The Versatile Master Artist-Chapter 69 - 61: The Return of Past Days

In the video,

Thomas looked at the picture frame in Anna’s hand.

With his arms crossed, he said to the judge, "I assure you this is not a predetermined program effect. Two almost identical paintings, when I first received the drafts..."

Even as a video blogger, he was somewhat incredulous when he first received this art package.

Thomas thought something must be wrong, that a painter must have copied their own painting and sent it again.

He even had his studio employees repeatedly check the order to confirm that the two paintings were indeed created by two completely different painters.

"They’re both truly beautiful, right? Both incredibly excellent..."

As a video blogger who doesn’t understand much about art, Thomas was shocked by the lifelike brushwork of the two colored pencil drawings the first time he saw them.

"Outright mistake."

Anna mercilessly interrupted the other’s attempt to conflate the two illustrations.

"This illustration is excellent."

She placed the first turned-over picture frame on the table and looked down at the remaining illustration.

"And this painting... can be called truly unbelievable."

"But these two paintings look almost completely identical. What’s the difference?"

Thomas confusedly touched his chin and looked at the bearded uncle and the dreadlocked guy beside him.

They also shook their heads in confusion.

"Of course, you can’t understand, since you..."

Anna hesitated; her good manners kept her from saying [mediocre] out loud.

In her heart, ninety-nine percent of people in this world are mediocre.

These people may lead lives successful enough in the eyes of ordinary people, but their souls remain undeveloped.

Art appreciation – for Anna, it’s the process of using one soul to understand another.

A mediocre person can distinguish between beauty and ugliness, good and bad, but cannot fathom the differences between excellence and brilliance – differences that seem infinitely close yet infinitely distant.

The gap between ninety-eight and a hundred has never been as simple as just two points.

For this reason, the merchants of Florence had the courage to critique Michelangelo’s sculptures. Van Gogh was obscured among the masses, Gauguin was deemed a madman, generations of geniuses are lonely, masters are desolate, only a few lucky ones can understand them.

She considered herself one of these lucky ones.

"Miss Elina, I am truly puzzled now, can you explain to our audience your basis for judgment? Why do you give completely different evaluations for two nearly identical paintings?"

Thomas saw the other not answering and thus pursued the question.

The girl was silent for a few seconds.

Anna had an almost morbid attachment to art.

Being able to feel the excellence of a painting, she considered it a special soul connection with the master, a bond she was reluctant to share easily with ordinary people.

Nevertheless, she was here as a judge.

Due to professional ethics, she bit her lip and said, "If you can’t intuitively feel the excellence of this painting, there’s a simplest way. You can have your photographer shoot a close-up lens, magnify it five times... no, ten times, as long as you can ensure clarity."

The video switched to a close-up of the illustration in Anna’s hand.

Thomas’s video production team used Hollywood-grade professional lenses; even after a tenfold magnification, the feeling remained clear and sharp, with almost no distortion at the edges of the image.

"This sketch is truly beautiful."

Mrs. Sakai exclaimed, as, in the previous wide shot, they could only see the outlines of the painting in the video.

Only the most experienced drawing expert, Professor Yajima, faintly sensed the difference between the two illustrations.

Now the image was enlarged like through a magnifying glass, and the strokes became clear, even showing the direction of each line.

Not mentioning the content, just the sketching technique alone already reached a master level.

"At this level, if not for colored pencil drawing being a method invented just over a century ago, it might even give me the feeling of visiting a 19th-century royal art exhibition, as if the old days have returned."

Professor Yajima was also examining the pencil technique of the painting.

Regarding whether the artistic expression of painting is spirally ascending or inferior to the past remains a cliché debated by wise men.

However, purely speaking of traditional painting techniques, compared to the masters of one or two centuries ago, today’s painters might indeed not daringly claim superiority.

For a long time before the camera was invented, painters were seen as having the magic power to preserve time.

They bore the responsibility like historians to record history and significant events, painting was not only an artistic creation but also a work of recording reality.

That was the golden age of realistic painting.

From the court banquets of Frederick the Great to Parisian art salons of Madam Pompadour. From Napoleon’s self-coronation to Queen Victoria’s rise to power, to the battlefields where Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire fought to death on muddy grounds.

In any world-shaking historical occasion, there is the shadow of a painter holding a brush.

The young ladies and gentlemen of high society exchanged glances and smiles with the handsome young painters. Great painters adorned their chests with the medals given by the Emperor,, walking tall in their decent tuxedos, freely roaming the palace halls.

But today, this art form is nearing its demise.

The microphones in reporters’ hands and the cameras clicking in photographers’ hands have already replaced the brushes in painters’ hands, painting art has completely transformed into a purely aesthetic form.

Practitioners more chase abstract concepts that sell for high prices; many can draw well, but few draw as excellently.

Yet Professor Yajima feels this mysterious power that moves him is not just about how well the sketch is drawn, it’s not that simple.

What is it exactly?

"Wait, Shengzi, look closely, it’s not just about the sketching, these muscle lines—"

The video displayed a photo provided by Mr. Hibernian to the seven illustration creators as a reference for their illustrations on the right half of the screen.

Finally, Uncle Sakai seemed to notice something remarkable.

He even disregarded the bustling café.

Professor Yajima clapped the table hard, waving the coffee cup beside him, like a soccer fan seeing a magical goal in the World Cup.

"Perfect! Beautiful! This is truly extraordinary!" he exclaimed loudly.

In the video,

Anna was also comparing the muscle lines in the photo and illustration.

"In realistic portraiture, naturalness and precision are the highest praises for muscle lines. Yet it’s extremely hard to achieve. Even great painters have difficulty completely recreating a person’s most subtle muscle movements; attempting deliberate imitation often leads astray."

"The founder of the Wild Beast School, Matisse, once proposed the artistic motto – [precise is not natural]."

"In this respect, the best the illustration world might have is the Norman Rockwell, whom I’ve mentioned to you, he was a student of the anatomical painter George Burriman, inheriting the old master’s strengths."

Anna showed a hint of regret: "Mr. Burman is the world’s recognized top expert in anatomical painting, but unfortunately, he spent his life researching muscle curves and teaching painting techniques, with very few artistic works of his own."

"However, I never expected that, even using a magnifying glass, I find almost no unnaturalness or discordance in the muscles from this painting. Unlike the painter’s sketching technique, this surprises me even more. He has managed to unify nature and precision perfectly."

"So, Mr. Matisse, you were wrong, precise is not natural indeed, but perfect precision can achieve harmonious unity with nature, this painting is proof."