The Versatile Master Artist

Chapter 85: Chapter 77: Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill

Even Gu Weijing’s heart skipped twice when he saw the news.

The ”Oil Painting” magazine is no joke,

For some young painters whose market prices are still unstable, the magazine almost acts as a market endorsement.

Gu Weijing quickly opened the computer, logged into the English website of Oil Painting magazine, and clicked [Buyer’s Guide] section.

The page jumped to a login link.

The Buyer’s Guide section of ”Oil Painting” magazine implements a paid subscription system, 75 euros per person per month.

Not cheap for regular paid members, but not too expensive for professional painting information guides.

Information is money, in this regard, art and stocks are similar.

Frankly speaking, some people speculate on art as if it were stocks and futures.

These professional painter analyses are like those large accounting firms producing stock market analysis and financial reports.

Some highly valued paintings circulate only among certain private collectors; you want detailed information from an underground hunter, a simple identification report copy costs at least ten thousand euros.

Besides regular magazines like ”Oil Painting” issuing reports, other valuable news in the art circle includes info on underground auctions of stolen famous paintings, these messages are also highly valuable.

Gu Weijing’s school purchased the educational version of the ”Oil Painting” membership, but it needs to be used under campus network conditions.

Fortunately, after all, his family runs a gallery, his grandfather also has a membership.

Link automatically jumps.

[Painter: Detective Cat (Real Name - Unknown)]

[Information: Online artist on Nutshell, 36 years old, female. Currently residing in Algeria. (This info is doubtful)]

[Signed Gallery: None/Unknown]

[Agent: None/Unknown]

[Painting Style Brief: This painter excels in sketch strokes, has a strong pencil drawing foundation, is quite adept at portraying muscle texture of figures, with a painting style similar to renowned illustrator Norman Rockwell.]

[Representative Works: ”Hibernian Batman” (Note: this work once received similar ratings in the channel of YouTube blogger Mr. Hibernian compared to illustrator Jean Arnou’s work on the same theme. (Jump Link)]

[Market Value Estimate: USD: $2000-$20000 (Special Note * the artist’s works have never circulated in auction art markets, this data has low reference value, please buyers choose cautiously.*)]

[Comprehensive Evaluation: Two and a half stars - a painter with uncertain potential.]

...

Just that afternoon when Gu Weijing discovered he logged into the Oil Painting magazine website.

His phone received two messages from Nutshell customer service.

”Your complaint of malicious competition has been accepted; we have revoked the negative review received by your store at 13:57 on February 2.”

”Nutshell part-time studio [Cheap but not bad] has been required to revise posters, pin an apology letter, and lower recommendation priority, etc., penalties. If you are dissatisfied with the result, you may appeal again, and we will respond to you within 4 hours.”

This is surely Anna’s handiwork.

Often a person’s different status, different perspective, decides the method of handling things differently.

[Cheap but not bad] such a studio aiming to bite you, for someone like Gu Weijing or even Professor Ray Louis, it’s like dog shit stuck on your shoe, hard to deal with.

But for Anna, things are far less complicated.

She only updated Detective Cat’s recommendation page on the Oil Painting magazine website, then as the name of podcast host Mr. Tree Sloth, filed a complaint letter to Nutshell’s customer service department.

She casually questioned what kind of artistic values the website intends to convey by allowing such promotional posters to appear.

So half an hour later, everything was properly resolved, and she didn’t even need to use her connections in the art circle.

Foreign websites are not afraid of official censorship, but they fear such professional civil critique attacks.

Moreover, according to the strict website rules and regulations, such face-sticking behavior of [Cheap but not bad] studio is not allowed.

It’s just that often customer service’s problem-solving efficiency is quite slow.

Both sides pull back and forth, and customer service makes peace; several weeks just pass by.

But with Detective Cat appearing on ”Oil Painting” magazine, the significance is immediately different.

What is Detective Cat now?

An online illustrator?

No, she is an art expert.

In recent years, Nutshell has moved past that time of offering $5 cheap part-time jobs.

Management has always wanted to professionalize the website’s nature, promoting the idea—what you find here is not just part-timers but industry experts providing you a brand new solution.

For example, those few high-salary senior programmers from Silicon Valley on the website’s promotional page are the biggest highlight on Nutshell, also part-time experts in the IT field.

Now Detective Cat has become an expert in the art illustration field.

Although the shop’s revenue can’t compare with programmers, the rarity of the term artist ranks much higher than programmers.

Having such an artist working part-time on their site makes Nutshell feel like they’ve found a treasure, and after receiving Mr. Tree Sloth’s complaint, a special Vip customer service dealt with the complaint right away.

After the only bad review was annulled, on that evening, Gu Weijing’s positive feedback record finally reached twenty.

[Buyer O YANG gave you positive feedback!]

[Received more than 20 orders on Nutshell (fulfilled), positive rating over 95% (fulfilled).]

[Congratulations, you completed the second step of the occupational chain task!]

He opened the panel.

The panel indicated the second step of the occupational chain task was completed, with a prompt that a reward awaits Gu Weijing.

He clicked to claim, and then a new skill appeared on the panel.

[Active Skill: Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill]

[Current Quality: Fine]

[Special Effect One (Calligraphy and Painting Appreciation): Upon activating the skill, you can deconstruct the color, structure, and lines of a painting. The painting’s information will appear in data form on the panel. It allows direct appreciation of paper artworks physically or high-definition electronic albums, with certain differences in identification effect.]

[Special Effect Two (Soul Sensing): During the appreciation process of master paintings, there’s a probability to trigger limited tasks. Note: Admiring works with excessively higher aesthetic levels than your own may cause additional mental burden to the host, please use skills prudently, current activatable task count (1/1).]

[Special Effect Three (Skill Advancement): This skill is upgradable; after using Painting Identification Skill one thousand times, the skill will upgrade. (Current progress bar: (0/1000)]

[Equipment Requirements: At least twelve years of experience in art study, identification, or the field of art criticism; skill usage consumes 50 points of free experience points, no cooldown time.]

[Note: Soul absorbs another soul’s emotions to enrich itself, then returns to the world with fuller emotions.]

”Upgradable skill?”