Van Gogh Reborn!

Chapter 254:

254

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Many people are interested in art, so they quickly recognize it.

└I know this. Mark Rothko, right?

└Is this a painting?

└I don’t get it lol

Mark Rothko reduced the form as much as possible and expressed his emotions with colors.

“That’s right. Mark Rothko. He used only colors as much as possible to create an abstract painting, which is called color field abstraction. If you are a painter, you would know how hard it is to create such a deep color.”

He applied egg on the paint, let it dry, then painted again, applied oil on top, and repeated the process of adding colors.

“It doesn’t matter why he painted this, how he mixed the colors, and how he painted. Mark Rothko didn’t want his works to be interpreted. He wanted them to be felt.”

After a while, some viewers left a chat saying they felt sad.

Some others didn’t understand why they felt sad.

“Some of you are moved by Mark Rothko’s painting, and some of you don’t understand it. This is where I want to start my story. If you can’t empathize with this work, are you ignorant and uncultured?”

When I asked directly, they all said no.

“That’s right.”

Thanks to that, it’s easy to continue the story.

“Mark Rothko’s work, as well as all other works of art, are the results of personal thoughts. Mark Rothko is recognized as a great master, but some of you might think, what is that?”

It’s because you don’t feel it, some argued.

“That’s right. Let me ask you again. Don’t you have someone who doesn’t get along with you at all in your life?”

Some said it’s a problem to have low empathy, and some said it’s not wrong.

“Of course, it’s a great thing to be able to empathize. It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who can’t. But no one can form a rapport with everyone. I can’t even understand myself, how can I know exactly how others feel?”

Some people agreed with me.

“There is a difference between not understanding a really bad person and not understanding someone who has different thoughts and feelings from me. I think the latter is not wrong for either side.”

As I was about to continue the story, I saw a viewer’s experience.

He said he didn’t know what was good about Mark Rothko’s work when he didn’t know much about art, but as he saw other works, he felt Rothko at some point.

“Thank you for your good words. But there is no reason to try to empathize with something you are not interested in and don’t understand. You are busy enough with the people and things you love.”

They all agreed.

Life is too harsh, and some people are struggling to survive.

Even if you have some leeway, you don’t need to try hard to understand something difficult and incomprehensible.

There are plenty of things that suit your taste.

Do you need to do that in a short life when you can live happily with the people you love?

“Just find the writers and works you like. There are many contemporary artists who make intuitive works like Marso.”

All artists live in their own ways.

If it suits me, I enjoy it, and if it doesn’t, I don’t need to criticize it.

It’s just a pity that contemporary art is lumped together with a negative image.

Just like not all French people are racist and not all Muslims are terrorists.

“Don’t you have a lot of experience like that? Someone who is very famous on YouTube or somewhere, but I’ve never seen them before.”

I often don’t know who they are when they are introduced as amazing people.

I also seem to be known in the art field, but very few people recognize me on the street.

└Right lol I’ve never seen or heard of some singers who are supposed to be very famous lol

└That’s because you’re old…

└Isn’t it because of the hoarding?

└It might be because of that, but I have a lot of experience like that.

└I haven’t seen or cared about some movies that broke 10 million viewers.

“In the past, there were few media, so everyone knew if they were famous there. But now there are so many things to watch. Rather than watching something that doesn’t suit your taste, you can consume the culture you like. So it can be a very great and famous work for me, but not for others. I think we should accept each other’s differences now.”

The viewers gave me various examples.

People who don’t know the memes that are commonly used on the internet, or the differences in vocabulary depending on age or membership.

“What is Muyaho?”

I asked one of the things I was curious about, and many people lamented that there was a generation that didn’t know Muyaho.

It was a word that came out of a representative entertainment program in Korea.

“Let me tell you more. I have an interesting story about this from Future Emo. Can there be a person who is smarter than artificial intelligence?”

└No.

└Isn’t it different if it’s wisdom rather than knowledge?

└Yeah, I think so.

└But that part is also very vague. Humans can’t keep up with things like Go or chess since a long time ago.

└The accident rate of self-driving cars is also lower than that of human-driven cars.

└These days, the really scary thing is that there is nothing that AI can’t do. A lot of people lose their jobs because of that.

└I don’t know about other things, but not art. From things like literature, art, music to complex genres like games, movies, AI can’t follow.

└It’s an era where novels written by AI win literary awards, what the heck lol1)

They are expressing various opinions.

“You said there are good parts and bad parts. But actually, it’s hard to find someone who knows more than AI. But there is something that humans are far ahead of AI.”

They are curious.

“It’s that humans can judge much faster whether they know something or not.”

Humans can’t match the calculation speed of AI.

“When you ask AI, do you know this? It searches the data inside itself and answers yes or no. But we can answer right away in less than a second.”

└Really?

└Why is that?

└First of all, I don’t know anything.

└lololol Isn’t it just saying you don’t know because you don’t know?

“The reason why humans can judge so quickly is not because they search for information, but because they judge whether they are close or not with that thing. If you are close to me, you say you know, and if you are not, you think you don’t.”

└Oh. That’s right.

└That makes sense.

└Right. You can tell right away whether you are close or not.

└AI is nothing.

“On the contrary, if you feel familiar, you think you know even if you don’t know well. For example, there are few people who think they don’t know about their mom and dad. But in fact, there are not many children who know in detail what kind of life their parents have lived. Conversely, parents also delude themselves that they know everything about their children.”

I like art, so if someone asks me if I know about art, I will say yes.

But when I think about it, I don’t know much more than I know.

It’s absurd to say that I know all the art that is divided into so many branches.

But still, I think I know art.

“That’s how humans are not rational beings, but emotional ones. Going back to the story we were talking about, let me ask you again. Is understanding art a priority?”

They all say no.

“That’s right. Becoming close is the first thing. What technique they use, what style they have, what story there is in this work, what secrets are hidden. You naturally want to know all those things when you become close. So art is not something you study. It’s something you enjoy when you feel like you want to get close. So you don’t have to look at contemporary art only negatively, or curse or blame yourself for not knowing.”

└That’s true.

└You explain how to approach diversified art very easily.

└Why is our Hun so smart ㅠ

└Professor, the pace is too fast.

└I want to eat pork belly rice bowl.

└Listening to this explanation, I understand a bit why impressionism is so popular. It has a universal sensibility and aesthetics, so it’s like a likable type of person.

They seem to accept it in their own ways.

There are people who don’t understand, who don’t empathize, and who think further, but they are all my viewers.

We can’t understand each other perfectly, but we feel comfortable accepting each other’s different thoughts because we are close.

The person who comes in every time I broadcast and talks about pork belly rice bowl for 3-4 hours, I would have thought he was weird if I saw him on the street, but he’s a bit cute when I meet him on my broadcast.

Just like I thought of Marso as a crazy guy when I first met him, but now I think of him as a very cool artist.

While I was working at the Bugrenelli shopping mall, I was making gifts to give to the kids.

I felt a gaze and looked up, meeting Marso’s eyes.

“What?”

“Did you name yourself like that to do this?”

“Why? It suits me.”

He narrowed his eyes and looked over me, the balloons, chocolate, and snacks.

I found a very cool video when I searched for desserts on NewTube.

You blow up a balloon and coat the surface with plenty of chocolate, wait for it to harden, and then pop the balloon and take it out to make a nice chocolate ball.

I wanted to use that actively and make various animals with stick balloons and coat them with chocolate.

I also wanted to make a house made of candy and chocolate from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel with a square-shaped balloon as a base.

I pumped air into the stick balloon.

“Please tie this up.”

“You do it.”

“It looks like it’s going to burst.”

He licked his lips.

“Why are you making such a fuss when you can’t even tie a balloon?”

“You have Marso.”

I held out my hand with the balloon mouth pressed, and Marso snatched it with irritation.

He was a good friend who always helped me out, no matter what.

As I was wondering how many more balloons I should make for practice, I heard a loud pop.

A balloon had burst.

Marso was still holding the balloon in a slightly startled pose.

“Can’t you tie it?”

“The balloon is defective.”

“Here.”

I inflated another balloon and handed it to him, but he popped it again.

He glared at me with a temper.

“Did you buy these properly?”

“Balloon is balloon. Can’t you do it?”

“Do you think there’s anything I can’t do?”

He looked down at the balloon pieces scattered on the floor and gritted his teeth.

I wondered how often Marso had a chance to tie balloons.

“Try again.”

“No!”

“I’ll give you one too when I finish. Michel will like it if you give it to him, right?”

“I can just buy him chocolate or whatever.”

“Is it the same as something you made yourself?”

I gave him another balloon with air, but he whined and popped it again.

“This is for making chocolate bars, you know. I washed them clean. Be careful.”

“Just shut up and pass them!”

He was annoyed, but he showed some enthusiasm when I mentioned Michel.

1)Artificial intelligence that writes novels passes first round of Japanese literary prize, Maeil Business Newspaper, Hwang Hyung-kyu, Lee Ji-yong reporters, 2016.03.22.

This text is written based on the assumption that the time in the story is 2029.