There is a five time zone difference between South Asia and Central Europe.
Older people sleep less, get up earlier and go to bed later.
When Gu Weijing sent a message to Lao Yang late at night, Mr. Cao was still pacing among the rockery pond in the yard.
Many foreigners always have a mysterious fascination with Chinese gardens. The Metropolitan Museum of Art built a Ming-style garden called "Mingxuan" on the second floor of its exhibition hall.
The courtyard where Mr. Cao lives was a new home specially prepared by the school for this honored veteran oriental artist when he decided to accept the invitation from the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts many years ago to serve as the director of the Department of Oriental Art and a tenured professor.
They hired professional Dongxia construction instructors to build an antique courtyard by the Alster Lake in the inner city of Hamburg, modeled on the "Chaxuan Ju" in the Suzhou Yuantong Zen Yuan.
This is not only a restoration and copying operation of the French garden style of the Ming and Qing dynasties by the Department of Architecture in Hamburg, but also a high tribute and gift from the school board to Mr. Cao Xuan.
Mr. Cao Xuan, who was born in a water town in the south of the Yangtze River, spent his childhood studying painting in Yuantong Zen Temple.
The old man's lifelong devotion to Buddha is also related to this.
Incidentally.
Suzhou Southeast Shiquan Street, where Yuantong Zen Monastery is located, was once the residence of many literati in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
Walk thirty steps to the right from the small courtyard where Mr. Cao lived when he was young, and you will find Dafengtang, the painting studio of the two Zhang brothers, Daqian and Shanzhu, who were just becoming famous at that time.
"It's like a lifetime ago."
Looking at the familiar scenery,
Cao Xuan sighed softly, sat down by the flower pond in the courtyard, and stared at the water waves and lotus leaves in the pond.
The school also took great pains to transplant lotus flowers. This is because the latitude of Hamburg is much higher than that of Suzhou. The spring breeze in March and April is still damp and cold. Lotus leaves should be everywhere in Jiangnan at this time, and the early-maturing lotus flowers have already exposed their little lotus. At the sharp corner, there are only two or three lotus root leaves.
After all, it is not my hometown.
"I'm still... not willing to give in." The old man stretched out his hand to stir up the water in the pool.
Thoughts galore.
The reason why old Mr. Cao Xuan made the decision to transfer from Qingmei to Europe to give lectures in his seventies is because he still had a breath in his heart that he had not completely vomited.
This tone is called unjust breath.
Meticulous brushwork, freehand brushwork, gardens, landscapes and rocks, and enamel blue and white flowers.
These things are brilliant and eye-catching, and have set off waves of Oriental fever and Chinese fever in the West.
Immigrant calligraphy and paintings from the turn of the Song and Yuan Dynasties are still highly sought-after items in the international market today, and can resonate with the aristocratic elite of old Europe.
The furniture style of the Ming Dynasty inspired designer Marcel Breuer to create the Bauhaus design style, which took the world by storm.
The handmade carpets made by Tianjin weavers in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China traveled all the way to New York and San Francisco. They were enthusiastically loved by housewives. Not only were they more popular than Turkish carpets, they even beat traditional luxury goods companies such as Louis Vuitton. .
On the auction market today, a century-old Oriental carpet, less than ten feet tall, can easily sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
But no matter how popular antique calligraphy and paintings are, how many fabric carpets are sold.
When the Western art world mentions Eastern art, it always carries a condescending and weird gaze.
It’s really not necessarily about discrimination.
Instead of describing it as the malicious mockery of Chinese Kung Fu by the two-hundred-pound foreign strongman in "Fearless".
It would be better to say that blond foreign art research experts, when appreciating oriental art, are like playing with a Neanderthal biological specimen on a biologist's dissecting table for study, or excavated from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. of exquisite mummies.
They seem to be watching a dead trend...
"Look, they're very strong physically."
"The nose is high and wide, suggesting they could breathe efficiently in ice and snow."
"Wow, look at this skull. I think their brain capacity should be similar to that of our Homo sapiens."
Mr. Cao couldn't explain where this feeling came from.
But he knew he never liked feeling like this.
Nowadays, Dongxia is one of the largest art markets in the world. Westerners like to accept money from Dongxia, but they do not like to accept the new generation of artists shaped by traditional Dongxia culture.
Even in Asia.
European and American collectors prefer Japanese culture, and the Japanese also regard Impressionism as half their son-in-law and are proud of it. They prefer Korean culture. The trend of Korean Monochrome Painting School in the 1970s also affected the development trajectory of modern art to a certain extent. Contemporary art is even called a sudden rise.
In the world of contemporary art, there is a lack of voice and voice from Eastern Xia art.
There is a lack of sufficiently inspiring artistic voices from the ancient East.
This was true for Mr. Cao when he was young, and it is also true in this era.
Countless things have changed in the past hundred years, and the country's poor and weak country has changed. Only the right to speak in art and the world influence of Eastern Xia art have not changed in essence.
Even the names of older artists such as Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Wu Guanzhong, and Zao Wou-Ki who once caused a craze in the West have gradually been extinguished by time.
Passed away one after another.
As the last ancient ghost from that generation alive to this day, Mr. Cao Xuan is watching the generations of young people, hoping to find a strong enough successor.
He is waiting for a descendant who can witness the next hundred years for him, who can use the brush in his hand to set off a world craze in the future world.
After waiting for more than half a century and refusing to let go, Cao Xuan felt that he still had not found the person he wanted.
He was really not angry at all when he was rejected by Cui Xuanyou.
It doesn’t matter if the other party is willing to teach outsiders, or not.
He can teach his son Xiao Cui, a new generation of young painters with oriental imprints who have attracted media attention, which is very good in itself, very good.
It doesn't matter if Xiao Cui is German.
Monet, Manet, and Degas are not Japanese. A truly outstanding culture is not one that is self-contained, but one that is inclusive and inclusive.
Among Mr. Cao’s own disciples.
The one with the best talent was actually his eldest apprentice, but he died in a shipwreck.
Disciples like Lin Tao can sell their paintings very expensively, but that's about the level of their art. Especially at Lin Tao's age, he still likes to drink to excess. In the next ten years, he will be a good drinker without trembling or deteriorating. Don’t even think about taking the next step forward.
Tang Ning can barely be regarded as Mr. Cao's most favored disciple now. It's a pity that Mr. Cao judged that the other party's artistic achievements were no surprise, and he would only reach his own level in this life.
There is another problem. Tang Ning's paintings look too much like herself. She doesn't have her own style, and her paintings follow the same trend.
In the end, he can only be "Cao Xuan second."
"Where's that kid?"
Cao Xuan thought of the young man he met in Yangon who was old enough to be his great-grandson.
sometimes,
He himself didn't know why he suddenly offered up the huge olive branch of "accepting a disciple".
Perhaps he saw the shadow of his youth in that persistent and simple little painter?
Or maybe it's just the reluctance in my chest that I'm unwilling to swallow, quietly causing trouble.
Mr. Cao Xuan's bet was almost half-serious in that he really wanted to recruit disciples and inspire young people. It was both serious and half-joking.
But as people get older, they really prefer children with endless possibilities.
Mr. Cao would occasionally have the shadow of that persistent little guy who dyed his clothes red and blue in order to mix the right paint.
He was curious about how far this kid could go.
Such an opportunity is before him, can he really seize it?
"Kid, if you can be my disciple, you will have half-stepped into the history of modern art. It depends on whether you have the talent."
Mr. Cao smiled silently at the pool.
The old man liked to sit by the rockery in the yard and look at the lotus pond at night, so Lao Yang had someone add a palace lantern-shaped lighting beside the rockery.
Cao Xuan pulled himself out of his thoughts, took out a folded piece of printing paper from his pocket, and started reading by the moonlight and lamplight.
"The Wonderful Power of Eastern Xia Art" - This is a speech drafted by assistant Lao Yang for Mr. Cao Xuan at the European Art Annual Conference in April.
a few days ago.
The organizer of the annual meeting sent an email to notify Cao Xuan of slightly delaying his speech.
Sir Brown, the chairman of the "Oil Painting" art magazine, hopes to give a joint speech with the heiress of the Irina family at the annual meeting.
When Lao Yang told him this matter, his face was filled with a mysterious and gossipy look.
"Boring."
The little old man shook his head.
Cao Xuan heard that this matter was related to the internal political struggle between the magazine's top brass and the Irina family, a long-established art collector.
Rumors have recently been rampant in the upper-class art circles that the high-level council on oil painting is going to expel the little girl named Anna Irina.
Cao Xuan, however, had no interest in understanding.
Although "Oil Painting" is the oldest and most influential publication among all art appreciation magazines, the Irina family is inseparable from contemporary and even modern art history.
The friction between the two is enough to set off a hurricane that engulfs the entire industry.
However, Mr. Cao Xuan's status no longer requires him to care about this.
If art were a forest, he would be a hundred-meter-tall redwood tree. If art is a sea, he is really the Cthulhu sea monster taking a nap in the trench.
How come there are turbulent waves and bloody storms outside?
In front of a living fossil-level old monster like Mr. Cao, it was just a breeze blowing on his face.
Rather than having time to watch the show, it would be better to think about the speech I made at the annual meeting for a while, or even pay attention to the painting progress of Gu Weijing's child, which is more meaningful than getting involved in such a wealthy family's nonsense.
Cao Xuan was thinking about whether he should ask Gu Weijing through Lao Yang tomorrow how the child's exhibition work was being prepared. He took out an oil pen and lightly circled the four words "Yishen Miao Neng".
After thinking for a moment, the little old man simply checked off the entire topic from beginning to end and changed it to "How to discover the beauty of Eastern Xia art with your heart".
"Well, the question is: Am I not good at waking up?"
Assistant Lao Yang put a Tang suit jacket on the old man's body.
When Mr. Cao was walking in the yard, he stared in the shadow corner.
Seeing that the old man had no intention of returning to the house in a short time, he took a piece of windproof clothes and came over, just in time to see Mr. Cao's changes to the speech.
"When speaking at the annual meeting, there is no need to use vocabulary that Chinese people cannot understand and foreigners cannot understand. Unless they are colleagues in the industry, who can understand what Yishenmiaoneng means? Isn't this difficult for translation and simultaneous interpretation?"
"Painters should improve their painting skills to a deeper level and lower the threshold for people to appreciate oriental art."
Mr. Cao Xuan said softly: "Many foreign heads of state will be present at the annual meeting, and there will also be TV broadcasts and media reports. The simpler and easier to understand the speech, the higher the efficiency of communication, and the easier it is for more people to feel Dongxia The fascination of art.”
"The older you get, the more you want to return to your original nature! It is indeed beyond the reach of ordinary people like me..."
Lao Yang praised.
"Stop flattering me here. What's the matter with you coming here?" The little old man rolled his eyes and pushed back the rainbow fart that Lao Yang had not finished.
When walking by myself, I don’t like to be disturbed by outsiders.
Lao Yang is a very discerning person. He must have other things to do when he came to talk to him.
"Hey, I know nothing can be hidden from your discerning eyes."
Lao Yang smiled and gave a thumbs up.
In the final analysis, an assistant is just a job of waiting on others. The assistants hired by some artists will also serve as their personal art consultants, and together with their agents, they will form the right and left hand on the artistic path.
Lao Yang is an art student from the Class of 1992 at Central Academy of Fine Arts and a master's degree in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He has an excellent educational background and is from a well-known top academic class.
But he is serious about himself and very clear-headed. No matter how he is known as Mr. Cao's personal assistant outside, he is called "Teacher Yang" by the great artists in such a pretentious manner.
Even in front of old Mr. Cao Xuan, I am a piece of shit.
He was not qualified to give art advice or anything like that. The only thing Lao Yang needed to do was to make the old man happy every day.
Whether you listen to flattery or not is Mr. Cao's business.
Whether you lick yourself or not is a matter of attitude.
"Mashi Gallery has found that kid. He is indeed the kid you are interested in. He is so young and has attracted the attention of such a top gallery."
Lao Yang didn't dare to betray him and hurriedly reported the good news to Mr. Cao.
"Gu boy?"
Cao Xuan didn't expect that he would hear the news about Gu Weijing just now when he thought of the other party.
"Yes, it's Mr. Xiao Gu."
Lao Yang said with a smile: "When I was in college, a senior who studied oil painting signed a contract with a European gallery. It was only a second-tier gallery, but it caused a sensation. Today's young people are really intimidating."
"If you are so small, why should you sign with a gallery? Why should you listen to the interference of gallery owners in your artistic creation?"
Upon hearing the news, Cao Xuan didn't have much of a smile on his face. Instead, his brows furrowed together unnoticeably.
"Be careful of overthrowing the seedlings and encouraging them to grow."
The old gentleman said worriedly.
There are three hundred-year-old art museums in the world, but there are no three-hundred-year-old art galleries.
More than half of the top ten contemporary galleries represented by Gagosian were established in the 1980s and 1990s.
The industrial system of [Modern Gallery-Representing Artists] is an emerging concept that became popular after World War II. With a history of more than half a century, Mashi Gallery is already the oldest gallery among them.
50 years.
This is longer than the entire creative career of almost 90% of painters. Therefore, every serious artist today comes out of this training system.
Unfortunately, Cao Lao was too old and became famous very early.
He is one of the few great painters who has never been signed to a gallery.
"Even if Xiao Gu is young, packaging is not a bad thing after all." Lao Yang thought for a while, "As for marketing, this is what we focus on now, selling shit into gold."
"I don't need the packaging of a gallery, I am still me." Cao Xuan shook his head, "No matter how the gallery wraps the garbage with gold foil. A hundred years later, when time blows away the gorgeous coat, the true face of a puddle of mud will be revealed. "
"The Emperor's New Clothes can fool the market for a while, but it cannot fool people's eyes forever. I still think that the fame that I draw is the real fame."
Mr. Cao has been pursuing this concept his whole life.
He was born in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. When he was young, he studied painting from his grandfather, a famous Suzhou painter in the late Qing Dynasty.
When he was 14 years old, he was recommended by his teacher to go to Shanghai to visit Xu Beihong, who had returned from Paris at that time. He painted for people at the Art Deco Building on the Huangpu River in the Concession. He shocked the city with his reputation as a child prodigy and painted portraits of countless historical celebrities. A Jewish executive who arrived in a Rolls-Royce once paid a thousand pounds for a meticulous portrait of Cao Xuan, who was not yet in his prime.
Later, the painting world of the Republic of China spread from the south to the north, and Cao Xuan went north to Peiping.
At that time, Tsinghua Garden held a "Ming Yue Commentary" modeled on the late Han dynasty's Yuedan Commentary, in which one person commented on the world's calligraphy and painting masters.
Famous painters such as Zhang Daqian and Xu Beihong were all included in the list. Among them, Cao Xuan was praised for his "vigorous writing and ink, which has become a masterpiece", making him the youngest person on the list. He became famous overseas for a while.
Later, he went to Europe to participate in the Autumn Art Salon in Paris, France.
This is one of the highest stages of art in the world. Picasso and Paul Cezanne have both failed here. Cao Xuan failed to enter the exhibition for three consecutive years. In the fourth year, he miraculously won the Salon's "highest award" ”, and has since officially entered the world’s leading group of great painters.
The old man's reputation in this life did not rely on any external sales and hype from the gallery. He relied on personal efforts and conquered art judges and collectors with a single paintbrush.
The reputation gained in art competitions through real skills in applying one stroke at a time.
Whether viewed from an Eastern or Western perspective, Mr. Cao is a quite classical painter. He has always kept a distance from the professional gallery commercial marketing system.
It’s a given that commercial galleries can make artists a lot of money.
But whether this kind of commercially-led creation will affect the pure artistic level of the work - the answer is a matter of opinion and wisdom.
"Old man, you are a great Bodhisattva who has jumped out of the Three Realms and is not in the Five Elements, but young people also have to eat, right?"
Lao Yang felt that at this point, he should say something to Gu Weijing's child: "Professor Lin Tao and others also have their own contract galleries. Being able to sign with a big gallery is a good thing, not a bad thing."
"When you make money at a young age, you become irritable and lose focus on painting. How old is Gu Weijing, so eager to make money? The edge of a sword comes from sharpening, and the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold. If you are poorer, Only then can one develop the courage and spirit of a painter.”
The little old man curled his lips very stubbornly and criticized.
hehe,
Old man, you have never been poor in your life. Before liberation, you could buy a house in a Shanghai alley with 1,000 pounds and become a tenant.
In his heart, Lao Yang accused Master Cao Xuan of treating his disciples with double standards. He would only talk back to Master Cao when he was obviously crazy, so he could only smile bitterly on the side.
"By the way, it's true that Gu Xiaozi has talent. But how could a top gallery like Ma Shi Gallery pay attention to a small painter from Yangon? If he wants to use my name now to swindle outside, he is a bit too impatient. It’s time.”
The unhappy look on the little old man's face became even more obvious.
It is not impossible for Mr. Cao Xuan to understand that young people want to make money and become famous.
As long as Gu Weijing paints steadily and can catch the olive branch he hands over, what is his will be his. Wouldn't Cao Xuan not help his disciples?
Whether he is seeking fame or profit, there will always be a day when this guy will make a lot of money.
But if you contact a large gallery now with Mr. Cao's name, and eagerly use it as a stepping stone for your career... it would be really disappointing.
"Oh, no, no, no, you were wrong."
Lao Yang immediately waved his hand: "Xiao Gu did a good job in this. Even if Ma Shi Gallery came to visit, he did not mention your matter, but immediately came to ask for your opinion."
"Hmph, that's pretty much it."
Mr. Cao Xuan's expression softened a lot: "Is it really just Ma Shi Gallery that accidentally discovered Gu Xiaozi's talent?"
"Well, that's not the case."
There was a strange smile on Lao Yang's face that was somewhere between vulgarity and surprise: "Guess who recommended him to Mashi Gallery? You will never guess it."
"It can't be Lin Tao, why didn't he tell me in advance?" Mr. Cao was confused.
Lao Yang shook his head mysteriously.
"Hurry up and don't be too pretentious." Cao Xuan was also a little curious.
"It's Mr. Kazunari Sakai."
"Sakai Kazunari?"
The figure of the fat, meatball-like middle-aged artist whom he had worked with at the Shwedagon Pagoda at the beginning of the year appeared in the little old man's mind.
Cao Xuan thought for a moment, then blew his beard and glared, saying angrily: "It's not enough that he has a good daughter. This little fat guy wants to steal someone from me?"
"No...you are right in a sense."
Lao Yang felt that sometimes, Mr. Cao really seemed like an old kid.
"Gu Weijing took care of Miss Sakai Katsuko."
"Done?"
"This boy is now in love with Miss Sakai Katsuko. The gallery was introduced by Professor Sakai, and Mrs. Sakai also went there in person when we were negotiating the contract. Mr. Xiao Gu is really like this -"
Lao Yang winked and gave Cao a thumbs up.
Even Cao Xuan was stunned when he heard the news.
The old man was silent, silent, not knowing what to say for a long time.
"Is that so? This boy, this boy... hmph, what's the difference between using my name? The gallery is not interested in him."
The little old man said this, but he couldn't help but smile on his face.
When the old man was young, he was a famous figure in the old Shanghai Shili foreign market. I had seen him before. He was not some eccentric old painter who had no luck with women and could only hold a paintbrush.
In his heart, Mr. Cao Xuan quite admired Gu Xiaozi's skills.
He just said: "If you spend more time on painting, it will be more useful than any other heresy. If you paint in the future, you will not be as good as your partner. I am embarrassed for him. I have no ability. I was lucky enough to borrow the east wind of the big gallery and fly." Can’t get up.”
"Is he contacting you just to ask for instructions?"
"Gu Weijing would like you to help convey some conditions to Mashi Gallery. At the same time, he has some sketches of his exhibited works, and he also wants you to comment on them."
"Draw the eyebrows? Haha, it seems that Gu Xiaozi is very confident in himself. I want to see how good he is. Bring me his 'masterpiece' first. If he can't draw well, you can call me. scold him."
(End of chapter)
