“…… In addition to working on the portfolio. Pay attention to what you will submit to the interviewer during the school recruitment process, and include a Sketchbook that records your thoughts and impressions when you draw a portfolio of your daily drawings. ”

"Please don't ignore the latter! Students! This is an important piece of material for your students to prove to the interviewer that they are working independently and not by hired gunmen to outsource their design portfolio. I'll elaborate on the specific considerations for Sketchbook in a future lesson......"

Although Professor Wattel, the teacher of Dulwich Sketch class, was foaming at the rostrum, Chalk was working very the blackboard. The banging went on and on.

But on this warm afternoon in mid-March, everyone in the improvement class still looked like they couldn't keep their spirits up.

He was able to go to Dewei, but he was not selected for Mrs. Sakai's genius class.

In fact, most of the students sitting here have already decided on their next home.

In addition to higher tuition fees, foreign art academies are no different from ordinary Western comprehensive university models.

In particular, the large and small art academies in Milan and Florence, Italy, are relatively easy to apply for because of the policies of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

Of course, whether you can graduate successfully after entering is another matter.

The application itself is not too difficult.

For the professional results of ordinary students in Wattle's class, applying to the top 100 top universities on the art list, no matter whether you work hard or not, there will definitely be little hope anyway.

But why did you pay so many years of high tuition fees to private middle schools.

In the school recruitment fair, they applied for some ordinary foreign art schools that ranked low and had a cooperative relationship with Dulwich Education Group, and got a small offer, and they were still confident.

Even if you are not lucky, you can choose a university in Yangon.

Even many people understand very well that they have no talent for painting at all, and they have given up on being a painter and signing a gallery very realistically, which is a completely unrealistic luxury.

Even their parents have planned since they were in school to let their children use their status as art students as a springboard.

When they are ready to go to university, they should switch to other more lucrative majors such as interior design, animation, game interaction, and civil engineering.

Even the sketch professor on stage is known for being old-fashioned and serious among Dulwich teachers.

After the freshness of the initial improvement class, the students in the large classroom still began to feel the fish.

There was a drowsy atmosphere in the air, and many people were struggling with the heavy eyelids little by little.

There was a girl with braided hair who put her arms under her cheeks, holding a pen in her hand, struggling to raise her head, but her eyelids were already glued together, and she was snoring softly.

A few boys who found the class boring simply gathered in the back row of the classroom, rubbing the glass of their phones to play the online mobile game of "Fortnite".

"Humph!"

Professor Wattel, whose hair was curly and looked like the golden retriever lion king in Mr. Jin Yong's martial arts, glanced at everyone in the audience dissatisfied.

He found that if he continued to talk so dryly, he would hypnotize everyone in the classroom together.

"It's not good to listen to such an important content about the school recruitment fair!"

Professor Wattle was a little angry.

He wanted to make a lion's roar and roar to wake up these little bastards, but he sighed again.

"Forget it."

It's the thirteenth grade graduation season, and many of the students who are doing it are already adults.

I don't want to work hard, and it's not interesting for him to be a wicked person as a professor.

"It's hard to persuade the damn with good words."

Except for a few good children in the classroom, Professor Wattel does not expect these high and low students to apply to many good schools and earn him the prize of excellent teachers.

At most, he will be out of school in a hundred days.

If you don't want to listen, you can ask for more blessings!

Thinking so in my heart,

After all, Professor Wattle is still a teacher with good morals and a sense of responsibility.

He hesitated for a moment, and stopped talking dryly on the blackboard about the dos and don'ts in the portfolio, ready to change to something more interesting.

"Okay, let's talk about the interview at the school recruitment meeting, in previous years, the examiner would ask some questions about art history during the interview, such as giving you a painting, asking you to tell his origin, creative background, collection history or something. Or let you tell the story of your favorite painting master's work. ”

Professor Wattle turned on his laptop and pulled up the projector.

"This kind of problem is useless to sharpen the gun, and you need to rely on daily accumulation. There are still a few months to go, and try to memorize a painting every morning and evening. ”

"Everyone is a professional art student. Not an ordinary person, so don't expect the examiner to ask you simple questions like the Mona Lisa and the Night Watch. ”

"Let's do a few questions to familiarize ourselves with, and by the way, test your knowledge. These works are all classic paintings that I used to talk about in school, see how many you remember? ”

Wattle used the touchpad to open the electronic picture book on the computer, and picked on the dazzling array of drawing charts.

In the end, he chose a portrait of a woman wearing a red silk coat, a ring necklace around her neck, and a thin hairband tied in the center of her forehead with a golden gold floral accessory.

"Come, can any of you tell me specific information about this work, the more detailed the better."

"Miss Coco?"

Wattle stepped off the podium and lightly tapped the chalk tip at the sleeping little girl's desk.

"Your face is about to be dyed with ink from the tip of your pen."

"What?"

Koko, who woke up from a sweet afternoon dream, straightened up in horror.

She twisted her head, then pulled a pencil case from the girl's desk next to her.

Coco leaned over and took a look at her face with the mirror-like metal surface on the inside of the pen case.

Finding that the skin was as white and tender as a freshly peeled egg white, Coco said happily: "What, I'm scared to death my sister." ”

"Miss Coco! It's in class! What did you do last night? Wattle's tone rose up, very dissatisfied, and he felt that his anger trough was about to be filled.

"Ahh......h Professor, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ”

Only then did Coco completely wake up from her daze.

She suddenly remembered that it was a class, and immediately stood up and apologized to Professor Wattel.

"There is a big French food blogger who made puffs live on TikTok last night, and it was very popular, so I followed it and learned it, but I didn't expect it to be quite time-consuming, and it was a bit late. I'm sorry, Professor, but it tastes good, so you can eat one to cool off. ”

As she spoke, she pulled out a plastic food box with a coffee cat sticker from the bucket under her desk, and pitifully handed it to Professor Wattel.

There was a burst of laughter in the classroom.

Professor Wattle was amused, too.

looked at the small lunch box handed over by the girl, and wanted to continue to lose his temper, but he couldn't.

That's what Miss Kou does.

She is the type who accepts humbly and does not change after repeated teachings.

Skateboard in the hallway and draw on the walls the coffee cat and the graffiti of the puppy named Milou from The Adventures of Tintin...... Kou Ko is a minor offender on Dulwich College and a dismissive student council president, Mona.

But whenever she is caught by the teacher for violating discipline, Kou Kou never speaks up, and her attitude of admitting her mistakes is very good.

While apologizing, he looked at the teacher pitifully with big eyes full of water.

Teacher Feng Ji couldn't bear to punish her too harshly.

Anyway, it's not a mistake of principle, the girl apologized so sincerely, and the teacher raised his hand and let her go.

feel relieved

As soon as she disappeared from under the teacher's nose and slipped away, she would definitely go her own way and relapse immediately.

"You."

Professor Wattle shook his head, "Forget it, next time I go to bed, go to the back, don't get in the way in front of me." Now, since you stand up and answer my question, can you recognize the origin of that painting on the projector? ”

"Uh, Professor...... Let me think. ”

Coco sniffled, feeling that the portrait on the projector was a little familiar, and she couldn't remember the exact origin for a while.

"It's like 'Pretty Lady', I think it's the work of Leonardo da Vinci, probably this."

Coco said hesitantly.

"Yes, you can remember that this is Leonardo da Vinci's work." Professor Wattle said half-sarcastically, half-jokingly, "At least I didn't go to the Academy of Fine Arts in vain." ”

"If you can say the full name of 'Mrs. What's that' for the school recruitment interview. I can probably give you a three. For now, I can only give you a point or two. This means failing. ”

"If you fail, it means you may lose the offer."

"I'm sorry, Professor, I can't remember." Coco stuck out her tongue.

"Well, in order to avoid that our Miss Coco did not go to college. Gentlemen here, is anyone willing to lend a helping hand? The professor scanned the crowd.

The classroom was silent for a few seconds.

By the time Professor Wattle had begun to feel very disappointed.

A voice came from the back row: ""Beautiful Madame Ferronier" is considered to be Leonardo da Vinci's practice work in Milan's studio, with excessive light and shadow and the arc on the corner of the woman's lips with the shadow of "Mona Lisa", so it is also speculated by some academics to be the predecessor of "Mona Lisa". ”

“Bingo！ Great, that's the answer I wanted, and by the way, I'm also impressed with the sketch assignments you turn in every time. Mr. Gu. Professor Wattle had a satisfied look on his face, and he complimented.

"Miss Coco, congratulations, you can sit down. Gu Weijing, is there anything else you can add? ”

The professor asked with a smile.

Coco flicked her braids, glanced meaninglessly at the back of the classroom, and sat down in her seat.

After a little thought, Gu Weijing in the back row continued: "There is still some controversy about the identity of the owner of the portrait of this painting and whether it is the authentic work of Leonardo da Vinci. It was once in the royal collection of King Louis XIV of France, and a replica was painted at the time, which is now in the Musée de Chambéry. The original painting is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Abu Dhabi, commonly known as the Louvre Abu Dhabi. ”

“Perfect！ 5 points, this is an unquestionable 5 points answer, even the inheritance is said, it is too perfect. Let's give Gu Weijing a little applause. ”

Professor Wattle made no secret of his satisfaction and slapped his face gently.

"Come on, Gu Weijing, keep up the good work, even if you are not selected by Mrs. Cruz to participate in her genius improvement class, I still think that if anyone here has the potential to be admitted to the top 70 schools in the QS art category, then it is you."

Professor Wattle returned to the podium and pressed enter.

On the screen of the projector, detailed information about "The Beautiful Madame Felonier" appears, including the creator, the date of creation, the art school, and the museum to which the modern collection belongs.

It is exactly the same as what Gu Weijing said.

"I don't have much more to say about this painting, so let's move on to the next ......"

Gu Weijing, who was sitting alone at the back of the classroom, noticed that many people were looking at him with surprised eyes.

They were whispering quietly.

"Wow, robot, this can be remembered, it's really fake."

"Nerd."

"You're jealous, Professor Wattel said he might be able to apply to the top 70 schools."

"The professor just encouraged him, and if you really did, you lost. Didn't you listen to what the previous seniors said, there is no enough letter of recommendation to open the way, and the interviewers of other top schools are too lazy to read your portfolio. ”

……

Gu Weijing shook his head expressionlessly.

In fact, if Professor Wattle were asking about other works, he would be able to answer the name, the creator, and the school.

He was able to come up with such a perfect answer, and there was really a bit of coincidence in it.

Gu Weijing saw that Professor Wattel seemed to be immersed in the courseware, and he didn't mean to ask questions, so he stuffed a wireless earphone into his left ear.

He took out his phone, opened the official homepage of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and clicked on the promotional video in the most prominent position.

"The Louvre Abu Dhabi – an unprecedented thirty-year adventure in the history of art, the largest overseas cultural project ever undertaken by France, the heart of the Arab world."

With the sound of the symphony sounding.

The video starts playing.

The majestic steel building is the result of aerial footage from a photographic helicopter bird's eye over the nearly $10 billion project.

Designed by renowned contemporary architect and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the museum was built on the water's surface inspired by a lagoon island called Saadiyat Island, located at the junction of the sea and the desert.

The overall shape looks very similar to the combination of the bird's nest in Eastern Xia and the glass pyramid in front of the Louvre.

After a few seconds of top-down view.

The four-color flag of the United Arab Emirates and the tricolor flag of the French government emerge first, as well as the official Arabic and French names of the museum [Arabic: , French: Louvre Abou Dabi].

Then a brief black screen.

There seems to be an invisible pen swiping on the screen, and new words emerge with gold-lacquered floral letters——【Manac'h Gallery】

"Mars Gallery, the pioneer of the modern art gallery industry, the cradle of artists."

"Damon Clarkson, Vidic Bullitt, Leonard Frank, ......"

The video begins to look like opening a physical album, turning over pages and images of the artists' portraits and their representative works.

The pioneer of the modern gallery industry, this title has a bit of a vaunting element of the Mars Gallery.

However, it is undeniable that this historic gallery has a very illustrious history.

Many of the names that flash on the screen are some of the most famous artists in the history of modern and contemporary art. Everyone who studies art will bow their heads in awe in front of such a star-studded list.

A slight fly in the ointment, if anyone plays in 0.5x slow motion, take a closer look at the time when these great painters joined the Mars Gallery, and find that a large number of them are concentrated before the eighties and nineties.

It was the most star-studded day at the Gallery of Mars.

After the turn of the millennium, there were only a few acting artists of the first and second tier painters.

The picture is finally fixed on the name "Deke Allen".

"This summer, Abu Dhabi, the inventor of the Modern Art Gallery, will redefine modern art for you."

Subtitles flowed through.

The symphony's drumbeat begins to become high-pitched and exciting, and when the pianist strikes a thunderous drum beat in the bass, a new line of text emerges.

"Louvre Abu Dhabi, Allen Solo Exhibition."

"Let modern art set sail again!"

The video then came to an end, and began to jump out of the ticket booking channel, the details of the exhibition time of the art exhibition.

"That's great!" Gu Weijing sighed in his heart and clenched his fists slightly.

In the past week, he has watched this video countless times, but every time he plays it, Gu Weijing feels his blood and heart beating like a drum, and he can't help himself with excitement.

What if a painter didn't have to say anything, what was his deepest dream?

The answer can be cliché.

Artists are also human beings, nothing more than making money, winning awards, and opening art exhibitions.

What is the ultimate dream?

So, the answer might become—

Make a lot of money and sell your works for hundreds of millions of dollars;

won a big prize, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale;

opened a huge art exhibition and asked the Louvre to hold a personal art exhibition for him.

This is the highest honor in the art world.

If you can collect any one or two of these three, it is the British who can be buried in Westminster Abbey if they can't do it, or the French who may be half a century later, and the government will discuss the parliamentary proposal and move the body to the Panthéon.

It's no easier to open an art exhibition in the Louvre than to sell a work of art for $100 million.

Uncle Sakai has already sold his works for more than $100 million, and he does not dare to say that he will have the opportunity to open an art exhibition in the Louvre in his lifetime.

True

There is still a small difference between this Louvre and the Louvre in France.

But don't take the village chief as a cadre.

The 985 branch is also 985, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi is also the Louvre.

This is not a knockoff.

In an effort to collaborate with France, the UAE royal family has injected a new museum in its capital with cultural symbols that will attract the world's attention.

Other museums can also engage in co-branding.

Just to be able to use the name "Louvre", the UAE paid France 600 million euros for the co-branding fee alone.

It's not bought yet,

Just to lease the right to use it for the next thirty years.

Who would dare to say that the Louvre Abu Dhabi is not the Louvre? Even if you ask the French government, they won't give a second official answer.

Subtract the gimmick of the "Louvre".

The museum itself is one of the most modern, grandiose, and remarkable art centers in the Arabian Peninsula.

The scale of the exhibits may not be comparable with the Louvre Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in France. But looking at the world, there is no doubt that it will not be in the top 10, and it will be in the top 30 or 50.

Leonardo da Vinci's famous paintings, rent!

Classic portrait of Napoleon Prancing Horse, rent!

Van Gogh's self-portrait, rent!

Mondrian's most classic geometric paintings are all rented by Lao Tzu!

The Louvre Abu Dhabi should be the strangest art gallery in the world.

Scholars describe institutions such as the British Museum as a group of armed robbers who storm someone's house and loot all the works of art.

Even in the twenty-first world, it has an imperial background that is difficult to erase.

And with a piece of cloth on their heads, the richest oil tycoons in the world, have created an unprecedented way to open a museum.

Speak with money, buy at a high price if you can.

Is it a national treasure that you don't want to sell? It doesn't matter if you don't want to sell, then we will rent it at a high price.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has only opened in 2017 and is now home to a number of famous paintings.

It is a very lofty honor for all the famous painters in the world to be able to hold a personal art exhibition in a pavilion with so many masters' imprints.

Gu Weijing took out a propaganda page printed on coated paper from the textbook.

【Mars Gallery Represented Artist Dake Allen - "Meditations on History" (Historical Reflections Solo Art Exhibition)】

【2023.5.9——2023.7.9】

The leaflet is beautifully printed, made of black and white and color patchwork.

An invisible dividing line splits the main exhibition hall of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and two figures stand with their backs to each other, one on the left and the other on the right.

Standing on the black and white side was an old man with messy hair in a fat burlap jacket and long-legged pantyhose.

This dress was the most common dress for Italian men during the Renaissance, and this old man represented Leonardo da Vinci.

The middle-aged man on the side in the color photo on the right is naturally the current master artist of the Mars Gallery, Allen.

There are two frames on the flyer,

Leonardo da Vinci was in front of the Louvre Abu Dhabi's treasure, "The Beautiful Lady of Ferronillay", which Professor Wattel mentioned.

The frame of the oil painting in front of Allen is covered with a mysterious brown velvet cloth.

This leaflet, with a sense of design and a solemn atmosphere like a religious ceremony, was a gift from the Grand Boss of Mars III to Gu Weijing through his agent Hanks.

Mars Gallery and Louvre Abu Dhabi have a long-standing strategic partnership.

From May to July this year, after the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the Gallery of Mars will hold a solo art exhibition for its leading artists.

If Gu Weijing can win an award at the Lion City Art Exhibition.

next year

Mars Gallery will give this opportunity to Gu Weijing.

At the age of 19, he held his own solo art exhibition at the Louvre,

Unprecedented!

(End of chapter)