The Versatile Master Artist

Unless you’re a masochist, no one wants to endure such self-tormenting days.

Gu Weijing simply doesn’t want to lose this intense anger and persistent ability.

He doesn’t want it to dissipate.

Gu Weijing is even somewhat afraid that he might really become the kind of person who treats everything with a grin, carefree, preaching to the world — forgiveness, love, and peace.

Even though that’s the secret to winning art exhibitions and the standard of political correctness today.

But Gu Weijing still doesn’t like it.

To gain such a life, to embark on that artistic path... Is that elderly Zen master who seems to ascend into ethereal realms every day, with a heart filled lightly with love and peace, still Gu Weijing himself?

Without joy or sorrow, that’s a Bodhisattva, that’s Buddha.

But it’s not a real living person.

Koizumi Katsuko said that when a person is quiet enough, they can see their true heart; when their heart is as clear and calm as the surface of a lake, they can clearly reflect the career most suited to them.

Gu Weijing breathed quietly, looking at the reflection on the lake —

He saw a blazing fire.

”Shengzi... If I feel that my heart is always filled with an indelible anger and restlessness, and I can never become a tranquil and peaceful painter, what should I do? Perhaps I will never welcome the dawn of the East, feel mental stability, or the sense of peace and joy.”

Gu Weijing murmured in an extremely light voice.

Miss Sakai told him that meditation is a process of self-discovery.

As desires and confusions alternately appear in the mind, answering these questions completes enlightenment and cultivation of the heart.

He felt the desires and confusions that Shengzi spoke of.

Yet it seemed he was stumped by the first question.

Perhaps essentially, he is not the serene park lake with willow branches swaying gently; his heart lake is always echoing with torrents and eddies.

Koizumi Katsuko felt the brief pause in Gu Weijing’s steady breathing.

The girl, however, smiled.

”I think, then don’t let it dissipate.”

”I had you imagine yourself as a lake, not to make you always still and unperturbed. Serenity and peace are just the paths many artistic predecessors chose, not the only correct solution, and I hope my Mr. Gu has his own character.”

Gu Weijing heard Miss Sakai’s voice, as if it was coming from a very distant place.

”You are a lake — deep or shallow, green or blue, turbid or clear, none of these matter. What matters is having the strength to bear it all, to feel the anger flow through you, and to feel the ripples and waves quickly flash by like the changing seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, rain, sun, wind, and snow.”

”Regardless of the ebb and flow, there must remain a sufficient calmness within to observe these emotions and to pick up the paintbrush to tell your story, rather than being controlled by emotions as you just were, Mr. Gu. You ought to recall the difference between these two emotional states.”

”My mother says that those who truly attain the heights of art are always masters of their emotions, not slaves. She says that great artists are not unaffected by emotions, they —”

Koizumi Katsuko’s lips curled into a smile.

”Even when the heart is in turmoil, they can still paint lotuses blooming from their brushes.”

These were the principles Mrs. Sakai taught her daughter, asking her to remember from a young age.

Even if Shengzi is a delicate and exquisite girl, at her eighteen years of life experience, she may not have a deep understanding of these theories.

She merely remembered them.

Many principles, upon first hearing, are just principles.

Only after you have truly experienced and gone through them, cried and laughed, do you truly understand them.

That being said.

However, when art students encounter situations like Gu Weijing did.

Whether or not they have elders who teach them these invaluable summarized lessons before troubles arise.

Often makes a world of difference in the ease of soul refinement.

There are excellent painting textbooks all around the world.

On YouTube, you can find master classes like ”Yayoi Kusama Teaches Pop Art”, ”Thirty-six Lectures of the Royal Academy of Art Oil Painting”, ”Analysis of Qi Baishi’s Artistic Style”, all produced by renowned figures.

In technique learning, even ordinary people in the internet era can access very excellent educational resources.

However, compared to most art students.

The children of great painters are more likely to become great painters, apprentices of painting masters are usually still painting masters.

Apart from the intergenerational inheritance of connections and techniques.

The key role is played by these orally passed down summations of philosophy.

This is something akin to the ”Heart Method” of painting, helping their children adhere to a better mindset during emotional low points.

Professor Yajima and his wife couldn’t shield their daughter from emotional upheavals throughout her life.

But they had already prepared methods to ensure that when Shengzi encounters mental hurdles, she wouldn’t be easily knocked down like Gu Weijing.

It’s like trying to fire a kiln of Ge Kiln porcelain.

On one side is the second-generation artist holding the clay formula, kiln temperature, and timing summarized by parental and teacher life experiences.

On the other side is the bumpkin struggling with broken shards out of their own groping.

The yield and success rates of both sides are inherently not on the same level.

If,

Mr. Tree Sloth once unveiled a corner of the traditional European aristocratic family education to Gu Weijing.

Now, Miss Sakai was supplementing him with the ”family education” that only great artists possess.

”So from a young age, my mother wanted me to imagine myself as Lake Biwa outside of Kyoto City — serene, magnificent, changing, yet unsullied. Storms and dust cannot diminish its clarity. She wanted me to resonate not only with the surface of the lake but also with the entirety of its ’water body’. When storms rage outside, the deep water remains calm. When emotions are turbulent, deep within there is still a small space where you can pick up your brush.”

Shengzi stared dazedly at the sunlight spilling through the sunshade.

”The water of the lake within you is composed of all the people you’ve loved and hated, all the bittersweet experiences, the seven emotions and six desires. It is the reflection of your life experiences — a sufficiently deep lake can create sufficiently large waves.”

”Only by experiencing enough events and gaining enough insights in life, can you create the most profound paintings.”

Gu Weijing suddenly realized.

He was fascinated by the profound meanings contained in Koizumi Katsuko’s exquisite phrase.

A sufficiently deep lake can create sufficiently large waves — this moved him much more than the notions of love and peace, a state of neither joy nor sorrow.

Is this Mrs. Sakai’s life insight?

Humans are truly complex beings.

That golden-haired auntie who seemed so high and mighty, who looked at people with her nose, had such a philosophical and poetic side.

”So, you need to let your heart settle, to delve into the deepest part of your soul, and ask yourself what your greatest desire is in pursuing the path of a painter, and what your greatest fear is?”

”Desire and fear are the yin and yang of a person’s soul...” Koizumi Katsuko exhaled like an orchid, ”and they are also the anchors that allow an artist to hold stead with their paintbrush, regardless of how tumultuous the waters might be.”

”I wish to paint well and become a great painter.”

Gu Weijing almost reflexively answered.

He heard Koizumi Katsuko sigh softly beside his ear.

”Shengzi, I’m sorry, is this answer a bit too cliché?”

Gu Weijing’s answer indeed lacked distinction,

If you randomly grabbed an art student off the street and asked about their dream.

Most people would give an answer like this.

A supposedly extraordinary dream is often the most ordinary among all human dreams.

Sometimes Gu Weijing really feels he is quite a conventional person.

”No, I didn’t sigh because your answer was cliché, but because your answer is almost the same as my past answer, which might also be the reason you can’t calm your mind.”

”Mr. Gu, you still don’t understand what you truly want the most.”

Koizumi Katsuko tenderly touched Gu Weijing’s forehead, seemingly feeling what her mother felt when she used to touch the little darling of hers.

”To paint well? Or to become a great painter? The greatest desire can only be one, and... these are two different things.”

Miss Sakai gazed at Gu Weijing’s face: ”Many people mistakenly think they are the same, but they are fundamentally different. Painting well doesn’t necessarily mean one can become a true great painter. Likewise, painting poorly doesn’t necessarily mean one cannot become a great painter in a worldly sense.”

”My father always privately believed Andy Warhol was just an outstanding art speculator, one of the most skilled surfers of the eternal wave of art speculation. He was the richest painter, not necessarily the greatest creator. Conversely, he has also seen too many brilliant painters remain hidden all their lives.”