Ding ding ding…
In front of the presidential suite, the doorbell buzzed.
After a few seconds, the door opened.
"Who is it? Mr. Cao is taking a nap."
Lao Yang's confused face appeared behind the oak door of the hotel room.
Mr. Cao is very old. If he lives alone and has a headache or fever, it will be difficult to take care of him.
In addition, the hotel's presidential suite itself has a small suite for the secretary, so Lao Yang and Lao Cao lived in the same room.
He heard the doorbell ring, opened the door, and saw Professor Lin Tao standing at the door of the room wearing a bathrobe, holding a mobile phone in one hand, and holding his waist with the other.
"Oh, it's Professor Lin. What can I do for you? I can call Mr. Cao if necessary."
The impatience on Lao Yang's face quickly disappeared and a smile appeared.
He showed no airs to this second disciple of Mr. Cao.
"Since we are on lunch break, we won't disturb the teacher's rest."
Lin Tao immediately lowered his voice and waved his hand towards Lao Yang, indicating that he was not in a hurry.
"Call me when the teacher wakes up and I'll come back."
"No need, I'm awake now, come in."
Mr. Cao's voice came from the back room.
Lin Tao walked into the room and saw Mr. Cao wearing a Tang suit jacket and sitting on the sofa in the suite.
The teacher seemed to have just gotten up, holding a cup of Biluochun that had just been poured from the thermos cup that Lao Yang had placed on the coffee table.
The smoke in the tea cup is faint, and it looks a bit fairy-like.
"Teacher, let me show you a picture."
Lin Tao lit up the screen of his mobile phone and handed it over.
"Are you drinking again?"
Mr. Cao took the mobile phone handed over by his apprentice.
He did not look at the painting immediately, but glared at Professor Lin Tao.
"Entertainment, entertainment."
Professor Lin Tao immediately shrank his neck when his master glared at him.
"In the morning, government officials in Yangon held a celebration banquet for the first phase of the project. The mayor of Yangon is here. You, a great artist, do not want to participate. As an apprentice, I have to drink two drinks on behalf of the master."
"Making excuses. You can't even control your own mouth. You're useless. How old are you? I don't believe you can still force others to pour something into your mouth if you don't want to drink it?"
Even though Lin Tao is about to reach the age of retirement, the little old man is still very majestic when he teaches his apprentice.
Lin Tao could only smile sarcastically.
"Don't die in front of an old bone like me."
"Look at the painting, you look at the painting first." Lin Tao quickly changed the topic.
Mr. Cao took the tortoiseshell reading glasses handed by his assistant and put them on the bridge of his nose.
"Which painter wants to ask you for some advice on this painting?"
Mr. Cao looked down at the painting and said in a calm tone.
"It's very ordinary, nothing special. You can just point out this kind of painter. Do you still need me to help him look at it?"
The little old man took a casual look and knew that this was a work of the standard of an ordinary professional painter.
"The painting itself is nothing, but do you know who painted it?"
Lin Tao sat next to him, with a bit of uncontrollable excitement in his tone: "It was just painted by the kid you were interested in."
"Gu Weijing?"
Mr. Cao's originally flat tone rose slightly.
"Yes, that's him. It's only been a few weeks and he already looks decent in painting. The teacher really has a good eye." Lin Tao admired sincerely.
When Mr. Cao originally praised Gu Weijing, Lin Tao was still a little unconvinced.
At least he felt that the opponent, with his current level, couldn't afford what Mr. Cao said: "He's better than an old guy like me."
Although this sentence was groundbreaking at the time, perhaps only Professor Yangmei, Mr. Cao's second apprentice, knew what it meant among everyone present.
Only he knew how serious this sentence was.
Asian culture attaches great importance to the inheritance of masters and apprentices. The bricklayer at the end of the street, the carpenter at the door, the person who sells cloth on the street and the person who writes sugar paintings are all small-scale families. They are worried that the master will starve to death after teaching the apprentice.
But the more accomplished a teacher is, the more he has a sense of responsibility to pass on, and the more ambitious he is to hope that each mountain will be higher than the other.
Fame and fortune, Professor Lin Tao and the others, as old students of Cao, have already had what they should have in their lives.
They have been looking forward to the stars and the moon all their lives. What they are looking forward to is not just that the teacher can spit out a sentence from his mouth-that's great, the youth is better than the blue. You stand higher than me and go further.
"You are better than me."
This is the highest compliment Lin Tao can imagine.
pity.
Lin Tao can't do it.
There are only five disciples, brothers and sisters of their generation who were actually allowed by Mr. Cao to kowtow and become their disciples.
The eldest brother was the most talented, and he was truly regarded by Mr. Cao as the successor. Unfortunately, he encountered a shipwreck at a young age and died early.
That was also the heaviest blow that his master, Mr. Cao, received after he became famous. It could almost be regarded as a bald spot overnight.
After that, the eldest one is herself, and the youngest one is Tang Ning. She is the junior sister of Mr. Cao who came from a family of calligraphy and painting in the south of the Yangtze River when he turned sixty.
Among these brothers and sisters, there is really not one who can say that the mountain is higher than the other.
It’s not that they don’t work hard, but things like the level of a painter are really hard to come by.
When he was young and apprenticed, he looked up and saw that Mr. Cao was a towering mountain reaching into the clouds.
When he became famous in middle age, Mr. Cao was still a towering mountain whose peak could not be seen.
Now that he is older and older, he can finally vaguely see the scenery on the top of the mountain, but Lin Tao also knows that he has reached the pinnacle of his skills.
It’s already the tip of a hundred-foot club, and the next step will be a thousand difficulties.
There is an overused saying that success is 99% perspiration plus 1% inspiration, but that 1% inspiration is more important than 99% perspiration.
For painters, sometimes talent is more important than pure hard work.
This painting is not worthy of Lin Tao's fuss. There are many people who can paint better than this.
But it is really rare to achieve such great progress in a short period of time.
Especially since this may be his apprentice in the future.
"The strokes of the ink mark are retracted within the line and never come back. It is indeed a bit of the essence of Chinese painting."
Mr. Cao enlarged the photo, took a serious look at the movement of the pen, and nodded with satisfaction.
"Much better than my age."
Professor Lin Tao said.
"That's not as good as Xiao Ning. At Xiao Ning's age, she already has some talent for painting."
Mr. Cao's expression was still serious.
"You don't really want Gu Weijing to participate in the Lion City Art Exhibition, do you?"
Lin Tao asked.
In his opinion, if it is just about the difficulty of participating in an art exhibition alone. Gu Weijing already has impressive sketching skills, so it may be easier to meet the competition requirements by painting oil paintings.
Objectively speaking, in terms of personal preferences of foreign curators, painting Chinese paintings is more difficult than painting simple oil paintings.
To put it harshly, some foreigners really cannot appreciate the beauty of Eastern art.
Especially for two paintings of similar quality, the curator committee will undoubtedly be more inclined to choose an oil painting.
This is determined by the cultural environment and aesthetic ability.
"There is no reason why I am not serious about what I said."
Mr. Cao shook his head, "Tang Ning was only 22 years old when she won the Master Category Award at the Magic City Art Biennale, not much older than Gu Weijing today. If you want to be my disciple, of course you have such courage and strength. "
"This is incomparable. What kind of family does Junior Sister Ning belong to? What kind of family does this Gu Weijing belong to? They are not on the same level at all."
Lin Tao shook his head with a wry smile.
Junior Sister Tang Ning was born into a wealthy family in the south of the Yangtze River. They are one of the few famous calligraphers and painters since the Southern Song Dynasty. Her elders are many great calligraphers and painters. She really grew up in an environment surrounded by masters.
How many painters in the past have had such conditions?
There is no comparison with Gu Weijing.
"It doesn't matter whether you like it or not. But starting from today, Lin Tao, you will start teaching Gu Xiaozi systematically. He can already start to learn the truly elegant things in Chinese painting, so let's start with painting flowers."
Faced with Lin Tao's doubts, Mr. Cao was somewhat noncommittal.
