The Versatile Master Artist

”Her surname is Elina, and she’s a descendant of nobility. You’ve heard of the Elina family from Austria that founded the Oil Painting Magazine, right? When my dad saw Mr. Hibernian’s video introduction, he had some suspicions. Later, the media exposed it; Miss Anna is the last heir of that ancient Elina family.”

”A crucial topic of this Oil Painting Magazine’s restructuring is to remove the Elina family, who wish to maintain the old-fashioned magazine operation model, from the management. No one expected that the only agenda Lady Elina proposed during the shareholder meeting that expelled her was about Detective Cat. She even presented a sample copy of what was said to be The Little Prince for everyone to evaluate.”

”Unfortunately, it seems that besides Miss Elina’s mysterious confidence in Detective Cat, those esteemed masters didn’t think highly of Detective Cat.”

”I was just watching the recording of the shareholder meeting. If you want to know more details, why don’t we watch it together?”

Koizumi Katsuko clicked the play button on the video.

The Oil Painting Magazine sent the shareholder meeting record and the magazine’s new development strategy to every paid subscriber’s email inbox.

However, in terms of topic popularity, there were actually more people discussing it on public platforms.

There are now several vloggers on YouTube who have uploaded related videos.

Some even include expert analyses of the long-term impacts of the resolutions made at this shareholder meeting, which are continually spreading and fermenting online.

For instance, the link Koizumi Katsuko shared with Gu Weijing is one of them.

This is a video uploaded by a part-time YouTuber who is working in investment banking, according to their profile description.

The title reads — [Witness a Real Business War: Vote at a Shareholders’ Meeting of a Five-Billion-Euro Valued Magazine. The Female Judge from Mr. Hibernian’s Video Makes Another Appearance!]

The video tags are ”Finance/Art”.

Since its upload yesterday, the video has already exceeded 323K views.

Finance and art are niche categories on YouTube, so a video garnering over 300,000 views in half a day already demonstrates high popularity.

Moreover, the number of views and comments continues to climb over time.

Koizumi Katsuko directly dragged the video progress bar to the scene where Anna Ilina demands an apology to Detective Cat from the Oil Painting management and presents a sample of Detective Cat’s work for the shareholders to view.

”These video contents seem to have been shot from a fixed position in the corner of the meeting room, and the focus is not clear enough to see the ’true face’ of the The Little Prince in Miss Ilina’s hands, but, as you said, it does indeed bear a strong resemblance to the color scheme of the girl’s storybook in the commercial just now.”

Koizumi Katsuko looked at the yellow book cover in the hands of the French academician.

She nodded affirmatively at Gu Weijing’s judgment.

”That’s right, that book should be The Little Prince. Alas, whether it’s due to their stance or not, being collectively dismissed by so many masters in the art criticism field almost spells the end of Detective Cat’s artistic career.”

Koizumi Katsuko shook her head regretfully: ”Speaking from my heart, her sketch really amazed me. In Mr. Tree Sloth’s art critique, Detective Cat Sister’s interpretation of Impressionism also greatly benefited me. I actually sympathize with this African artist.”

”However, I don’t have the courage to go against the tide like Miss Ilina and these masters do; these words I can only say to you in private, Mr. Gu. In the future, we need to protect ourselves; these people are not ones we can afford to offend. Sometimes, when these art critics want to support you, it’s difficult, but to destroy an excellent artist, it only takes a few casual comments and critiques.”

”Even the grand gallery owners are somewhat fearful of these renowned art criticism organizations.”

Amidst the material world, no one is truly free.

Koizumi Katsuko takes art seriously as well, but she doesn’t have Anna’s family background or any necessity to publicly speak up for Detective Cat.

Even if she doesn’t consider herself, she has to think for her father.

In modern society, the status of artists is high; they can be unique, even act unconventionally, ignoring government orders and mocking collectors who don’t agree as philistines.

At Uncle Sakai’s weight in the industry, not even gallery owners need to matter much.

After all, without Ota Art Gallery, there’s still Gagosian. If not Gagosian, there are Tokyo Gallery, Lisson, PACE, or at worst, Ma Shi Gallery, waving checks eagerly.

As long as they are not banned by the industry, there’s plenty of room to maneuver.

Renowned art criticism institutions wield something close to a ”ban” right against an artist.

Balthus, a cat painting expert, was exposed in his later years to have suspicions of pedophilia, and his works featured a lot of depictions of young girls’ bodies, almost reaching the bottom line of societal tolerance, yet his works still sold for high prices.

Like those precious jewelry made from Tibetan antelope wool, elephant ivory, and kingfisher feathers, as long as the work itself is beautiful, whether moral or not, there will be collectors willing to buy.

But in 2012, the great art critic Robert Hughes wrote just one critique of Vite’s graffiti art, which had just sold for a high price at Christie’s, stating that he lacked true creativity and merely catered to market demands commercially.

This single comment instantly halved the unlucky Vite’s average artwork prices.

For five consecutive years, almost no major collectors were willing to buy Vite’s paintings.

”Mr. Gu, are you okay?” Koizumi Katsuko suddenly noticed Gu Weijing’s face didn’t look good.

Gu Weijing didn’t speak.

He stared at the phone screen, which was playing the part where the man everyone called ”Sir Brown” critiqued his work, belonging to the fraudulent painting knife painting style, unworthy of serious regard.

With each repeated ”Lady Ilina, you’re wrong” coming from the speakers,

Gu Weijing’s brows furrowed deeper and deeper.

”Listening to the shareholders of Oil Painting, it seems like Detective Cat in The Little Prince adopted the painting knife painting style, which isn’t accepted by the criticism circles, and I don’t find that surprising.”

Koizumi Katsuko commented as she watched the screen.

”No.”

After a while,

Gu Weijing shook his head slowly.

As if responding to Koizumi Katsuko’s viewpoint, or perhaps talking to himself, he said, ”This isn’t about the painting knife painting.”

The overall impression of painting knife painting to people is not good; the industry does indeed have various issues.

But to be rated as a legendary painting technique,

Any art scholar with enough cultivation can easily tell that his work is entirely different from those tricking art enthusiasts into signing up for classes and buying lessons.

His creations could conquer Mr. Tree Sloth, so there’s no reason they can’t conquer these judges.

The only possibility is,

They did not honestly provide an art critique.

Gu Weijing slowly clenched his fist.

He felt three parts fortunate, three parts ridiculous, and the remaining four parts were anger.

The fortune lied in the fact that Detective Cat is, after all, just his alias.

The critical ban against street artist Detective Cat is, in principle, unrelated to Gu Weijing, the last disciple of Mr. Cao Xuan with aspirations of participating in exhibitions and becoming a leading figure of the Academic School.

However, the ridiculousness and anger arose because—since childhood, he held a certain admiration for Oil Painting.

This is the world’s most authoritative art criticism institution, expected to be brilliant and just.

Every art student under the sun would take pride in receiving appreciation from Oil Painting Magazine.

People’s respect for the esteemed dual-academic, curator, and grand judge in Oil Painting’s shareholder meetings is akin to every scientist’s respect for the scientists in the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences who select Nobel Prize laureates.

How could they not be dignified gentlemen?

One of Gu Tongxiang’s lifetime wishes was to receive his own column review in Oil Painting Magazine.

If even the judges evaluating the quality of art waive honesty in their speech,

wouldn’t this industry become a joke?