The chubby middle-aged nurse pushed Anna along the stone path that looked like the open gate of the manor, Thomas following behind.

"Miss Anna, please let us speak in English. I only took a little German in high school, and the audience for my English videos is much larger. ”

"This is a photographer, and he'll be taking pictures of them all while you're appraising the quality of these paintings."

Thomas waved like a big photographer holding a stabilizer on the side.

"The warm-up content for the new video is ready to be teased on Twitter. According to the studio's process, the final product will be about a short video of about 25 minutes, and it is likely that it will log on to the YouTube [Mr. Hyperion] channel next week to meet with the audience. “

"Based on the number of views of the [From Dollar to One Million Challenge] video in the past, there is a high probability that 100 million to 180 million people will watch this video in the coming month. Of course, before the official launch, a member of staff will send you a copy of the finished film, and if you have any special objections to the content of the video, we will also consider it at our discretion. ”

The caretaker turned right along the shady stone path and came to the door of an old glass building.

The building is also an ancient building, but the lighting is very good, and there is a transparent look, unlike many old buildings common in Europe, gloomy and desolate, and there is a feeling of entering a ghost movie set when you enter.

"Our family did not have the habit of building a ballet theater in their homes, as the great Russian aristocracy did. But from very early on, there was his own collection studio. My ancestors believed that art could survive in this world much further than honor. ”

The caretaker pushed open the door and entered the collection room.

Austria's predecessor was the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

It is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country with a complex structure that can be called chaotic.

This work in the studio exemplifies this style.

Greece, Turkia, Britancy and the Balkans......

Hundreds of oil paintings of all kinds are enough for a luxurious art exhibition.

Some of these paintings are portraits of family members by inviting painters, some are artistic investments made by generations, and some are simply the artist's return to a generous art patron.

Every generation of her family has been passionate about art.

Anna's grandmother, whose grandmother was a wealthy expatriate from Greece, had studied in London and was a major patron of the Pre-Raphaelites (19th School), who appeared as a model on several paintings that are still in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

"WOW, that's cool!"

Thomas motioned for the photographer to glide his lens over the famous paintings hanging from the collection studio, and let out an exclamation of amazement.

He also rented an ancient castle to record a short video of hide and seek with fans, and by chance learned that the hostess of the castle was actually a young student who was studying at the WYN Academy of Fine Arts, and he met Anna.

After understanding,

The Anna he knew turned out to be an art critic.

Yes, an art critic at the age of twenty-two.

In the field of painting, both painters and critics tend to age, and many post-70s practitioners are now 50 years old, so they can be regarded as the Mesozoic Generation.

And those who can be crowned with the words master or so-and-so family after their name are often elderly people after the age of 60.

Uncle Sakai can gain such a reputation at such an age, which is already considered an outstanding talent.

And Anna can only be considered a monster.

God deprived her of the ability to walk, but gave her a great gift for art appreciation.

She is the youngest writer and senior editor of the well-known art magazine Oil Painting since 1934.

Although critics do not need to hone their skills day by day like painters, experience itself takes time to hone and polish, and there is no possibility that a painting genius can become talented and become a blockbuster.

It is true that Anna's success is inseparable from the support of her family wealth.

At a time when many people have never been to an art museum in their lives, Anna grew up immersed in famous paintings, which cultivated her innate artistic instincts.

But in addition to this, the girl's resume is also excellent enough to be amazing.

At the age of fourteen, Anna was wandering around the warehouse when she noticed a problem with the color of an old painting of the Victorian Youth Brotherhood.

The Victorian Youth Brotherhood is a 19th-class group club of painters who come together to discuss art trends and progress together.

The club is a mixed bag, with famous painters born, but most of the members are unknown.

The painter of that ancient painting belongs to the obscure category. Otherwise, it would not be stored in the warehouse and no one cares.

Anna keenly noticed that the peeling edges of the painting were covered in an abnormal variety of colors, but the background of the whole gloomy and cold oil painting was yellowing.

Based on her findings, the adults asked experts to uncover the canvas layer by layer, and found that the painting was overlaid on top of another orange landscape painting.

A canvas made of linen costs a lot, and even a cotton canvas was not affordable for anyone in the 19th century.

In the past, when young artists could not afford to paint new canvases, they would often pick up old works that others in the club did not want and re-cover them with new works.

This one is the case.

And according to the signature on the canvas below on T· J。

The obscure artist's photograph was also practiced by an unknown at the time—his original artist was named Tom Jane, who was later admitted to the Royal College of Art in London and is now valued at $700,000.

Stories like this are just a small microcosm of her career as a connoisseur.

Anna was the main writer of the WYN School Art Weekly during her school days.

The campus weekly of the University of the Arts, which has a long history, is a very serious art magazine, which has its own special publishing house and is distributed to the public, and has a relatively fixed and sticky readership, some of whom subscribe for one or two decades.

The main writers of these campus magazines are often young professors and older graduates of the school.

It is a high honor to be the chief writer of the campus weekly magazine as a student.

Not to mention being able to become a writer for a weekly magazine like "Oil Painting", it is not just because my great-grandfather is the founder of this magazine.

She even has her own anonymous private podcast station, Artists Review By Mr. Folivora

This is a popular art salon radio program.

For art critics, being young is a big disadvantage, and they are naturally questioned by others.

So in the podcast, Anna will use the hoarse voice of a virtual middle-aged uncle [Mr. Sloth] to comment on the current painting art fashion and various original painters.

She started the podcast anonymously from scratch without using any family resources, and after three years, it now has 170,000 followers.

Last year, it also topped the Apple Podcasts list and the first place on the annual art column rising star list.

There is no comparison with Thomas, a popular Internet celebrity with hundreds of millions of followers, but in the niche field of art criticism, this mysterious sloth who does not know the origin has attracted a lot of attention.

In just three years, this Mr. Sloth has been able to influence the market price and creative trend of some young painters on a small scale.

There is no doubt that in the field of art criticism, under the influence of the artistic atmosphere from childhood to adulthood, Anna is a real princess and a real monster.

However, Thomas's original first choice for this video was not Anna.

Although she is very professional, she ......

The public's impression of critics is the same as that of Dongxia people about Chinese medicine.

Thomas actually hopes that he can invite older, more experienced illustration-related professor artists to participate in this episode.

At least to the viewers of the video, an old professor with a gray beard and gray hair looks visually more knowledgeable than a little girl.

Unfortunately, when he offered invitations to well-known oil painting studios, galleries and museums, he was denied.

Someone hinted that he risked offending people by such comparisons.

As Anna said, the value of small-scale illustrations lies in the three points of storytelling, historical value, and artistic value.

If in the case of a prescribed subject matter.

Evaluating the value of art alone, you can hardly say that a world-renowned artist is much more skilled than an old artist who has been drawing ordinary comic illustrations for 20 years.

For example, one of the most famous illustrations in the world, from the great illustrator Jean Julien's "Paris Peace Symbol" drawn after the terrorist attacks in 2015,

This emblem has been used again and again throughout France, at the United Nations, in all anti-terrorist activities, and has become the national memory of Europeans.

The whole illustration is a brush-like brush stroke, on a circular ink ring, and four strokes are used to outline the shape of the Eiffel Tower.

Elementary school students can draw for 30 seconds.

But it's hard to say how much this one-of-a-kind illustration is worth.

If you take the original painting and put it up for auction, one million dollars is it, ten million dollars is it, and if someone is willing to pay 100 million, then it is worth 100 million.

After all, it has become an integral part of national culture.

In the early days of the Philadelphia Declaration of Independence, hundreds of printed newspapers were posted on bulletin boards, with an approximate market circulation price of between $1.5 million and $3 million each.

It's not the newspaper that matters, it's the historical significance, that's the truth.

If this kind of thing were a general TV variety show routine, it is estimated that they would communicate with the critics behind their backs, and secretly tell each other which picture was painted by a master and which painting was drawn by a nobody, anyway, it doesn't matter.

But Thomas couldn't do that.

This is the difference between traditional TV stations and emerging self-media.

Foreign YouTubers can fight for eyeballs, and all kinds of gossip without considering the social impact may be considered, and fans may think that you are very "keep real".

He has come to this day by relying on the cost-free coins in the video, as long as he has eyeballs, no matter how much money he spent on making the video, he can double it back.

But if there is a script for fraud in the process, or the tens of millions of yachts that were promised to be drawn to fans are finally exposed that the winner is his second aunt or something.

Then his channel is worthless.

He tentatively extended an invitation to Anna, who had only a few faces, perhaps because of the confidence of an old-school art collector, or perhaps just the maverick of this girl, who actually agreed to his invitation.

"Although Miss Anna already knew my intentions, I still introduced the rules and procedures for recording the show."

The caretaker pushed Anna towards the interior of the manor, and Thomas followed behind, introducing as he spoke.

"This is the commissioner of the Danube Art Factoring Company."

He gestured to a burly bearded man with a large black bag behind him.

Bearded nodded to Anna in a wheelchair.

"He was carrying a portable safe for moving small pieces of valuable art."

Thomas said, pointing to the sedimented black suitcase.

"There are seven small illustrations in this box, worth $1, $10, $100, $1,000, $100,000, and $100,000."

He pulls out his phone and shows the camera a screenshot of a $1 million check that has been cleared.

"There's no hype, there's no money laundering, it's the real thing that cost me a million dollars."

He emphasized word by word.

“ONE！ MILLION！ DOLLARS！ ”

"Some people say that the art market is just speculation, and that with the right push, air can be sold for a high price."

"Some people say that the appeal contained in the works of the masters is enough to shake an era."

"Today we're going to reveal the answer."

"Miss Anna, your task is to tell me which painting is better as an art critic without knowing the identity of the painter."