Living The Art Agony Chapter 4

In the evening, looking at the magnificent Public Security Bureau building, Torry tried hard to take a deep breath. People's desire for the truth is sometimes similar to their desire for fresh air. Life is full of lies, but everyone is a liar, so they don't feel the pollution of the air. But maybe one day, there will be a huge lie or mystery that completely obscures people's vision and makes it difficult to breathe. At this time, the desire to breathe freely that had been dormant for a long time will come again.

However, he knew that the struggle of a person's life was to be able to freely manage desires. This deep breath did not make him feel better. He turned around and felt that the building behind him was like a huge tombstone. Yes, he thought he had just climbed out of a tomb, a tomb full of mysteries, a tomb that made him dark and breathless.

He suddenly wanted to drink.

He could actually turn around and ask Liam about this, but now this guy only reminded him of the case. So he called Leo and asked him to invite everyone he could.

"How would you like to drink?" Leo asked.

"It's up to you. You can go to a bar or eat skewers on the street."

"How about going to the bar for a drink first, and then taking a bath in Dream Bali?"

"Forget about taking a bath. I'm not in the mood for it today."

"Oh, even the Bath King doesn't want to take a bath anymore." Leo chuckled, "Then why don't we find some painting buddies to go out for a drink?"

"Okay, let's meet at the old place, the original skewers bar east of Xiaojin Lake."

Torry waited until 8:30, when Lian Feizhou arrived first. Hearing that Torry had an appointment, the busy man immediately left behind the Fuding white tea in his hand and the gold chain investor beside him, and rushed to the entrance of the skewers bar.

Lian Feizhou is Leo's undergraduate classmate. After graduation, he did not pursue further studies, but opened his own art studio. When he was in school, other students were pursuing highbrow art, and the more they painted, the more mysterious and profound it became. Only he was thinking about how to turn his skills into cash, and he spent all day making popular paintings. In fact, Lian Feizhou was clear in his mind that the things he made were not of high quality, but he thought that he wanted different things and had a clear plan for his goals. In his opinion, for an artist in his twenties, doing art and making money are two different things and need to be done separately. Several friends mocked him as a "businessman in the guise of an artist", but he didn't think it was wrong. So when he graduated, his classmates were all preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination in a panic, but he already had a large number of clients in his hands, enough to support him to run a studio.

Seeing Torry from afar, Lian Feizhou's eyes lit up, and he ran to him and sat down next to him: "Long time no see, how are you, have you missed me recently?"

"Really not." Torry often received harassing calls from Lian Feizhou, and he didn't fall for it at all. "For someone like you who is busy changing girlfriends, how can you be missing someone?"

"That's wrong! I'm still thinking about you, Torry!" Lian Feizhou said as if he was explaining to his ex-wife that nothing had happened between him and his mistress. "I've told you so many times, when I first saw you, I felt that we were a good match except for our gender. Look, among so many people, I was the most enthusiastic about meeting you!"

Torry had no choice but to accept the offer.

Just when there was nothing to say, Leo and Su Huan arrived. Su Huan was Leo's senior, a doctoral student in the Provincial Academy of Fine Arts majoring in flowers and birds, and the oldest among the group. Torry was in awe of Su Huan's professional ability, and could even be said to worship him. But even though Torry called him "senior", the two were not really brothers in the end, and Torry didn't have the nerve to express his admiration for Su Huan like a little girl, so the number of times they met was actually limited, and it was almost always in this kind of situation where everyone was around. The three major types of Chinese painting - landscape, flowers and birds, and figures - are now being divided more and more, and many painters often specialize in one type. Therefore, Torry, who focuses on landscape, didn't have the nerve to ask Su Huan, who majored in flowers and birds, out alone in the name of discussing landscape, which always made him feel itchy.

The last person to arrive was Cui Yong, Leo's roommate, a second-year graduate student in the Chinese Painting Department's Flower and Bird Class, and a typical taciturn person. Cui Yong could be considered Su Huan's legitimate junior, a status that once made Torry envious. However, Cui Yong did not notice Torry's envy. As an art student, he was even more boring than a programmer, and he couldn't talk, so he couldn't flirt with girls. And because he couldn't flirt with girls, Leo directly judged that he could not become a great artist. I don't know what logic this was.

As soon as the old friends met, the atmosphere became lively. Leo ordered some skewers and asked for five bottles of Tsingtao for each person.

To cope with various occasions in the circle, they usually drink more tea. Young men full of vigor and vitality have to imitate the old men, holding Buddhist beads in their hands, sitting on a Ming-style fake huanghuali armchair in a teahouse, burning incense, listening to the piano, sipping a Dahongpao that is said to cost thousands of yuan, closing their eyes, taking a deep breath, and smiling.

You have to pretend. Being in the calligraphy and painting circle is very similar to writing suspense novels. There are two obvious ways of pretending: pretending to be cool and pretending to be mysterious.

The beer is in a draft beer cup, because it gives people the illusion that the beer tastes better, just like a loser who occasionally puts on a formal suit and stands in front of a mirror, and accidentally thinks that he should shake hands with the Secretary-General of the United Nations every day. The ritual sense blessed by this kind of object has a kind of magic that is hard to explain. Drinking in a group is also a ritual, as if finding a few people who call each other buddies and clinking glasses, your soul is no longer lonely.

They each filled a glass, and the two bottles of Tsingtao were almost empty. After a glass of beer, some people picked up the chicken heart, some picked up the kidney, and started eating. Today's kidneys were cut very neatly, and the kidney flowers bloomed beautifully. Torry just chewed a bite, and the sudden fishy smell made his heart shudder, and he inexplicably thought of Grace's ugly corpse.

Lian Feizhou noticed the abnormality on Torry's face, touched his arm and asked what was going on.

"Nothing. I went to the police station today to investigate a case, and I still haven't recovered from it."

"Could it be Grace's case?" Leo showed the same curiosity as ignorant people about the upcoming property purchase restriction policy.

"The important cases in the bureau must be kept secret." Torry waved his hand, "Well, forget it, let's not talk about this, let's drink."

The interest of the crowd had just been aroused, but it was suppressed again by Torry.

Each person finished three or four bottles, and when the second box of beer was about to be finished, several people finally got a little tipsy.

"Whose paintings have you been copying recently?" Torry asked.

"I'm watching Zhang Daqian." Leo said.

"Zhang Daqian's works are fine to look at, but the quality is still not high enough," said Torry. "Whether it is the blue-green landscape, lotus, or the later splashes of color, they are all too beautiful. Such things are easy to please the market, but they are not high-end enough."

Lian Feizhou also said: "Yes, there is a similar person named Wu Guanzhong. His paintings are also innovative, but they cater more to the market and are too sweet. His brushwork is too simple and lacks depth." Lian Feizhou, who is the best at catering to the market, actually said such words, and everyone accused him of being hypocritical and two-faced.

"Well, recently I mainly want to let myself relax a little more. I have copied a lot of ancient people, so I want to study ink splashing, color splashing and freehand brushwork." Leo turned to ask Lian Feizhou, "Who are you copying recently?"

"I am with Lin Hongren, he is also a rare talent among the four monks of the Qing Dynasty."

"Do you have any insights?" Su Huan asked with a smile.

"There are three points that impressed me the most. First, Hongren's paintings pay great attention to the big outlines, which have a sense of flat decoration, and can even be modified to be cold abstract. This is a very advanced consciousness in traditional Chinese painting. Secondly, although his composition has a strong sense of block, the lines are not dead, but very solid, and the brushwork is also decisive, which is his strongest point. In addition, the spatial contrast is strong. He pays great attention to the contrast between the large and empty mountains and the details, and uses the richness of trees and gravel to set off the blankness of the mountains."

"You are very good at learning." There was surprise and approval in Su Huan's eyes. He finally understood that this man opened a studio purely to make money, and actually did not give up the pursuit of true art.

"Who are you studying recently?" Cui Yong asked Su Huan, who was also studying flowers and birds.

"I've been imitating Xu Wei and Chen Chun recently. I feel that to paint them well, I need to be skilled and move my brush quickly." Su Huan changed the subject, "I was afraid that my paintings would be too free and would lose their heaviness, so I started imitating Wu Changshuo the other day."

"Seniors are still good at learning from others." Cui Yong was a little frustrated. "I've been studying at Linren Bonian recently, but I haven't found the feeling yet."

"It's okay. Copying takes time. No one can get the feeling right away." Su Huan clinked his cup with Cui Yong's. "When we have time, we two can communicate more about flower and bird painting."

Just as they were chatting, Torry suddenly saw Liam sent him a message: "Are you free?"

Torry was drinking heavily at the time and replied "no".

Perhaps Liam didn't learn Chinese reading comprehension well in primary school, so he continued: "I just got some new material and I need your help."

"If you have anything to say, please leave a message. I'm busy saving humanity right now." Torry replied and turned off the phone.

Normally, Torry would be very interested in any news related to the case. But now that he was drunk, he wanted to talk a lot, even to compose poetry, just like a wild dog that was looking for food every day, but at a certain season, it could not control its estrus.

"When it comes to imitation, Zhang Daqian is still the best. He is a national-level counterfeiter." Torry said to himself with a smile, "If I hadn't seen Zhang Daqian, I really wouldn't believe that someone could imitate exactly. Alas, do you think there are still such people these days? And he's not that old, not much different from us."

"You must be kidding. There are very few professors in art academies who have this ability." Cui Yong felt that this assumption was completely untrue.

"It's hard to say. Even if art academy professors copy their predecessors, they will bring their own style. Who would copy blindly these days? Look at Huang Binhong's copy of ancient paintings, that's the highest level of copying. Copying every stroke is what beginners do." Lian Feizhou took a sip of wine, "Of course, if you can really draw it exactly the same, it's a skill. But what a pity, the copying assignments handed in by art academy students are all handmade one-to-one, which is not painting at all!"

"Torry, who are you following recently?" Leo asked.

"Haha, I don't have time to copy."

"You have time to hang out in a bar and take a bath in the evening, but no time to paint?"

"I don't paint much. I occasionally read some books and painting theories, but I don't write much." Torry filled everyone's glass with wine. "What books are you reading recently?"

"I've been reading Shi Tao's Painting Quotations recently." Su Huan said.

"I am rereading Xie He's "Catalogue of Ancient Paintings." Lian Feizhou said.

"I read Guo Xi's "Linquan Gaozhi" once a year," said Leo.

"They are all very ancient!" Cui Yong pulled off a string of chicken skin with his teeth, "I'm reading Huang Binhong's Painting Quotations."

"I'm reading Huang Gongwang's 'Secrets of Painting Landscapes'. It just so happens that his works are being exhibited recently," said Torry.

Leo suddenly realized: "No wonder you were talking so much when you were at the exhibition that day, saying things like 'Paintings also have Feng Shui' and so on. It turns out you were just there. I was wondering, how could your memory be so good?"

"You said that most people today are pursuing shapes when painting. Not many people can even use the brush like calligraphy. Who would integrate ancient art philosophy into their paintings?" Torry thought of the case again. "When painting, do people still consider the balance of yin and yang, the orientation of the house, and the flow of air? Is there anyone who really has this awareness when painting?"

"What's wrong with you today?" Leo felt that Torry had been acting weird since he broke into the police station.

Torry ignored him and continued, "I recently studied ancient paintings and found that there are many works in Song Dynasty paintings that contain Taoist philosophy, such as "Auspicious Cranes" by Emperor Huizong of Song. Is it true that Fan Kuan's "Traveling in Mountains and Rivers" is the best landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty? The arrangement of its positions is very scary when you think about it carefully. The three huge rocks at the bottom of the painting are arranged according to the positions of the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise. The rock in the position of the Black Tortoise is really painted like a divine turtle!"

Lian Feizhou recalled the appearance of "Traveling in the Mountains and Rivers" and found it interesting, so he asked: "Then tell me, how does Huang Gongwang's "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" reflect Taoist philosophy?"

"Huang Gongwang used to make a living by fortune-telling, so it's not surprising that he believed in feng shui in his paintings. Look at the dragon veins of the mountains, including the alternating combination of mountains and water... Oh, and his classic brushstrokes are long hemp-like brushstrokes, with endless brushstrokes, deep and moist, and vigorous internal energy. You can tell at a glance that he is a person of longevity."

Su Huan interjected, "And I don't know if you guys are reading the paintings carefully. From the lush greenery of "The Remaining Mountain" to the bleakness at the end of the entire scroll, Huang Gongwang seems to be painting the four seasons. In addition, he placed the people and boats in the large blank space, which gave him a sense of space of 'a drop in the ocean'. So I think Huang Gongwang expressed his cosmic philosophy in his paintings."

These words made Torry shudder and straighten his body. He couldn't help but think of the poem the murderer left for them:

The mist of long summer fills the changes of the universe

My clumsy writing is powerless to imitate the birth and death of destiny

At that time, he analyzed that this "great painter" with blood on his hands had a special liking for the image of time. But in fact, in this poem, his concept of space has been clearly expressed.

What a great philosopher.

The open-air skewers bar occupies a corner of the shore of Xiaojin Lake, like a playful moss spot on the bank of the water in an ancient painting. Five meters away from the table is the shimmering light of Xiaojin Lake, the enchanting moonlight and the blurred street lights are all reflected on the quiet water ripples, with thousands of lights and colors, as if the rain has beaten the palette abandoned by the old painter in the wilderness into a Monet masterpiece.

The moon is full on the 16th. The moonlight tonight makes all the bright lights on the ground dim. No one knows how many stories this cold moon has to listen to before it can tell its own story completely and clearly.

The moon was high in the sky, and the five of them were drunk. When Lian Feizhou went to pay the bill, Torry opened his phone and saw that Liam had sent him several more WeChat messages.

"We received a USB drive from the murderer, which recorded his conversation with Grace."

"And the process of him torturing and killing Grace."

"Most importantly, he left two lines of poetry at the end of the video. I took a screenshot to show you."

Then Torry saw a screenshot of the video with the following subtitles:

The autumn colors of Quehua are reflected in the cold forest with snow, and the early spring in the mountains is covered with pines in the valleys.

Torry's hair stood up all over his body, and his drunkenness was mostly gone.