(I wish readers a happy and prosperous New Year!) ）

"When the Prince of Hanover sold the mansion to the Lower Saxony state government for one euro, the original contract stipulated that Germany would invest no less than 37.5 million euros in the complete renovation of the 135 rooms of Marin Castle."

Eliot examines the photocopied copy of the document at hand.

"In the past two years, the state government seems to be unable to afford such a large amount of expenditure due to the financial and epidemic reduction of tourists, and after the current investment allocation of 30 million yuan has been dropped, the construction has been stopped for three or four years, and only a small half of it has been renovated, and the budget has been rising. I just want to throw this trouble to us. ”

The secretary flattened her mouth and complained very viciously.

"Hmph, this is not a well-intentioned olive branch, this is for us to wipe our ass for the state government!"

"This 19th-century castle wanted to be renovated to the level of infrastructure of a large modern museum, running water, electricity, visitor center. It is also necessary to ensure that the overall appearance of the building is not affected, and the minimum additional investment will be more than 70 million euros, and if it is to be completed within a year, it may be more secure to add another 20 million euros. ”

"Miss, do you think it's not worth it, and you want me to push it?"

"Actually......"

Eliot was sarcastic.

She still felt in her heart that this deal was actually a good deal.

Anyway.

It was also the former royal palace of the Prince of Hanover.

This generation of Prince Hanover was the head of the Welf royal family and the great-grandson of Wilhelm II.

If the seven aunts and eight aunts all go around in a circle, they can still get a little cousin with Ole.

He also had a bit of a distant relative with the former Habsburgs.

But it was also an empire that collapsed in World War I.

From Weimar onwards, Germany was far more tolerant of the aristocracy than Austria.

Although the local government does not recognize it.

But the Hannover family can still be openly called the prince in the media.

Unlike Anna, who will be strictly required by the law, even the middle name Feng is banned.

But on the other hand, in terms of wealth inheritance, the Elena family is much richer than the Prince of Hanover.

Ole said that his cousin was a big landlady in Austria, and it was not for nothing.

But there is a point.

Although Anna has no shortage of land, even she does not lack castles.

But unless she takes out the manor where she lives and opens a family art museum.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to find another historical building as magnificent, exquisite, and large enough to be found in Marienburg.

Unless the meaning is important or gorgeous.

Otherwise.

The pink castle imagined by the girls in most fairy tales.

In fact, they are all very cumbersome industries.

There is no water, no electricity, cobwebs everywhere, and dirt and slag falling down the walls, and the use value is very low.

There is no shortage of down-and-out counts in Europe who have a castle in the Bavarian countryside and rent a small apartment in Berlin every day to deliver pizza on a bicycle.

Even the country castle estates owned by the Yelena family.

The vast majority can be rented if they can.

No one wanted it, so they changed to Airbnb B&B for international tourists to try something new.

She and Mr. Hyperion first met because the big influencer rented all of her eerie gothic castles to shoot expedition videos.

Marin Castle is a Romanesque palace of great significance and beauty.

Although it is expensive to renovate.

However, the budget-conscious government department spent tens of millions of euros on renovation and repair.

The state governments that repaired it are almost unable to afford it.

Compared with those who spend 100,000 or 200,000 euros, no one wants a medieval knight earthen castle in the countryside, isn't it a manifestation of high cultural value?

Art galleries, museums.

Excellent architecture and excellent collections can produce the effect of 1+1 greater than 2.

Just as when people think of the Louvre, in addition to the "Mona Lisa" and "Venus with Broken Arms", they will immediately think of the magnificent Renaissance palace and the crystal pyramid designed by I.M. Pei in front of the palace.

They have all become symbols of Western art as a whole.

The palace is a pedigree certificate of a high-profile museum.

A museum built on a heritage building is itself like a racehorse with a thoroughbred pedigree certificate.

It is destined that its influence will not be low.

Many of the world's most popular museums are built on old palaces.

For example, the Vatican Museums are the papal courts, the Louvre is the residence of the French kings, the Hermitage Museum in Russia is the residence of Emperor Ye, and the Picasso Museum is a medieval palace in Ribeira.

And we can't forget the world-famous Palace Museum in Eastern Xia.

The British Museum has been ridiculed by the French for many years because its headquarters is newly built.

Of course.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is excluded.

North American old hats.

No one will taunt.

The European cousins were only very generous and showed pity for these uneducated cowboys.

"We don't necessarily spend a lot of money. Counting the donations we receive these days from galleries and paintings, with our current cash reserves, we should be able to cover the cost of renovations. ”

Armed with fear that he was pushing too hard, Elliot changed his mind about what Miss had said.

"I asked these questions because I just felt that since Marienburg was a city that the Lower Saxony government could not afford to repair and sell, and that such a historic building could not be sold to any commercial company, it was a hot potato, and we were sure of them."

"At the very least, you can ask for a low-interest loan, and then ask the other party to rebuild a country link road of about 5 kilometers between Marin Castle and the A2 motorway, at least to expand it to a four-lane ......"

"We'll talk about that later. I'm not talking about it. ”

Miss Elena shook her head, "I'm referring to the Scholastic Group's awards, help me push it." ”

She pushed her wheelchair around, put her phone aside, and looked out the window.

All of a sudden.

Anna seems to have lost interest in the renovation plan that costs tens of millions of euros for the time being.

The girl stared silently at the flower garden outside the manor window.

"Oh, oh, okay."

Elliot thought hard for three seconds.

It was only in the depths of the corners of my mind that I dug out what the young lady said.

Publishing groups in the United States like to rub the heat the most.

They value public opinion, the business credo of quick response.

Not only did Sir Brown give his speech, but the head of the Scholastic Group had all but given up on the detective cat.

The same is true when waiting for Anna to give a speech with a wave of applause.

The head of the house immediately finalized the nominees for the award, and also sent an invitation to ask Anna if she would like to be the guest of honor at this awards party.

Elliot was about to forget about this stubble.

She didn't pay attention to the group's announcement, and she didn't know that Detective Cat had been nominated.

Whether it is Anna's popularity in the field of public opinion, or her return to the magazine "Oil Painting" and taking an important position as the manager of the visual arts column.

Similar activities such as attending art festivals and biennials and serving as a guest.

In the past few days, there have been not ten cases, but eight cases.

Even the organizing committee of the Venice Biennale sent an invitation.

It's just that Anna rejected the convention that the editor of "Oil Painting" was not suitable to be a judge of an art exhibition.

U.S. awards would have been correspondingly less valued in Europe.

Odd?

Miss Anna seemed to be acting unusually.

Even if they see the announcement, people close to Elliot will feel ...... The other party seems to pay a little too much attention to the detective cat himself.

It's not as simple as an appreciative painter, or a tool man to slap Sir Brown's face.

——

Gu Weijing took out a metal key from his pocket.

Twist the lock and open the door.

Wattel, the sketch teacher, has a lesson for the advanced class this afternoon, and the office is empty.

Gu Weijing walked straight into the suite in the back room.

The golden sunlight filtered through the window and fell on the workbench, and the air floated with various pigments, dried pine, and glycerin, which were smoked by the golden sun, and the smell of it mixed together.

Slightly bitter.

It doesn't smell good or bad, if you ask an art student what it's like to "make art".

Probably this is the breath that lingers on the tip of the nose.

Professor Wattle gave Gu Weijing a spare key to the office door.

He is welcome to come and practice on his own in the afternoon when he has free time, or when his classmates are in advanced classes.

this week.

Gu Weijing would come over almost every day and spend two or three hours to complete a watercolor painting practice.

From repeated flat coatings, to some simple landscapes that exercise color matching.

When you're done, leave the painting here.

Mr. Wattle would take the drawing away, leave a sticky note, and then point out the deficiencies in the practice as if it were homework.

And so on and so forth.

Yesterday, Gu Weijing tried to use a mixture of red, yellow and blue to create a low-saturation gray with a blank solution to try to paint a scene of the sparkling Spree River under the covered bridge on the Museum Island.

It expresses water waves, expresses mirrors, and expresses sunlight.

Whether in oil painting, Chinese painting, or watercolor, this is already a kind of complex combination painting.

Gu Weijing found the note left by Wattle on the workbench.

There is only a simple "good" evaluation above.

The master led the way into the door, and the practice was in the individual.

The German teacher's watercolor level is still slightly ahead of Gu Weijing in terms of total experience.

may have taught Gu Weijing the theory of watercolor painting, from flat painting to gradient blending, and he had already taken a night to give him a small lesson a few days ago.

Once Gu Weijing began to gradually get started, there were not many suggestions that could be given to him in practice.

Each time, the comments on the sticky notes left for Gu Weijing are decreasing at a speed that is visible to the naked eye.

The first day.

Several sticky notes were filled with how to control the saturation of paint, and how he pressed the edges of the colors with a watercolor brush and dragged them repeatedly to soften the edges.

the day after.

It can only be mentioned that when the atmosphere of the fog is thick, the amount of cobalt blue and raw ochre can be increased by one point, and the dose of permanent rose red can be reduced by one point.

Day 3 was more streamlined and general.

……

At the same time, Wattle was secretly shocked by the improvement of Gu Weijing's watercolor level and the depth of his artistic foundation in the three major fields of color, line, and structure.

He also had no choice but to find that in addition to seriously putting away all these watercolor practice paintings.

It is already difficult for Wattle to make very constructive comments.

Of course, Gu Weijing's work is far from the point where the audience feels flawless, and the Germans can see some imperfections, dissonances.

But if only he could clearly point out what the problem was and make appropriate suggestions for correction.

Excuse me.

Wattle knew that this was too high a standard for himself.

He is not Cao Xuan, nor is he Lin Tao or Sakai Issei.

Students approaching Level 4 are no longer part of the daily practice of the teachers employed by Dulwich College.

So to this day.

On this afternoon when the weekend was approaching again, Gu Weijing found that the sticky notes left for him on the workbench were only a simple "good" comment.

In fact, whether Gu Weijing still wants to go to Wattle's office to paint is no longer meaningful in terms of improving his skills.

However, Wattel: The desk here that can be tilted at a standard 15-degree angle is custom-made.

It's not available everywhere.

Gu Weijing has already ordered an easel online that can be manually adjusted to the angle, in order not to delay the progress of the practice before the easel arrives.

He is still used to skipping class and taking time out to come to the other party's office to hone his watercolor skills.

This is also the most important task of Gu Weijing every day in school.

He placed his bag on the floor in a corner, took out a piece of hot-pressed fine-grained watercolor paper from the cabinet, and attached it to the workbench with artpaper tape.

Glancing at the photo of Museum Island, which is usually placed on the table.

Then I opened the same experience value panel and took a look at it - [Watercolor Painting Technique: Lv.3 Semi-Professional (951/1000)]

I bowed my head and began to type.

Gu Weijing's draft today is different from the line draft he typed during the previous exercises.

He didn't make a draft of the covered bridge, nor did he make a draft of the water.

Gu Wei practiced the flat painting of the covered bridge twice, and he was familiar with the painting, and it was difficult to quickly enter a large amount of experience points.

He also didn't paint the surface of the water because it didn't help him much to overcome the bottleneck of watercolor technique.

The reason is the opposite of the covered bridge.

It is too difficult to express the luster of the water surface, the flat lake and the swift current, and the vivid expression of various fogs.

Gu Weijing is not very good at control.

Even though Mr. Wattle gave him a "Above Expected" on the sticky note.

You know your level best.

Whether it's the feeling of struggle when drawing, or the experience points that have improved after a few hours of practice on the system panel.

It's all explained.

Gu Weijing uses the technique of blending gradient to paint the surface of the water, which is simply to be able to draw and have the knowledge theory of this technique.

There is still a long way to go before you can draw a good work.

The changes of light and shadow are more complex and subtle than a smooth covered bridge, and the sky is simpler than the ripples on the water surface.

It should be a subject that can bring enough challenges to yourself without being too strenuous.

There are two main types of clouds in watercolors.

One is a bright cloud on a dark background, the key is to control the soft edge of the pen, the difficulty is to make the cloud behave like a fluffy cotton, without too obvious pen marks.

The other is the other way around.

Dark clouds on a bright background. The point is to make the clouds look like a hazy mist in the sunlight.

(End of chapter)