Chapter 610: The Taihang Mountain Base

Sighing slightly, He Jian suddenly paused: "Eh, what is General Manager Lin doing?"

"It looks like he's dismantling the album?" Liang Shiya was stunned, "Could it be that he wants to auction them separately?"

He Jian shook his head without even thinking: "General Manager Liang, impossible!"

This is a single-opening vertical album; each page is only twenty-four centimeters high and sixteen centimeters wide, no bigger than an adult's palm.

Even if you could dismantle and auction them, what use would it be for a guest to bid on such a small page of a painting?

It's not even enough to make a lady's fan (a scholar's small fan, also known as a sleeve fan).

Besides, one only hears of auctioning damaged albums; one has never heard of dismantling a perfectly intact album into damaged pages to auction.

Liang Shiya looked puzzled: "Then why does he want to dismantle it?"

He Jian was speechless, because he didn't know, and understood even less.

It wasn't just him who didn't understand; everyone present didn't understand: why dismantle a perfectly good landscape album?

But Lin Sicheng went his own way, turning a deaf ear, and he played with a small thread-cutting knife as if it were a flower.

With a "Zeng" cut and a flick, a thread end was picked out. After four or five consecutive movements, the entire album fell apart.

Then, he laid out all twenty-four sheets of painting paper, arranging them in three rows, top to bottom.

The camera followed in sync, and a close-up of the album appeared on the large screen, with each sheet magnified several dozen times.

Most people were baffled, not knowing what kind of trick Lin Sicheng was pulling.

Some were guessing whether, like before, there were hidden codes like small seals inside the paintings.

Only a few people vaguely saw some of the logic:

In the original album, these twenty-four small paintings had no pattern, let alone a fixed order; the previous one was a high peak, and the next one suddenly became a canyon. The previous one was a large lake, and the next one suddenly became a beach.

But arranged like this by Lin Sicheng, they were suddenly orderly and had traces to follow:

The first eight paintings mostly featured winding water in the foreground, meandering mountain roads in the mid-ground, and overlapping distant mountains in the background.

The mountains were not all the same, some high and some low, some ridges and some peaks. The water was either large or small, winding and twisting. The roads were either long or short, hidden or visible. But without exception, they were all sequences and combinations of near water, mid-ground roads, and distant mountains.

There was another common point: where there was water, it was always winding and encircling; the distant mountains were extremely faint, almost like blank space; and where there were roads, they were always half-hidden and half-visible.

The middle eight paintings featured dwellings, whether mountain residences, thatched huts, high platforms, temples, small pavilions, or broken walls.

The foreground and background were sometimes mountains, sometimes water, and sometimes forests, with mountain paths occasionally interspersed between them. But without exception, the main subject was always architecture, differing only in quantity, whether one site or two or three.

And compared to the first group, the characteristics of this group were more hidden: where there was a pavilion, it was always solitary, without railings or pillars, standing alone on a mountain peak. Where there was a hut, it was always hidden, half-covered and half-concealed, tucked away among forests and clouds.

Where there was a temple, it was always isolated, but with neither a path in nor a path out, and there was always a cliff beneath the temple.

And where there was a cliff, it was always a precipice, with clouds and mist piled up below and steep, dangerous cliff walls.

Where there was a cove, it was always enclosed: surrounded by mountains on four sides, with two streams converging, no paths or roads, only accessible by the creek.

Where there was a platform, it was always suspended high, the top flat, empty, and devoid of objects, with a clear view.

And so on, and so forth.

The last eight paintings were either closed-loop canyons or hidden caves with secret springs. They were either closed off by heavy clouds or featured waterfalls in deep valleys. But regardless of the type, they were all wondrous sights.

Sheng Guoan found it stranger the more he looked: he always felt that there was a specific pattern hidden in these twenty-four pages of paintings, but he couldn't quite grasp it for the moment.

After thinking for a long while, he frowned: "Mr. Zhang, could it be that the author specifically selected the subjects and then created them? For example, painting eight mountains first, then eight waters, and then eight wondrous sights. Finally, they were made into an album and bound together?"

"It doesn't look like it: if it were a commissioned work, there would be no need to set the same composition: one main subject being a dwelling, and eight others also being dwellings? One main subject being a near creek, and eight others also being near creeks?"

Zhang Zongxian pointed at the screen, "Junior Brother, don't you feel: these twenty-four paintings are of the same mountain? Although they are not the same spot, they shouldn't be too far apart—"

Pausing slightly, Zhang Zongxian looked thoughtful, "It even gives one a feeling: that they could be connected together?"

Sheng Guoan was stunned: "You mean, there are more in between?"

Zhang Zongxian did not speak, because he was not very certain either.

He was only guessing, relying solely on his intuition from years of appraisal; it couldn't be called experience, and he had no certainty.

But if he were to guess again: if there were another twenty-four, all the scenery should be able to be connected.

That would make forty-eight paintings, and if these forty-eight paintings were enlarged, it would be a monumental work not inferior to "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" (a Song Dynasty masterpiece, 5.5 meters long) or "Fuchun Mountain Dwelling Map" (a Yuan Dynasty masterpiece by Huang Gongwang, 6.5 meters wide).

Or to put it another way: the author dismantled a giant painting originally five or six meters long into more than forty parts, forcing them into a small album the size of a 32-mo book.

The more Zhang Zongxian thought about it, the stranger he felt: if it were really as he guessed, how deep must the author's foundation be?

Zhang Zongxian pointed at the screen: "Little Lin, zoom in a bit—yes, just the first few of the first group!"

Lin Sicheng pressed the remote control, and the camera lens followed in closer.

After taking a few looks, Zhang Zongxian narrowed his eyes: "Junior Brother Sheng, this brushwork is truly hard!"

Sheng Guoan nodded quickly: although it was a painting, one could clearly see the author's foundation of using calligraphy in painting, with the brush intent carrying heavy skeletal strength.

The brushwork was like cursive script, using seal-script-like techniques to depict mountain rocks and trees; the lines were hard, straight, and vigorous. The texturing of the mountain rocks was extremely simple, not relying on fine, fragmented dabs to build volume, but relying solely on contour lines to prop up the skeletal frame of the rocks—this is a typical technique of simplifying the complex.

The ink technique was simple, faint, dry, and astringent, mostly using dry ink and withered brushes. The changes in ink color were restrained, not pursuing the saturation of thick ink. Occasionally, thick ink was used to dot trees,

and to dot moss, forming a strong contrast between the withered, faint mountain rocks and the thick, dark ink of the forest.

Although it was a colored paper work, it was still primarily ink and wash, with thin, transparent, and elegant colors. The brushwork was sincere and direct; it looked like it was splashed casually, but in reality, every stroke was controlled.

The key was the artistic conception: between the lines, it revealed a stubbornness that preferred awkwardness over cleverness, ugliness over charm, fragmentation over smoothness, and sincerity over artificiality.

Zhang Zongxian and Sheng Guoan looked at each other: it is said that looking at a painting is like looking at a person; to be able to express such an artistic conception and highlight such brush strength, the author not only had a hard brush, but an even harder temperament.

If one were to describe it, eight characters could summarize it: "Better to break than to bend, better to die than to submit."

Then looking at the paintings again:

Relying only on hard seal-script-like lines to outline the contours of the rocks, there was almost no light ink shading. The structure of the rocks was entirely explained by the turns of the contours, not by the stacking of internal textures.

Thick ink was almost nowhere to be seen in the entire piece, only used for emphasis at key nodes, such as moss dots on mountain tops, ancient cypresses, and trees at mountain passes.

Perhaps due to the size, the brush momentum was very restrained, but the aura was extremely full. Although the painting was small and delicate, the lines remained stubborn, maintaining clear-cut edges and the hard, skeletal appearance of mountain rocks.

Secondly, the blank space was minimal: the rocks interlocked, cliffs and valleys overlapped, and streams combined the virtual and the real. Pavilions, precarious towers, dwellings, and temples were highly simplified; no beams or pillars were drawn, only the outlines were sketched. Ancient cypresses and twisted pines were rendered in only a few strokes.

Looking closer: the author used the technique of perspective compression to layer scenery and hide objects, squeezing the multi-layered mountain ranges of a giant long scroll onto a piece of paper the size of a square inch.

To borrow a line from an ancient poem: "The hills and gullies are naturally within one's breast; why mind facing the sages within the cup?"

The key is that it is painted truly well: the mountain rocks are simple and vigorous, with few textures but strong bones; the brushwork is truly frank, and the momentum is magnificent.

Zhang Zongxian frowned tightly: "Is it really a massive masterpiece compressed within a tiny album?"

Everyone who paints knows: it is easy to paint things large, but extremely difficult to paint them small.

If Sheng Guoan were to hold the brush and arrange the twenty-four leaves in sequence, with the mountain ranges, mountain streams, and plank roads hooking and connecting from page to page, and then combine the scenery across the album, he might be able to do it, but he absolutely could not paint it this well.

At the very least, he could not manage to retain the bone strength of the metal-and-stone staccato and stubborn angularity on paper only slightly larger than a palm, while also preventing the scenery from being crowded and stacked, with near and far indistinguishable.

It is even more impossible to shrink the imagery dozens of times and still maintain the magnificent, imposing, desolate, and gloomy momentum of the mountains. And it must also highlight the hard, towering, and strange Landscape Pattern.

Is it because Sheng Guoan paints poorly, or perhaps because he studied poorly?

Quite the contrary; apart from those seniors who have passed the age of ninety and have long since put down their brushes, Sheng Guoan is a recognized master of contemporary Chinese painting.

Mr. Xu has even candidly stated that Sheng Guoan is the student among his pupils who studied the most earnestly, possesses the deepest foundation, and has achieved the most.

The reason he cannot paint the exquisiteness of the painting before him is entirely limited by his talent.

Sheng Guoan is already excellent enough, but he cannot help that some people are born geniuses, with Heaven chasing after them to feed them.

He cannot do it, and Zhang Zongxian can do it even less.

At this point, Zhang Zongxian and Sheng Guoan can at least confirm: the author of this album is a master who does not lose to Shitao or Zhang Daqian.

But it is certainly not these two, because the brush intent is different, the painting style is different, and the artistic conception, character, and personality are even more different.

Zhang Daqian's personality was slick; he painted to make a living, so there is no talk of character, and he could not paint such hard lines.

He could completely paint to the level of exquisiteness of this painting, but what he would paint would only be lush mountains and beautiful waters.

Shitao painted with ease, and his methods were ever-changing. He could use fine brushes and also wild, large freehand; his technical system was complete, so he could likewise paint to such an exquisite degree.

But he could not paint the sense of "towering strangeness" in this painting, nor did he have such a hard and stubborn brush style.

To put it bluntly: the brush intent and painting style of this painting are very unique, and the artistic conception is even more profound.

As a master who does not lose to famous figures like Shitao and Zhang Daqian, Sheng Guoan should naturally be very familiar with it.

But the strange thing is, whether it is the brush power, artistic conception, or style, he has no impression of it at all.

That can only mean one thing: the works of this author are rarely collected in the Forbidden City, or perhaps even zero.

He tried hard to recall, but had no clue at all. Suddenly, the screen flashed and split into two halves.

One half was those twenty-four small paintings, still arranged in three rows, and the other half was a photograph.

The stream is clear, the dense forest is lush, and the high mountains are precipitous—it is clearly a landscape photo taken on-site.

Then, Lin Sicheng clicked the mouse to reorder them.

The screen image zoomed in, leaving only one small painting and one landscape photo.

On the left is the album: the scene is a close-up of a river beach, where scattered rocks are piled up and the stream winds. The cliffs on both banks are not high, the trees are sparse, the distant mountains are only brought out with a few simple strokes, and only a few dwarf cypresses stand on the stone bank. The houses are looming, with only a few sparse strokes.

On the right is the photo: it is also a river beach, the riverbed has many gray-white boulders, the river water is relatively shallow, and it should be the dry season. The mountains on both banks are low, and the trees are sparse.

Lin Sicheng was just tinkering on the computer without introducing anything, and most of the people below were guessing: is he going to pull some trick again?

Among them, a few were staring hard at the painting, wanting to see if there were any hidden marks like small seals again.

But suddenly, someone let out an "Eh": "Is this painting a real-life landscape?"

Many people reacted: the painting in the album and the real-life photo seem to be the same place?

The arrangement of the scattered rocks in the painting and the curvature of the stream turn basically correspond to the orientation of the actual river beach. Especially that rock crevice in the lower left corner of the painting; the actual river beach also has a fissure.

Comparing them carefully, they are indeed exactly the same.

So, is this album on the screen entirely a real-life sketch, rather than an expressive landscape?

Just as they were surprised, the screen flashed, the original painting and photo disappeared, and two others were replaced.

On the left is the painting: two layers of mountain ranges overlap, the mountain path winds back and forth along the cliff, most of the mountain road is blocked by the mountain body, revealing only a few intermittent lines. Clouds and mist lock the mountainside, hiding the latter half of the mountain road. On a rock on the mountainside, three burnt-ink moss dots are arranged horizontally.

On the right is the photo: the road is at the bottom of the valley, an ancient mountain path winds upward along the cliff, the mountain body is constantly uneven, blocking the line of sight, and the path on the mountainside is looming.

Comparing them carefully again: every bend of the mountain road in the painting corresponds one-to-one with the corners of the actual mountain road. Especially the three horizontal moss dots in the painting, which are exactly the same as the three protruding rocks side-by-side on the actual mountainside.

Before they could be surprised, Lin Sicheng switched to the third one: in the painting, two steep cliffs face each other, forming a natural mountain gate. The outline of a ruined fortress remains on the cliff top, but there are only a few sparse strokes; if one does not look closely, one would think it is a crack in the mountain rock.

A solitary cypress stands on the cliff top, its branches twisted and stiff.

In the photo, it is a mountain pass sandwiched by huge sandstone cliffs, with the remains of the ancient Great Wall still on the cliff top, and an old Chinese juniper growing in a crevice of the cliff.

Comparing the details: the angle between the two cliffs in the painting and the growth position of the solitary cypress match the photo perfectly.

Then the fourth, the fifth—all the way to the twenty-fourth.

Each one has a corresponding real-life photo, and in each set, the scenery in the painting can correspond to the real scenery in the photo.

So, are all twenty-four leaves of this album real-life landscapes?

It is not that ancient painters did not paint real-life landscapes, but it was extremely rare.

Most of them observed repeatedly, kept it in their hearts, and then painted after returning to the studio. At most, they used simple strokes to record the shapes of some rocks, trees, and flowing water, but most only recorded the key points.

Including the Song Dynasty, which was closest to on-site realism, although they would respect the real terrain, they would still process and select heavily, rarely replicating the original appearance.

After the Song Dynasty, painters mainly focused on expression, painting freely according to the hills and gullies in their breasts, constructing the one river and two banks, three mountains and four waters that they yearned for in their hearts.

To put it bluntly: the scenery in the painting is entirely based on imagination. It can be said: in ancient times, it was very difficult to find a painting that was exactly the same as the real scenery.

Whether it was a famous master or a street Craftsman, none would copy it one-to-one.

But here, there are twenty-four of them?

If we are talking about modern works, then of course there are, and many of them. Some painters will even trace photos and copy them one-to-one.

But in ancient times, very few people would paint like this. There are also almost no similar works that have appeared in auctions, and most of the guests present had not even heard of it.

For example, Tian Rulong, he had never seen it, let alone heard of it—

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