Shenhao with a learning panel

Chapter 350 How much are you willing to pay for my words?
Book Association?

Li Shi's eyes lit up.

He had long thought about joining a calligraphy association. Of course, he was considering the National Calligraphy Association.

It’s not that he cares about his official status.

In fact, after he owned the learning panel for a long time and gradually regarded life evolution as his life goal, he no longer cared so much about the false reputation of his official status. The reason why he considered it was purely from the perspective of "preaching the truth". "From this perspective, I thought that having an official status would be more convenient when preaching and would also give me an extra layer of aura.

However, after he learned about the ecological status of those circles through some channels, and the application conditions and procedures were troublesome, if he was going to apply now, he would have to wait for time to apply to participate in the national exhibition, or start writing a paper for publication... The whole process was completed. Even if every level goes smoothly, it will probably take at least two or three years to successfully join the calligraphy association.

Two or three years...

At that time, I didn’t have strong official connections. If something didn’t go smoothly and I got stuck, it would take even longer.

With his devilish calligraphy talent, he had already been successfully promoted (Expert+), preached successfully, and attained Dao (Grandmaster) before he even joined the Calligraphy Association!
In today's society where information dissemination is diversified, intelligence is rampant, and moneyism is rampant, there are many ways to preach. He firmly believed that he could become a calligraphy master in two or three years, so he simply gave up his thoughts.

But now-

Li Shi looked at Wu Xiulin.

This amiable old lady is 78 years old. Before her retirement, she was the leader of the Calligraphy Association. In addition, she had a higher-level status in Wenlian and a certain organization.

He thought to himself that it would be great if he could successfully enter the calligraphy association without affecting his pace of learning and creating. It would be a good thing to have an extra layer of halo and endorsement.

He pondered for a moment, then smiled and said to the old lady: "Thank you, Teacher Wu. But I don't plan to write a thesis. I plan to write a monograph directly."

He noticed the change in the old lady's name for him, from "Mr. Li" to "Teacher Li", and changed accordingly.

Writing a monograph is naturally much more difficult than a thesis, but Li Shi has this confidence.

"It would be great to write a monograph. Not to mention creation, with your theoretical level, you really should publish a monograph directly."

During these four to five ten-minute academic exchanges, Li Shi's calligraphy skills completely impressed her, who thought she was fairly well-informed.

The old lady thought for a while and said: "Yaru told me something about you before. When your book is finished, I will help contact the publishing house. If I remember correctly, as long as it is an academic book published by a formal unit of the state, If the monograph is recommended by the academic committee of the Calligraphy Association and recognized by the theoretical expert group organized by the Calligraphy Association, it will meet the conditions for theoretical experts to join the association."

Li Shi smiled and said: "Thank you first, Teacher Wu. I will trouble you when my book is ready."

He published "Pictures of Pre-Qin Cultural Contexts", which can be regarded as making some connections in publishing. The reason why he bothered Teacher Wu again was more to consider the future, and it was also an excuse to further associate with this calligraphy senior.

After a brief contact, he also had a good impression of this innocent old lady.

The old lady immediately said: "I can't wait to see your masterpiece. This summary of the evolution and development of calligraphy from the most basic and core point, across the length of history, is an absolute complement and improvement to our basic theory of calligraphy art. .”

He Yaru interjected: "If you put it this way, Teacher Li's book will make a great contribution. When it is released, won't it cause a sensation in the calligraphy world?"

lead to uproar?

Li Shi smiled but said nothing.

The old lady shook her head gently and said: "The contribution must be great, but it is difficult to say whether it is sensational or not. Teacher Li's theories may sound like basic theories, but in fact they are very profound and there are too few people who can dabble in them."

When He Yaru heard this, she immediately remembered that she had just listened to the Book of Heaven and couldn't help but smile.

After chatting for a while, Wu Yuan led Li Shi and Wu Yuan to the second floor for a visit.

After they went out, the old lady looked at a piece of rice paper with "Yonghe Ninth Year" written five times, and suddenly laughed.

Just as he was about to put the piece of paper away, the ajar door was suddenly pushed open. Wu Yuan, Yaru's good friend who had not spoken much before, came back and whispered to Wu Xiulin: "Teacher Wu, Teacher Li asked me to I went back and forth to collect the draft, and he said that it would be useful for writing a book later.”

After saying that, he smiled politely at the old lady, picked up the rice paper on the desk, folded it a few times and put it in his bag, then turned around and walked out.

The old lady's eyes were a little dull for a moment, and her eyes followed her movements.

After the figure disappeared at the door, he withdrew his gaze and looked at the two works on the workbench. Gradually, he was immersed in the beauty of "Missing You" again.

upstairs.

Li Shi's eyes were opened. There were six special collection cabinets with constant temperature and humidity, each of which was two meters high and 1.6 meters wide. They were filled with calligraphy, paintings and ancient books.

In addition, there are two rows of display cabinets with constant temperature and humidity. After He Yaru turned on the light strip, she immediately saw twenty paintings and calligraphy displayed inside. She said that these twenty paintings were her aunt's favorites. There are twenty paintings. When I have nothing to do, I come here often to view them.

Li Shi appreciated them one by one.

The first collection is Qi Baishi's Flowers and Birds Album.

He looked at each work one by one. After viewing all the works, he returned to the collection placed in third place.

This is a running script by Wen Zhengming, a calligrapher and painter of the Ming Dynasty. It is the last sentence in the first chapter of "The Analects" - "Xueer" - Confucius said: "Don't worry about others because you don't know them, and when you worry about others, you don't know them."

This sentence translated into vernacular is: Confucius said, you are not afraid that others do not understand you, you are only afraid that you do not understand others.

Li Shi carefully appreciated every word, and finally came to the conclusion that the writing style of Wen Zhengming's running script sketch should be inherited from Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Holy Religion".

A scene suddenly appeared in his mind: an ancient man who lived more than 500 years ago was learning the calligraphy of another ancient man who lived more than 600 years ago in his study.

In the end, this scene transformed into two words - context.

"Calligraphy also plays an important role in the inheritance of Chinese culture."

He was very interested in these calligraphy and paintings, admiring each collection one by one, but Wu Yuan was not very interested, and He Yaru had seen it many times before. The two of them only stayed with Li Shi on the second floor for a while, and then left first. .

After admiring it until noon, when he returned to the building on the left for dinner, Li Shi met the framer Gu Xiao.

There are also northern and southern factions in framing, and Guxiao belongs to the Su faction within the southern faction.

"The weather in the south is humid, so we usually use painted shaft heads. The large paint on the shaft heads can protect the shaft heads from deformation and prevent insects..."

Gu Xiao is a master craftsman who is not good at words, but when Li Shi asked about the details of the decoration, he was willing to introduce it to the customer in detail.

After eating, several people went to the restoration room and discussed the framing style and material selection.

Li Shi decided to frame both works in the form of hand scrolls, so that they can be hidden in a portable space and easily taken out to read at any time.

In the afternoon, Master Gu started working, and Li Shi continued to go upstairs to look at Wu Xiulin's collection.He was very efficient. In the evening, in addition to rare ancient books and 150 six calligraphy and painting collections, he carefully appreciated all of them.

"150 six pieces. The twenty pieces placed in the exhibition cabinet are indeed the best of the 150 six pieces. The rest can only be said to be relatively rare. In terms of calligraphy alone, Wen Zhengming's piece and Qi Gong's piece, The artistic value is the highest, and they can all be considered masterpieces."

"As for painting..."

Li Shi stood in front of the showcase, feeling a little emotional.

Wu Xiuli herself is also proficient in traditional Chinese painting, but her accomplishments are far inferior to her calligraphy. Li Shi has seen her works hanging in the house, and using the evaluation criteria of learning panels, he cannot be considered a "painter" (less than (professional-)).But among the more than 100 items in her collection, only a small half are calligraphy, and most of them are paintings, especially paintings by modern and contemporary painters.

Li Shi felt that this showed that she was actually influenced by secular values. It was hard to imagine that in the modern calligraphy and painting market, the economic value of the works of well-known painters was generally higher than that of calligraphers.

This is a fact.

There is nothing to avoid. We are all human beings, and living in society, we will naturally have a secular side. If I were collecting by myself, I would probably focus more on more valuable paintings.

He took out his mobile phone and searched for auction records of modern calligraphy and painting works.

"The top one is Qi Baishi's "Twelve Screens of Landscape", which was sold for 9.315 million. Good guy, it's almost one billion. Even though there are only twelve screens, it still costs more than 7000 million!"

"The second one is actually Qi Baishi, "Pine and Cypress Standing Pictures: Four-Character Couplet in Seal Script", which was sold for 4.255 million... It is indeed Qi Baishi."

"The third place is Huang Binhong's "Huangshan Tangkou" with a transaction price of 3.45 million... The fourth place is Li Keran's "Ten Thousand Mountains Are Red" with a transaction price of 2.93 million."

……

"Ninth is Wu Guanzhong's "Zhouzhuang"."

"Tenth, Zhang Daqian's "Autumn Light", 1.955 million yuan."

After reading the information he found, Li Shi couldn't help but touch his chin.

The top ten transaction records of modern calligraphy and painting are all paintings, and there is not a single work with calligraphy as the main body!

The reason why I say "main body" is because those works also have calligraphy elements, but after all, they are just embellishments to the main "painting".

He wanted to find the highest auction record for modern calligraphers, but could not find any accurate and valid information. However, he did see many people saying that the most expensive calligrapher should be Wu Changshuo, so he searched specifically for Wu Changshuo's calligraphy works. Record.

"Beijing Poly Autumn Auction, Wu Changshuo's 1924 Seal Script "Bao Song Chamber" was sold for 1069.5 million yuan, 7.1 times the low estimate. It can be called a dark horse in this auction... It is seven times higher than the estimate, so the estimate Around one to two million.”

He looked for the picture of this work again and couldn't help but shake his head slightly.

"First of all, I know the market situation of modern calligraphy works. As for the market situation of contemporary calligraphers, I have learned about it before... In addition, the artistic value of the work cannot be completely equated with the market value."

"Then will my work be auctioned in the future? If so, what price will it fetch?"

The reason why Li Shi checked these information was naturally for his own work.

At this moment, there was movement outside the door, and soon Wu Xiulin and He Yaru walked in together.

The three of them chatted for a while about the collection here, but soon the old lady revealed the purpose of coming to him: "Teacher Li, I know you will definitely not sell "Sijun", but what about "Beauty Bath"?"

Her question reminded Li Shi of what he was still thinking about just now - if his calligraphy works were put up for auction, what price would they fetch.

He immediately asked with a smile: "Teacher Wu, you are an expert in calligraphy and painting collection. If my painting "Beauty Bath" is put on the market, what price do you think it can achieve? Or to put it another way, how much are you willing to spend? Money to buy my words?”

The old lady thought seriously for a while and said:
"In the collection market, it's always hard to buy something you like. This is true for other collections, and it's also true for calligraphy and painting collections. Even the same work by the same calligrapher and painter will fetch different prices when encountering different buyers."

"You are not famous yet. If ordinary people encounter that "Beauty Bath", to be honest, the price shouldn't be too high. For general recommendation and promotion, it is possible to get it in the hundreds of thousands, and if it reaches one million, it is considered very good. "

"But if I meet you, even if I don't know you, just looking at the work, I will be willing to try my best to win it within 500 million..."

Before she could finish her words, He Yaru on the side immediately said: "I am willing to pay 1000 million to buy it! If it is "Beauty Bath", more is fine!"

The old lady glared at her beloved niece since she was a child, and said angrily: "You are the most obsessed with this painting, and you are completely irrational. In your eyes, even "Missing You" is not as good as "Beauty Bath" "."

With that said, she said to Li Shi: "But if I meet "Sijun" at the auction house, let alone 1000 million, even if it is [-] million, I will try my best to win it! In my eyes, like this This kind of work that truly combines form and spirit has reached the pinnacle of traditional art, and its artistic value can no longer be measured by money."

One billion?

Li Shi was relatively calm, because he thought the same thing, so he agreed with the old lady's judgment on traditional works of art.

He Yaru was shocked.

"I really don't want to sell these two works, but "Beauty Bath" is not 'not for sale,' but I won't consider it until I have a personal exhibition in the future."

The old lady nodded, looking calm.

He Yaru rarely showed a disappointed look, and she asked: "Teacher Li, when do you plan to hold the exhibition?"

Li Shi thought for a while and said: "I have only saved these two workable works so far, at least six to ten."

Or create a "magic product".

Of course, he didn't say this.

The three of them came out of the building on the right and went to the residence on the left. Li Shi and the old lady continued to chat about calligraphy in the living room.

He Yaru came to the guest room arranged for Li Shi and Wu Yuan and found Wu Yuan who was doing work.

"Xiaoyuan, let me ask you something. Is Mr. Li efficient in calligraphy creation? How much time did it take him to create those two works?"

Wu Yuan just finished the video conference. She thought for a while and said: "It's hard to say this. He is an artist who pays great attention to inspiration. When inspiration comes, he can create satisfactory works very quickly. If there is no inspiration, he will even Maybe I won’t put pen to paper—that’s how it was when taking pictures.”

He Yaru sighed slightly in her heart.

inspiration?

This kind of thing is too illusory.

But thinking of the painting "Beauty Bath", she asked again: "Do you know how he usually finds inspiration?"

(End of this chapter)