"This is a contract. If you have any questions about legal terms, I have hired a professional business translator for you."
Hanks took out a printed contract from the outer briefcase compartment of the briefcase. I asked for a black pen. I added a few numbers at key points and handed it to Mr. Gu Tongxiang.
"Please take a look at it. You can look at it more slowly."
"With a 75% commission on sales of works and an annual creative allowance of US$10,000, I don't think it's a big problem."
Gu Tongxiang glanced twice.
There is no big objection to the content of these two benefits. It is natural for the store to bully customers. To be honest, this commission ratio is not excessive.
The only thing that made the old man slightly worried was: "Is the twenty-year contract period too long?"
The career of an artist is much longer than that of an athlete, and twenty years basically covers Gu Weijing's entire youth.
Approximately half of the golden period of the other party's career was bound to the ship of Ma Shi Gallery.
Gu Tongxiang didn't think there was anything wrong with being able to cooperate with Ma Shi Gallery for twenty years.
But based on the old man's experience, he knows that everything has a flip side.
If the cooperation is not pleasant.
With such a long contract, if you want to jump ship midway, you will have to pay liquidated damages that cannot be collected even if Gu's calligraphy and painting shop is sold.
To put it bluntly.
As soon as this contract was signed, his grandson Gu Weijing became the daughter of a working tenant in the family of wealthy landlord Huang Shiren.
Whether you will live like a white-haired girl or not depends entirely on the mood of the gallery.
The interpersonal relationships in large galleries are intricate and complicated. If you offend someone you shouldn’t offend and hide it for more than ten years, you really don’t think other galleries can succeed.
"You don't have to worry. The group of painters is the most important asset of our Mas Gallery, and our interests are highly aligned. Twenty years seems like a long time, because at your grandson's age, we won't be too eager to transfer him." To promote it to the market, during his college years, we may arrange for him to intern in the studios of great painters like Dyke Alen, and he will gradually enter the attention of collectors.”
Deike Alen is a watercolorist and oil painter. He is the double winner of the 2017 International Watercolor Award and the Barcelona Watercolor Award selected by the AWS Association, and the gold medal winner of the 2019 Antwerp Art Biennale.
Last year, the total sales of works exceeded US$5 million, accounting for more than one-tenth of Ma Shi Gallery's annual revenue.
Although his status is still a little behind Professor Kazunari Sakai, he is still an international first-line painter and one of the most important high-quality assets of the gallery today.
Hanks wasn't lying.
The comprehensive exposure resources that large galleries can control outperform smaller galleries.
From entering the studio of a great painter to holding a personal exhibition, Ma Shi Gallery can do it all. The only premise is that his performance is good enough and worthy of the gallery.
And if the performance of the new signing is not good enough or below expectations - such a guy does not need to consider their feelings.
"You can think about it, the time now is 6:53 pm..."
Hanks raised his sleeves and looked at his watch, "I'm going to fly to the National Gallery of Art in Abu Dhabi soon, and Mashi Gallery will open a solo exhibition for Dyke Allen there next month. I don't want to stay in Myanmar for too long. More time. So, if you can save time, sign the contract before midnight tonight."
He lifted the briefcase vigorously and placed it on the table.
"I'm willing to pay you a signing fee."
This is half true and half false.
Blackmailing people with countdowns and temptations is not just for fat people. Professor Kazunari Sakai can do it, and so can Hanks.
After the agent returned to the hotel that night, he gradually calmed down.
The talent of this kid Gu Weijing is indeed gratifying, but there are too many variables in talent in the art market, and he often only cares about things that can be seen and touched.
In fact, the biggest highlight of Gu Weijing's current works is his age.
People in the small area of Yangon, unlike Miss Sakai Katsuko, have no connections and no resources.
His pen and ink accuracy is nothing more than that of ordinary professional painters. Although fusion paintings are novel, they are too similar to Castiglione. If they are too similar, they will lack their own novelty.
Hanks is not sure whether Gu Weijing can maintain the current rapid growth rate of skill improvement in the future.
We can only talk about probability. The saying that painters under thirty are the golden age for rapid maturity is just a big data statistic.
When it comes to individuals, it is by no means a golden rule.
Some painters are more talented when they are young.
It's almost time, and Zhongyong has suffered a lot of injuries.
As for the innovation of painting methods, I want to draw new ideas based on the previous works. To put it simply, it might just be a pat on the head, but sometimes it is normal to say that it is really stuck for ten or twenty years.
Desaro, Monet, and Picasso all explored for more than three to five years before they began to try to find their own way.
Gu Weijing is a wild young genius who was accidentally discovered by Uncle Sakai.
Medium-sized galleries do not have the training resources of Mashi. Even if Uncle Sakai recommends a gallery larger than Mashi Gallery, he may not be very interested in him.
Therefore, he, the buyer, is qualified to raise conditions.
Hanks unzipped his briefcase, and bundles of green and blue banknotes were nakedly exposed in front of everyone in the study, with a seductive charm.
"Sign! We can sign now!"
Aunt finally couldn't bear it anymore.
She slapped her palm on the table with a clang, causing the lid of the tea cup next to it to jump.
With such a good condition, my aunt has no idea what the old man is still doing there.
When she first listened to it, she whispered in her heart, suspecting that it was a new trick of a scammer park in northern Myanmar hiring actors to carry out kidnappings.
Now that she saw a whole briefcase full of banknotes in front of her eyes, her aunt finally had no doubts anymore.
Pies falling from the sky hit me on the head.
If you don’t sign, you are not a human being.
"How about signing every ten years?" Gu Tongxiang was still hesitant and hesitant.
"Twenty years."
Hanks' face was firm and there was no room for maneuver in his tone, "There is nothing to discuss about this, you can think about it first."
"And even if you agree to this condition, before signing the contract, I have an additional request. Your family runs a gallery. Is there a studio here where Mr. Gu Weijing usually paints?"
He wanted to examine a few more Gu Weijing's works.
People recommended by Professor Kazunari Sakai have little risk of fraud.
Hanks still wanted to confirm in advance that the painting that particularly impressed him was indeed painted by Gu Weijing.
Gu Weijing's works display a similar technical level to the paintings of his grandfather Gu Tongxiang.
It would be a lot of fun if there was another bad thing like a grandpa giving his grandson a brush to draw.
Gu Tongxiang had no objection.
"Wait a moment, I will take you to our studio. There should be several paintings of my grandson there." Gu Tongxiang nodded.
Just walked out of the study door,
The aunt couldn't help but nagged anxiously in the old man's ear: "Dad, what are you thinking about? There won't be this store after this village. Listen, ten thousand dollars a year, you don't have to do anything. I spent money to raise your grandson for nothing."
"And not to mention there are so many signing fees to get. Gu Lin and Gu Weijing are both graduating this year, and there are plenty of places to spend money to study abroad. Dad, let me tell you, my daughter cannot be raised poor. What should a girl do if she doesn’t have enough living expenses and is cheated by a foreign man?”
The middle-aged woman continued to chatter aside.
"It's not like you get money for nothing without doing anything... you just don't understand. This money is just a drop in the bucket for Mashi Gallery. They just want to use this money to buy the gallery's options for the next twenty years." Gu Tongxiang looked at it. He glanced at his daughter-in-law, who was almost distracted by the large amount of money in the briefcase, and said helplessly.
"The right to choose. If someone is willing to sign me, I would love to sign for a hundred and eighty years! Really, Xiao Lin should have been allowed to learn painting in the first place. This industry is so popular now."
The aunt was dissatisfied with her father-in-law's indecisiveness.
"Okay, let's wait until Wei Jing comes back. You go downstairs and call Wei Jing to remind her." Gu Tongxiang sent his daughter-in-law away.
The small studio attached to Gu's Book Gallery is a small hall of about 40 square meters behind the gallery store on the first floor, with thick polyester curtains.
Long-term exposure to strong ultraviolet rays will cause the pigments on the surface of oil paintings to denature or crack. Therefore, oil paintings cannot be exposed to the sun and can only be stored indoors in a backlit area.
All of Gu Weijing's completed works, except for a few that are submitted to the Scholastic Group, are usually placed at the base of the wall of the small studio at home and dried in the shade.
If you want to store it for a long time.
After it is completely dry, apply a layer of varnish to protect the paint on the painting, mount it in a frame or roll it into a storage tube. If you feel it is unnecessary, shovel it out for secondary use.
"This is it."
Hanks turned over a small easel against the wall of the studio, and the first piece he saw was the work he had seen on Professor Sakai's mobile phone a few days ago.
At that time, the photo was just a base map, but now the drawing has been completely completed.
See the real original painting directly on site,
Hanks immediately had a completely different feeling in his heart.
"The lines are elegant and the writing is refreshing. It's really good." He nodded secretly in his heart, but put on a normal expression on his face.
He looked at it for a while and then took out a small black square box like a card camera lens from his pocket.
The 3R-MSA600S portable microscope for calligraphy and painting art appraisal produced by Edittech.
This gadget is as light as a hawthorn cookie and sells for $2,000 on Amazon.
This thing is usually signed by the same artist in other works, and is used to compare and observe each other to determine the authenticity of the painting.
Supports 5x, 30x, and 200x zoom.
Hanks clipped the microscope to the phone case, and connected the small tail underneath it to the phone charging port through the typeC interface.
He called up the image from the camera, stood in front of the canvas, and looked at it bit by bit.
Then in front of Gu Tongxiang, he asked the translator to put the three paintings of the old man that he had picked out in the gallery downstairs next to them, and also looked at them.
"It shouldn't be a ghostwriter."
Hanks nodded secretly.
Ordinary appreciation of paintings does not require a microscope.
He was just determining the writing habits of Gu Weijing and Gu Tongxiang.
There are handwriting appraisals for writing, and there are also brushwork appraisals for painters' brushwork.
The lines in the eyes of the characters, the color blocks in the corners and the way the brush is used counterclockwise... Some academic opinions now believe that these small details can better determine the authorship of a painting than a signature.
When determining whether Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" was auctioned for US$500 million, experts from the British Art Museum used a similar method to compare "Benoit's Madonna" with "The Madonna of Benoit". "Girl Holding an Ermine", two authentic Leonardo da Vinci paintings that have been passed down in an orderly manner throughout history, have been identified in their handwriting.
certainly,
Whether this microscopic identification method is convincing enough is still a matter of great debate.
Hanks discovered that this painting and Gu Tongxiang's works have strong similarities in the large-scale brushwork. The two are originally grandfather and grandson, which is normal.
Fortunately, there are quite a few differences in my brushing habits, so it shouldn't be the work of one person.
"Ask Gu Weijing to draw two strokes in front of your eyes after he returns home. Make a shape or something. You can see his line, shape, and color skills. Isn't that enough?"
Gu Tongxiang watched Hanks busy at the side and couldn't help but say.
"Don't delay, it's just idle time anyway." Hanks said without raising his head.
After appraising his brush-using habits, he continued to appreciate the detailed brushwork of the painting.
When Hanks works, he is like a miller who uses a critical eye to judge whether the teeth, mouth and hooves of a young donkey are healthy and strong at the livestock market. He is meticulous.
In the future, his sailing boat, pension, and money to go skiing and work as a model in Switzerland will all depend on this little brother's hard work.
Hanks checked very professionally.
The flexibility of Europeans' knee joints makes it difficult for many people to squat for a long time. Hanks didn't mind being dirty, so he knelt on one knee on the concrete floor in front of the easel and carefully scored Gu Weijing.
"The shape and structure of the picture are quite innovative while keeping the visual perception stable. It is grand and general-like, which is good. The direction of the sunlight is quite interesting, um... the Virgin Mary statue in the shadow, is that intentional? Quite bold.”
"The oriental temperament contained in the line modeling is different from traditional sketches, but it can also be seen that he has good control over drawing lines. This can be praised!"
"The color processing is average, not good but not bad. The visual focus changes flexibly, and the color mixing of high and low light is somewhat flawed, but overall it is still solid..."
"Whether it is sketching, oil painting or oriental art techniques, they are all very good and there are no obvious shortcomings."
As the eyes swept across.
All kinds of information in Hanks' mind naturally came to mind, and he scored each item in the table in his mind.
"Uh... between three thousand and four thousand dollars."
Hanks said quietly to himself.
Relying on his professional experience, he judged that this painting would erase all other information and rely solely on its own beauty. With a price tag of about US$3,500 and placing it in an ordinary community gallery in Europe, even without any additional exposure channels, At this price, there should always be enthusiasts buying it.
Three thousand to four thousand dollars is the price in a small gallery.
If he could easily operate it through the channels of Ma Shi Gallery, Hanks would be incapable of selling it for less than five figures.
"My grandson's painting is not bad." Gu Tongxiang said proudly.
"Of course it's not bad here, otherwise I wouldn't have made a special trip here. But it's nothing in Ma Shi Gallery. The writing and ink are still green, too green."
Hanks has his own little plan, so he won't follow Mr. Gu's words.
"He's still a little kid."
"The value of art has nothing to do with age. With his current level, he cannot be sold at a high price. There is still a long way to go before Ma Shi Gallery can really bring Gu Weijing to the market. Besides, his painting method is completely imitated. The palace paintings of the Qing Dynasty itself determined that the audience would not...Wait! what's that?"
In the middle of his words, Hanks suddenly let out a low exclamation and opened his eyes suddenly.
His original intention was that he didn't want to be too optimistic about Gu Weijing in front of Gu Tongxiang.
But midway through his words, Hanks suddenly screamed out unconsciously.
In order to prevent dust from falling and being rubbed by the corners of people's clothes, all the works that are drying in the studio are placed facing the wall with their backs turned, according to good practice.
As the agent spoke, he casually opened an easel next to him and saw a work that completely exceeded his expectations.
That is--
A dark-toned...Impressionist painting?
Treat the history of art since the 19th century as a movie, and the story about the Impressionist painters is the main line of the movie.
It is known as the beginning and origin of modern art.
Since the Industrial Revolution, various art schools have emerged one after another. Impressionism is not the earliest among them in an absolute temporal sense. There are two predecessors before it: Romanticism and Pre-Raphaelite.
After it, realism, Secession, aestheticism, and symbolism trends emerged one after another.
But compared with Impressionism, these trends are ultimately just gurgling streams in empty mountains and valleys. Impressionism was the real stormy wave sweeping the history of art.
Throughout the entire history of Western art, in terms of influence, only Picasso's Cubism can surpass him. The pop art of Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama may make more money, but their historical status is still far behind.
Many academic opinions believe that without the ideological trend born by Impressionism that integrates objective reality and color perception, through the brushstroke style that depicts strong and subtle changes in light and shadow, perhaps the art of painting would have been completely defeated by the newly born photography art during that period, and even Completely replaced.
Hanks had seen countless impressive Impressionist paintings, but he still couldn't remember any painting that was as special as the one in front of him.
Black rain, flowing thunder, rolling colored candlelight.
Van Gogh also painted works with night themes. Whether it is "Cafe" or "Starry Night", they all look very "bright" works, but there are no works with such a dark base color in front of me.
The weird thing is,
Using such cold paint, the painting does not look melancholy at all.
The entire painting is completed with short impressionistic brushstrokes, with the exception of the bright candlelight, which condenses the entire painting like an anchor.
Hanks almost fell to his knees.
(End of chapter)
