Mr. Cao, who has been sealing the pen for a long time, suddenly asked to polish the ink.

How dare Lao Yang snub.

Almost at a sprint pace, he trotted all the way to get the inkstone and rice paper, then opened a box in the storage compartment, thought for a moment, and carried the whole storage box with the word "Tinte" written on it in Chinese and German bilingual back to the study like a dumbbell.

Many of the galleries that major artists work with have endorsement contracts with painting furniture dealers.

For example, if Issei Sakai signed with Mars Gallery.

Usual painting equipment, paints, brushes.

Especially in front of the media cameras, you can basically only use the stuff of a niche art and culture label from southern Belgium.

That's what people do with sponsorship money, if they are willing to dig deep into the market consumption potential.

Maybe in two years, there will be another "Sakai Issei" joint series, limited to 1,000 copies, and the small leeks that are not bad for cutting money or something.

It's not just about drawing.

The bigger the artists and galleries, the more IP contracts they have with various cultural companies. Dalí has collaborated with luxury jewelers, Takashi Murakami has a contract with Louis Vuitton, and the great painters under the Mars Gallery can only wear watches provided for them by Richard Miller in public......

As long as the fame is big enough.

Basically, their food, clothing, housing and transportation, especially all aspects related to painting, have been covered by commercial companies and galleries since they opened their eyes every day.

Cao Xuan has not signed with the gallery.

But because of this, every year on various festivals, the old man will have strange painting equipment companies to send him a dazzling array of painting supplies as gifts.

These messy things are piled up in a room, Gu Weijing's set of master painting tools, that is, Cao Lao didn't want it, and was taken away by Lao Yang to waste and use it, and borrowed flowers to offer Buddha.

After Lao Yang took over Cao Lao's personal assistant work.

He found that the old gentleman actually didn't pay much attention to the use of pens, the new pen and the old pen, what use it, and the almost pen couldn't flow into Cao Xuan's hands.

However, he is very particular about the quality of ink ingots and pigments.

Last year, when Cao Xuan agreed to go out of the mountain and lead the Shwedagon Pagoda project, he only made a few requests.

Among them, all the ink strips, cinnabar and other pigments used were for him to see for himself.

In this way, we can achieve the purpose of painting the old as the old and repairing the old as the old.

Most of the big boxes in his hand were gifts from the century-old Hu Yige Ink Factory when he was invited to the Huizhou International Cultural Festival and visited Huangshan when he visited Huangshan.

Cao Xuan has always used it smoothly.

"Old man, which one are you going to use today? In the eleventh year of the Republic of China, the 53 years, and the 78 years, did you still take out those two pieces of clear ink and grind them? ”

Lao Yang asked cautiously in the tone of the great eunuch who asked "Shengshang, which brand to turn over today, which lady to sleep on, East Palace or West Palace Niangniang".

Cao Lao suddenly had to start writing again.

Lao Yang's excited heart trembled hands, and it really looked like His Majesty, who had no heirs for a long time, and suddenly wanted to stay in the harem at night.

Cao Xuan pondered for a moment.

There is a consensus in the circle of Chinese painting and calligraphy lovers.

That is, sheep hair, wolf hair, even the more expensive purple hair, rare mouse whisker pen, as long as the same painter with the same category of softness to write the peak, hundreds of and thousands of strokes drawn by the painting, the lines are very different.

Even if Gu Tongxiang's baby is like something, the set of jade old pens handed down by the ancestors.

It is more about the emotional value of the user, rather than the technical value.

Ink and pigment are completely different concepts.

The old ink is better than the new ink, the taste is more elegant, and the brushwork is smoother, which is not a very incomprehensible scientific metaphysical problem.

First of all, the importance of ink ingots is really not comparable between modern society and ancient society.

Its status has degenerated from a mainstream writing instrument to something that is only used by niche art lovers.

The market is too small, and the ink factory has no intention of refining good ink.

The Ming and Qing dynasties of ink making is a highly developed, very subdivided and refined industry.

Tobacco refining, blending, making, drying, gold painting...... Each process has a large factory that specializes in this kind of work, and it is many generations of people who can live very nourishingly.

The contemporary ink factory that plays like this has long since closed down.

Secondly, there is the process problem.

Hundred-year-old pine roots, deer horn gum and other traditional raw materials, otherwise they can't be dug up, can't be added, and can be added too expensive, so they can only be replaced by pine branches and gel.

At the beginning of the 15th year of the Republic of China, Huizhou Ink Factory began to introduce a large number of German low-cost carbon black to replace the more cumbersome tobacco refining method, and later the ink making method in the 80s was restructured to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Almost all of them have caused the quality of the ink to drop by more than one grade, and it has also made the old ink of these years, every time the era is pushed forward, the market price will immediately rise by a big step.

Of course, there are also problems with the preservation of ancient ink that is too old.

I have heard that there are rich people who are not bad for money and use inkstones in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, but I have not heard of anyone who used ink blocks in the Yuan Dynasty.

The box of ink in front of Cao Xuan is worth a thousand gold exaggeratedly.

But each piece is the best of the best, even the more recent ones, it is also a high-end route of handmade ink.

"I remember that there was a copy of the ingots in the box that imitated 'Imitation of Ming Minghua Eighteen Pinink'?" Cao Xuan thought for a moment.

Famous flower ink.

This is the traditional classic ink ingot style of the Eastern Xia, which has appeared since the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

A group of 10, 12, or 18 ink ingots, embedded in a black lacquered gold box.

Each ink ingot is painted with flowers such as sherbets, peonies, Shen Ding, jasmine and other flowers in the form of a combination of yang lines and bas-reliefs, plus extremely fine gold lines.

It not only shows the beauty of flowers, but also increases its luxury.

The back of the box will be decorated with moire and light grass patterns. According to ten spindles, twelve spindles, eighteen spindles, small, medium, and large three kinds of ink cartridges, the center is written with "Ten Friends of Famous Flowers", "Twelve Guests of Famous Flowers" or "Eighteen Grades of Famous Flowers".

"Yes, yes, I should keep it below."

When Lao Yang heard this, he immediately rummaged through the storage box and found a long lacquerware box.

The box is not big, and it says that there are eighteen ingots inside, and each ink ingot is very small and cute.

It's only the length of a little finger, no more than the stationery erasers used by the students.

Plainly.

This kind of expensive ink block, since the production of cultural toys has more attributes of collection than use, and is often used as a souvenir for literati doctors when they visit relatives and friends.

Cao Xuan opened the lid, picked out the ink block with the "wisteria" pattern from it, and handed it to Lao Yang.

"It's grinding, and the wisteria ink gives back the wisteria flowers, which complement each other."

"Just grind one ingot?"

"One ingot is enough."

Lao Yang licked the corners of his mouth, agreed, took water with an inkstone, poured it into the stone inkstone, rolled up his sleeve, clamped the ink strip with his thumb and middle finger, and pressed his index finger against the upper edge, slowly grinding out the inkstone.

"It's a pity".

This box of famous flowers and eighteen pins of ink is not two pieces of clear ink, but it is also the production date of the early years of the Republic of China, which is older than the record in the next year.

Even if it's just grinding off one product, the remaining seventeen products are not used.

If you put it out, the market price will have to be reduced by four to fifty percent.

It's a pity that Lao Yang is not this ink strip.

Most of the inks used by ordinary enthusiasts are tyrannical objects, and their writing is like burning money.

Cao Xuan used these inks, but the master matched the ink, the good horse with the saddle, and the pen was like printing money.

But the old man only let him grind a small piece of ink,

Looking at the color, the gum of this old ink has been dehydrated, and the ink line is vigorous and burnt, which seems to be more suitable for writing brush characters rather than drawing and outlining.

In addition, Cao Xuan only asked him to grind a small ink strip, and it didn't look like he was going to paint ink paintings.

"Do you want to write a letter for Brother Gu?"

Lao Yang guessed the answer.

Today is a surprise enough, Cao Lao's handwriting is also very good, and it is also extremely expensive, and each square foot is only a few thousand yuan lower than Mr. Qigong.

But after all, painting is more meaningful.

"Sealing the pen is sealing the pen, and the Shwedagon Pagoda is already for the sake of the Bodhisattva, making an exception. Draw one on the left and one on the right, what does it look like? When I spread the word, everyone must think that I am colluding with the market to raise prices. Forget it, it's time for young people. Cao Lao smiled.

"When Qi Baishi was in his seventies, he still got up every morning to paint thirty paintings, your age, as long as you want, there are still paintings." Lao Yang also wanted to persuade.

Even if Cao Lao painted a picture and gave it back to Gu Weijing - this kind of thing passed by casually in his mind, he felt jealous and had a heart attack.

This guy has only known Cao Xuan for a few days, how many years has his old Yang saddle run before and after, why doesn't Cao Lao want to give him Lao Yang's paintings!

Although the young man's small mouth is quite sweet, his old Yang also licks it so hard.

However, as an assistant, in addition to these distractions, Lao Yang still longs for the old man's artistic life to be longer and longer.

Cao Xuan no longer deals with assistants.

He stood up, took this year's calendar on the table, flipped to the cover of the list of artists inscribed on the Shwedagon Pagoda project in gilt font, and looked at the two names "Cao Xuan" and "Gu Weijing" on it.

The old man stretched out his finger and gently leaned the yellowed black-and-white photograph against the old side of the calendar.

Jiazi time.

Two pairs of master and apprentice.

They are all one end and one tail, the teacher is at the front, and the disciple is at the back.

History is like a cycle that repeats itself.

The master is passed on to the apprentice, the apprentice becomes the teacher, one generation goes, the next generation comes, life and death, only the soul of art, passed down from generation to generation, and the spark follows one after another.

Cao Xuan's expression was gentle.

Since ancient times, the Eastern Xia Gaomen School has paid attention to the view of the portal.

The same is true of painting, which has been divided into Southern and Northern Sects since the two Jin Dynasty.

The southern sect was evacuated softly, and the northern sect was cautious.

The qi of the Southern Sect is still plain and confused, and the body of the Northern Sect is still strange and abrupt.

The Southern Sect tends to be free and casual, while the Northern Sect tends to be portrayal and attentive.

Jiangnan and Jiangbei confront each other, disagree with each other, want to win each other, and even between the portals, the north and the south are separated, so that the two groups of people are like enemies of each other.

On the surface, this phenomenon was gradually dying out after the death of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the modern art academy system, which replaced the traditional teaching form of a gentleman with several disciples in the study in secret.

In fact.

Even in the middle and late Republic of China, the separation between the north and the south of fine arts, the regional prejudice between various small art gangs and small groups, was still turbulent in the interpersonal relations of great painters.

The people of Beijing are lonely and high, and the people of Lingnan are arrogant.

The atmosphere in Shanghai is xenophobic and does not tolerate outsiders.

The most typical representative is Mr. Shiraishi, the representative of the northern painters in the "Southern Zhang and Northern Qi" theory, who is a native of Hunan who went north to Beijing and was suppressed and excluded because of his identity. It can be called the bitter history of North Drift a hundred years ago, and when Mr. Qi recalls it in his later years, he will feel a lot of emotion every time he talks about it.

To this day, Cao Xuan is still considered by many people to be the next representative and head of the Southern Painting Sect after Zhang Daqian.

Since ancient times.

Seventy percent of the people who can wear this hat on their heads are leaders of the southern Shilin, and they are also proud princes and princes in white without official status.

It is precisely because of this meaning that Tang Ning will be so hot on the throne under the teacher's ass.

Even many times, Cao Xuan himself has forgotten a little that his ancestral home is Shuntianfu, and strictly speaking, he is actually an authentic northerner.

After the teacher's death,

Whether a northerner can be regarded as the successor of the master of the southern school of painting has caused great controversy.

The three teachers' former friends and seniors read aloud the suicide note specially left by the husband in front of everyone.

Mentioning this, the teacher said.

The world is ignorant, the great painters of the Northern Sect, Dai Jin, Wu Wei, Jiang Song, Liu Songnian and others, were all born in the south, and the great painters of the Southern Sect, Zhao Gan, Guan Tong, and Li Cheng, are all northerners.

Even Wang Wei, who has always been proud of the Southern Landscape Painting School as his ancestor, is actually a northerner.

Although Dong Qichang is a great figure in the art world once in a century, it is really ridiculous that he uses the north and the south to judge the high and low.

"The homeland should not be divided by east and west, and painting should not be despised by north and south."

In his mind, instead of putting people into different baskets because of the different places of birth, it is better to use the different practice methods of "Southern Zen" and "Northern Zen" in Buddhism to metaphorize and analogy the two ways of learning, technical characteristics and creative tendencies of landscape painting.

The so-called Southern School of Painting is plain and chaotic, free and casual in the essence of painting, how to pay attention to painting?

One is quiet, and the other is true.

Listening to the sound of the heart in the quiet depths, it is really wonderful to draw like life.

The "Wisteria Flowers" handed over by Gu Weijing is more pleasing to the eye than Tang Ning's "Hundred Flowers", which is more important to the technique, and he feels that he has the true meaning of the Southern School of painting.

"It is not easy to paint like this, this state of mind is really not easy, my husband taught me hand in hand, and I also had a breakthrough in my state of mind when I was thirty years old. He's eighteen years old, and he's already gotten there, but I haven't had time to mention him too much. When it comes to being a master, I'm not as good as my husband. ”

"Well, just praise him, this kid deserves it."

Cao Xuan breathed a sigh of relief.

In an instant, the thirty-eight big characters turned out to be like a dragon, all in one go.

[The pearl of luminous light does not have to come from the river of Mengjin. 】

[The best in your hand does not have to be mined in the Kunlun Mountain. 】

[Thousands of rocks are gorgeous, thousands of ravines are contending, but they want to be a solo show. 】

(End of chapter)