is also comparing muscle lines in photos and illustrations.
"In realistic painting of figures, naturalness and accuracy are the highest praise for muscle lines. This is extremely difficult to achieve. Even a great painter can hardly fully restore a person's most subtle muscle activities. If he wants to deliberately imitate, he often fails. Totally opposite."
“Matisse, the founder of Fauvism, once put forward the artistic slogan [accurate is not natural].”
"Perhaps the best person in the field of illustration in this regard is Norman Rockwell, whom I mentioned to you. He was a student of the anatomical painter George Berryman and inherited the old man's advantages."
A trace of regret flashed across Anna's face: "Mr. Berryman is a world-recognized top expert among anatomical painters, but unfortunately, he has devoted his life to studying the curves of muscles and teaching painting methods, and his own works of art are very few."
"However, I didn't expect it at all. In this painting, even with a magnifying glass, I can hardly find any unnatural and uncoordinated muscles. This surprised me even more than the artist's own sketching skills. He actually really Achieve the perfect unity of naturalness and precision.”
"So Mr. Matisse, you are wrong. It is not nature that is deliberately precise, but perfect precision can achieve harmony with nature. This painting is proof."
