Chapter 99 Appreciation of Calligraphy and Painting
Chapter 99 Appreciation of Calligraphy and Painting
The waiting time is boring.
It was Zhou You’s first time as a guard. He drank several cups of tea but Wang Yan still didn’t come out.
Another apprentice was heard asking Shen Sanhe, "Brother Shen, is the young lady going to stay here?"
Stay overnight? How can that be possible?
Zhou You was startled. If this was true, he would have to stay here all day and would have no time to practice.
Shen Sanhe shook his head. "It's hard to say. Just wait patiently!"
He was also helpless, because being a bodyguard meant that he had to stay with the person everywhere and had no freedom.
Zhou You took a deep breath and couldn't leave for the time being, so he tried to find a way to pass the time.
He stood up and took two steps, and saw several paintings and calligraphy hanging on the wall of the open room. The scrolls were made of silk and the color was slightly yellow.
The owner of this house is a famous scholar in the city, so it is normal to use calligraphy and paintings as decoration.
Zhou You thought of the picture of a hungry tiger hanging in his home and couldn't help but want to take a look at it.
"Ok!"
There are several paintings and calligraphy, including flowers, birds, insects, fish, mountains, rivers and wild animals. There are blank spaces, or inscriptions, poems, or seals and stamps.
For warriors, these things are boring and it is more enjoyable than listening to books in a teahouse.
Zhou You had a solid foundation in writing, and he also studied the hungry tiger painting day and night, so he had some basic skills.
As he looked at it, he subconsciously gestured with the lines and ink marks, and found that some parts were lively and interesting, while others were inevitably rigid and stiff.
Suddenly I realized that calligraphy and painting are hand-painted, and there are bound to be flaws and imperfections in handwork.
Anything hung in an open room for public display is definitely not a treasure.
"Well, this is a good deal!"
As Zhou You gestured, his thoughts gradually opened up and his appreciation of the subject improved.
There was a ding-dong sound in my ears, and the panel gave another prompt:
"New skill: calligraphy and painting appreciation lvo."
This skill, like the Pipa, has little effect on improving strength.
The maid Du Juan came to refill the tea. Seeing Zhou You looking at the calligraphy and paintings, she kindly reminded him, "These calligraphy and paintings should be kept away from wind and water, especially not touched by hands. You can just look at them, but you must not touch them."
"understand!"
The hungry tiger painting in Zhou You's home was also a treasure.
Human hands are extremely greasy and dirty, which can be very corrosive to precious antiques, so people generally don’t use bare hands.
but……
"Sister, I don't think these things are rare treasures!"
Zhou You was just telling the truth. The quality of these calligraphy and paintings was average, with few brilliant strokes and many failures. They looked decent overall, but were horrible upon closer inspection.
Especially when compared with the picture of a hungry tiger at home, it is instantly reduced to the level of a child's graffiti.
Although the picture of the hungry tiger was casually painted by an unknown old man with only two pieces of dry food as the cost, it is of extremely high standard.
Even though Zhou You didn't understand calligraphy and painting, he could tell that the paintings were done in one go, naturally and vividly, and had a very high artistic standard.
In comparison, the Zeng family is well-known, and the calligraphy and paintings displayed in the open room seem a bit low-class.
"Zhou You, you are so bold. How can you talk about the treasures of Master Zeng's family so casually?"
"Don't think that just because you know a few words, you can be a scholar."
Shen Sanhe seemed to be furious and pointed at Zhou You and scolded him.
He turned around and apologized to Du Juan, "I'm sorry, sister, he just said it casually."
Unexpectedly, Dujuan was not angry, and her expression was even a little strange.
She looked at Zhou You curiously, "Hey, where is this young master from?"
"The fifth house on the left at the entrance of Lingdang Alley on Paodai Street."
"Paodai Street?"
Du Juan's eyes lit up and she asked, "I have a cousin who married in that area. Now she is a widow at home, running a wine stall to support her family. Maybe you know her..."
The two are a perfect match by coincidence. Dujuan's cousin is Zhou You's neighbor, Widow Li.
It turns out that Dujuan was also a girl from the city. She was sent to the Zeng family to be a maid when she was young.
She was two years younger than Zhou You, so she called him Brother Zhou. "Brother Zhou, you can look at these calligraphy and paintings at will. There is no need to be shy about your opinions."
"My master is hung on the wall for people to comment on and discuss."
Dujuan poured Zhou You a full cup of tea and nodded to him with a smile.
Until she left, Shen Sanhe didn't react. What happened? They even had a relationship.
The maidservant poured tea and water without showing any courtesy to them, but she chatted and laughed with Zhou You, calling him "Brother Zhou".
On the contrary, he just scolded others, acting like a villain and asking for trouble.
The seal on the lower left corner of Zhou You's calligraphy and painting. He translated the Seven-Step Poison Sand Palm some time ago and also dabbled in seal script.
The seal characters on the seal are very particular and difficult to carve. Often a mistake in one stroke will ruin the entire seal.
Literati and scholars often consider collecting and playing with seals as an elegant activity.
"Well, the level of these seals is much better than calligraphy and painting!"
I said this to myself, after all, Shen Sanhe and the others couldn't understand it.
Suddenly, a voice came from the bushes, "What did you say?"
……
In the inner courtyard boudoir, Wang Yan and Miss Zeng chatted and giggled from time to time.
The maid Dujuan came back and mentioned the interesting thing that had just happened.
Wang Yan raised her eyebrows and said, "How rude! I'll go and reprimand him."
She felt that Zhou You's reckless remarks had offended the Zeng family and brought shame to her.
Miss Zeng on the other side covered her mouth and smiled, and hurriedly stopped him, "Sister Wang, not only can you not blame him, you should also commend him for his outstanding vision."
"My father's graffiti was not meant to show off his ink and brush skills, but to be used as a stamp."
She explained that it turned out that Mr. Zeng had a very high level of literary ability, but was not good at calligraphy or painting.
What he was really good at was seal carving, and his skill in jade seal carving was superb, which made him popular among literati and poets.
The head of the Qi family, a noble family in Gongliang, admired Master Zeng's seals very much and often paid a large sum of money to buy them.
Given Mr. Zeng's personality, it would be a waste of his skills to stamp on white paper, so he just splashed ink on it.
"Sister Wang's followers can tell the quality of calligraphy and painting, so they must also have a good foundation in writing."
Miss Zeng admired quietly.
"I am a civilian boy who learned boxing from my father. Maybe he just said it casually."
“That’s pretty amazing too.”
The two best friends continued chatting, but they didn't know that something was happening at the same time.
An open room with fresh air on all sides...
The old man who jumped out of the bushes was thin and hunched, looking at people with squinting eyes, like an old clerk who had sat in an office for decades.
Zhou You was surprised when he first saw him because the old man was wearing a pair of glasses.
Looking closer, I saw that the frame was made of polished tortoise shell and inlaid with hand-polished lenses. It was not a modern style.
"You said the seal on it is more powerful than calligraphy and painting?"
Zhou You rolled his eyes. Is there any need for further explanation?
"Master, is this even necessary?"
Zhou You casually pointed out the flaws in several places and said bluntly, "If you set up a stall with this kind of skills, you will starve to death."
"Uncle, if you know the owner of this painting, please advise him to change his career and learn a craft as soon as possible."
A flash of anger flashed across the old man's face and he grabbed Zhou You's sleeve.
"Tell me, what's the good of the seal?"
He was used to hearing flattery from scholars and writers, so it was particularly fresh to hear praise from a young warrior today.
It is not surprising that an expert can recognize the value of something. It is truly amazing if even a layman can see the value of something.
(End of this chapter)