"Unfortunately, after you revised it for me, this work is actually suspected of cheating and was not an independent creation."
Katsuko Sakai touched the canvas with her fingers and stuck out her tongue.
"If this is cheating, then if you help me use your fingers to deal with the brightness transition between paint colors, it is actually cheating."
Gu Weijing said nonchalantly: "You help me and I'll help you. If you don't tell me, I won't tell you either. How will the judges know?"
"Um."
Sakai Katsuko nodded slightly and made a cute nasal sound.
She doesn't dwell too much on this issue either.
Just like various big galleries and artists always want to get their agent painters, close relatives and nephews into art exhibitions through various off-site means and special channels.
Cheating ghostwriting is also a traditional part of large-scale art exhibitions.
In an art competition at the primary and secondary school level, without the help of parents or an agency to create portfolios on their behalf, it would be like a Champions League match without the participation of football hooligans.
Missing some flavor.
Therefore, for example, in projects organized by some large galleries to select young artists, the semi-finals and finals all require on-site creation.
Otherwise, God knows what kind of ghosts and monsters will get mixed up among the winning contestants.
The Art Biennale requires the submission of a series of Sketchbooks (inspiration sketchbooks), Study Proposal (creative purpose records)... these fancy appendix forms.
It is also required to prepare a large number of electronic supporting documents including sketches of personal paintings, creation photos, on-site painting videos, etc. to prove that the entries are all completed by the creator.
The Singapore Biennale even employs an appraisal team and a work review committee to review and verify the authenticity and originality of the entries one by one.
Effect……
At best, it can only be said to be better than nothing.
It's better than nothing, and it's almost impossible to completely eliminate cheating.
To put it bluntly, in a painting, to what extent does the outside world intervene to indicate that the contestant has a character problem, and to what extent does it constitute a normal art director?
The academic community does not even have a basic unified standard.
Throughout the ages, ghost painting has been almost completely intertwined with art history. Not only did teachers paint for their apprentices, there were also apprentices who painted for their teachers to fool collectors.
The former is for fame, the latter is for selling money.
Titian painted for his senior brother Giorgione back then, because Giorgione was more famous and his works sold more expensively. At the same time, brothers Titian and Giorgione imitated the works of their teacher Bellini and sold them to collectors in Florence.
The painting styles of some of the works of these three masters are very similar, and even the signatures imitate each other.
Modern museums may not be able to tell which painting is the original and which is a ghostwritten one.
But there is a point.
Often the lower the level of the art competition and the more it is linked to higher education, the more common cases of cheating and ghostwriting occur.
Similar to the famous London Art Academy, which changes its application rules almost every year, the person in charge of the admissions office was almost made to cry by the ghostwritten portfolios mass-produced by study abroad agencies when being interviewed by the media.
And big prizes like the Turner Prize and the Venice Biennale.
Outside lobbying has heard of it, but scandals involving ghostwriters and cheating are almost unheard of.
This is the same reason as no fool would write a Nobel Prize-level scientific research paper for others.
All in all, Uncle Sakai, who has 200 kilograms of fat, has shown great integrity by not actually painting for his daughter.
The mutual help between two young people is not worth mentioning at all in the lotus pond of art, which is never clear.
"You can help me change the painting and teach me how to incorporate emotions into the work, but all I can do to help you is to smear the paint twice with my fingers."
Sakai Katsuko glanced at the pen, ink, paper and inkstone on the table next to her, her tone regretful.
"I can see that you are trying to incorporate some kind of floral style into your brushwork, but Eastern Xia traditional Chinese painting is not my main specialty——"
Said to be two small easels side by side in the yard of the Good Luck Orphanage.
What was in front of Gu Weijing was actually a small table.
The paperweight pressed a large piece of cut rice paper on the tabletop, and it was dotted with wisteria flowers the size of fingernails.
There are no branches and leaves, only petals.
He has been trying to practice the painting of wisteria flowers on it every day for the past few days.
Hundreds of purple petals have already covered the white paper pages, and the breeze blows the rice paper floating slightly from the edge of the small table, like a flowing purple waterfall.
With tireless practice.
On the system panel, Gu Weijing's Chinese painting technique experience value has reached [Lv.4: Professional Painter·First Level (4326/5000)].
There is only one last thing missing from the feeling of the wisteria painting in Ms. Tangning's "Hundred Flowers" on paper.
He was thinking hard.
Sakai Katsuko can write calligraphy, appreciate the sea of clouds in Sichuan, and understand the divine light of Emei. She can pick up two sentences at her fingertips, kneel in front of the pavilion, eat tea from Sanqianjia, and listen to the great monk in Sensoji Temple. The Lotus Sutra of Wonderful Dharma. Eastern culture enriches her deeply.
But I still have enough respect for the profound Chinese painting.
Every other line is like a mountain.
Outside the Shwedagon Pagoda, she followed the sample album given by her elders. It was no problem to draw lines with charcoal strips and brushes, but she could just give Gu Weijing some guidance on how to draw Chinese paintings.
The least likely way to cause trouble is to just be a quiet bystander.
"Well, give me another hug. This is the reward I can give you." Sakai Katsuko stretched out her arms, stood on tiptoes, and pulled Gu Weijing's body into her slim and undulating arms.
——
Bang!
Bang!
Two consecutive gunshots startled a large number of flying birds.
A woman wearing a blue gauze skirt and a woolen sun hat sat on a chair, skillfully opening the 1899 "Dracan" double-barreled antique shotgun with a walnut handle and silver-plated crown double-headed eagle decoration in her hand.
She used her silk-gloved fingers to pull out two warm copper-clad steel bullet cases from the dark barrel, letting them jump and slide into the grass on the ground, and then pushed two new bullets into the chamber.
Lock the barrel, open the firing lever, and place the ivory shoulder rest plate against your shoulder.
The woman inhales gently, aims, and exhales.
The moment her long breath came to an end, she pulled the trigger.
Dozens of steel balls were pushed by the gunpowder gas, splitting the air at a speed faster than the sound of gunfire, like a heavy hammer hitting leaves in the woods dozens of meters away.
A fat quail that heard the constant sound of gunshots had not yet run away. The fat quail, which was standing on a low branch and looking around stupidly, was hit by deer bullets and steel balls and turned over in the air.
Amidst the feathers exploding all over the sky, it simply fell into the soil without even a cry.
"Bravo!"
The butler carrying the silver tray placed the coffee cup and waffles on the small table next to the woman.
Just when he happened to see this accurate shot, the butler, who was a quarter of Italian descent, couldn't help but applaud in admiration according to the Italian habit.
"The quail is so cute! If you don't want to eat it, why shoot it?"
The female secretary next to her was not in such a good mood.
She looked at the broken body of the fat quail that the hounds rushed over and picked up in its mouth, and shook her head with some regret.
Quail shot with No. 12 buckshot—if you don’t want to have your teeth chipped by the steel balls embedded in the bones and meat, there’s obviously no need to eat them.
"Elliot, do you know the difference between Catherine and Anne Boleyn?"
The woman shook off the bullet casing, stretched out her hand and patted August the hound's proud head as a sign of encouragement. Then she turned her head to look at the secretary and asked calmly.
"Huh? Countries are different."
I heard the lady’s question.
The female secretary Elliot was a little confused for a moment.
Catherine was the wife of Peter III, King of Russia.
Anne Boleyn was the queen of Henry VIII, Lord of England.
Both queens were known in European history as superpowers in the harem struggle. In the Eastern Xia Dynasty, they were probably Wu Zetian-like figures.
"Their personalities and habits are different. Catherine likes horseback riding and hunting. Documentary records indicate that she likes to lead her guards on fast horses to chase black bears on the pasture. The Queen Mother even believed that this habit prevented her from giving birth to a prince. And Anne... Boleyn liked gems, high-class salons and the art of painting. So Catherine II became the eighth emperor in Russian history, and Anne Boleyn was beheaded by the guillotine."
"I am a cripple and cannot ride a horse, and art happens to be my passion. So my aunt told me since I was a child that in addition to being able to hold a paintbrush, I should also be able to hold a gun if necessary."
Anna turned her head and fired again.
The other unfired barrel of the double-barreled shotgun spurted out bright flames, and the sound of the gunshot echoed repeatedly among the clouds and lakes throughout the Elena Manor.
Elliot fell into silent thought.
Only August was particularly excited, wagging his tail and making a purring sound in his throat.
After all, springer spaniels are hunting dogs.
"This gun was designed by the royal gunsmith of the Habsburg royal family as a 60-year-old Christmas gift to Princess Sissi. The designer spent three years designing and decorating it with exquisite ivory, gold, silver and natural walnut wood. It is one of the earliest shotguns in the world that can use modern fixed buckle bullets. 1899 is the year it was completed. But just before it left the factory from the gunsmith, Princess Sissi died of an assassination during a trip to Geneva. Later, It became a beloved collection of my father’s.”
“I was nine years old when my aunt gave me this gun and it was my first time hunting.”
"Nine years old?"
Elliot turned his attention to the weapon in Anna's hand. This female weapon was not very large among shotguns, but it was close to 80 centimeters in length.
She imagined her height when she was 9 years old and said suspiciously.
"Um."
Anna said casually: "It's not so much hunting as it is crying and shooting randomly. Because even if the bullets are loaded with special reduced-load bullets with only 1/3 gunpowder, I can't operate such a 'huge' weapon at all. "
"So much so that there must be a firearms instructor at any time to support me with his body against my shoulders to prevent me from being knocked over by the huge recoil when shooting. My aunt said that I must finish 30 bullets, otherwise I will not be able to go home. .”
Elliot imagined the scene in which a burly shooting instructor forcibly restrained a quiet little girl crying in a wheelchair and asked her to shoot.
"Miss, although hunting is not illegal in Austria, if this kind of thing is revealed, your aunt may be involved in one or two felony charges of child abuse, and she will have to stay in prison for more than 10 years without the possibility of parole. …”
The corner of the female secretary's mouth twitched violently.
"Not only that, my aunt even ordered the valet to bring an enraged bull and let it charge towards me. Can you imagine sitting in a wheelchair, helplessly watching a semi-mad bull heading towards me at a speed of 25 miles per hour? How did you feel when you rushed over? Even though I knew there were guards holding military rifles next to me, I was still scared out of my mind."
"and after?"
Well, it seems that this is not just a simple 10+ years.
Eliot gave up on trying to figure out whether the sentence for the lady in the grave was enough.
What kind of hatred is this?
"At the last moment before I screamed hysterically and passed out, I successfully hit the opponent's head." Anna smiled softly, and the emotion in her eyes seemed to be more about reminiscence than fear.
"To this day, I still don't like hunting. But I remember what my aunt used to say to me. Hunting is not for the pleasure of killing, but to remind myself that even as a girl, I still have to remember He has the determination and courage to pull the trigger on a lion, a brown bear, or a mad bull when necessary."
"In the past palaces, a beautiful woman who could only play the piano and paint was just a pastime for men to relieve their boredom on the bed. As cunning as Anne Boleyn, the king would throw her to the guillotine after her freshness wore off. No matter what you like Or not, only a girl who can shoot a lion with a shotgun is awe-inspiring. At least my husband has to consider the risk of being shot several times from behind before he gets tired of playing with me and goes to find his lover."
"More importantly, only after the first gunshot rings out will no one treat me as a child anymore."
Bang!
Finish the last bullet in your hand.
Anna then began to disassemble the double-barreled shotgun and clean the barrel with gunpowder residue thinner.
The skin on her arms was as tender as the Princess and the Pea, and her movements were skillful like an experienced hunter.
Miss Elena carefully maintained the shotgun with her own hands, and the gun cleaning cloth passed over the silver double-headed eagle logo on the gun handle.
Every part of this old-fashioned shotgun has been polished and debugged by hand during the production. The smoothbore barrel has no risk of rifling wear and has a very long service life. Therefore, today in 2023, it is still as dangerous as when it was first manufactured. fatal.
Anna has a delicate and emotional character.
But she's not the kind of animal activist who would cry at the sight of an injured lamb or rush into a steakhouse holding a vegetarian banner.
The way she usually sits in a wheelchair looks like Princess Helen, who was beaten to death by the men of Sparta and Troy for ten years and whose brains were about to come out.
But when she picked up the shotgun, an awe-inspiring aura emanated from her body.
Eliot felt in a trance that Princess Helen sitting in a wheelchair turned into Athena sitting on a lion chariot.
No matter who her future husband is, any man who dares to treat Anna as a recreational product will probably die miserably.
"I understand, the detective cat is the gun, and "The Little Prince" is the bullet fired under your control. At this moment, Sir Brown and the management of the painting are the quails who panicked after hearing the gunshot in the forest."
The female secretary understood something in her heart and spoke slowly.
It was a little garbled at the end just now.
(End of chapter)
