I am a Big Player
Chapter 349 - 347, Genius among Geniuses (Fourth Update)_1

Chapter 349: 347, Genius among Geniuses (Fourth Update)_1

Clearly, the dean meant that Ren He had passed, and moreover, he was going to study painting directly under him. One must know that Dean Richard was a doctoral supervisor...

Of course, this didn’t mean that Ren He could just skip over the bachelor’s and master’s degrees and become a doctor directly. There was no such rule, but do people in the art circle really care about diplomas? Rarely does anyone use a diploma to distinguish the artistic merit of an artist.

In Arthur’s eyes, he realized that Ren He had metaphorically ascended to the heavens in one step. This was actually the same in the piano circle; being a student of a master was also a very important matter. At the very least, the influence was innate, and one wouldn’t remain unknown forever.

In the field of painting, as long as one’s art was good, diplomas were actually secondary.

As long as Ren He studied diligently under Richard, ascending to the heavens in one step wasn’t a difficult task.

However, they didn’t know that painting, for Ren He, wasn’t something that needed to be learned, nor did he need to use the status of Richard’s disciple to gain any chips.

For Ren He, the main reason he came to learn from Richard was his interest in painting and his desire to truly enjoy the learning process: yes, the process of learning.

It seemed that the things he was good at were all given by the Divine Punishment System, lacking the emotional devotion from over ten years of day and night practice, so whether it was piano or painting, they were devoid of a certain love.

Extreme sports were his dream; they were accomplishments he had gained time and again with his life, so he loved them.

But it wasn’t the same with painting, piano, or violin.

Why is Van Gogh famous? Some people simply explain it because he was a pioneer of Post-Impressionism and had a profound influence on 20th-century art, especially on Fauvism and Expressionism.

But could Ren He, with complete Master Level painting skills, reproduce such complex emotional hues? He wasn’t Van Gogh, so he couldn’t.

Van Gogh adored sunflowers intensely. He wanted to use 12 paintings of sunflowers as background wall paintings for his studio, but before he could finish, the sunflowers withered away.

Those twisted sunflower lines testified to his strong yet chaotic inner world. Ren He could replicate them, yet there was always something missing.

It’s as if Beethoven were to be reborn and performed the sorrowful third movement, others could discern the difference between Ren He and Beethoven. It wasn’t a matter of their skill levels; Ren He was the pinnacle of technique because the Divine Punishment System had given him the pinnacle, but after all, the sorrowful third movement wasn’t something he composed.

That missing little bit was something profound within the artistic field: the embedding of emotion.

Simply put, he could express emotions through technique, but he wasn’t actually sorrowful! Others might not hear it, but he could!

He was a perfect idealist; otherwise, he wouldn’t have returned to Mount Everest a second time.

Indeed, Ren He’s most peak work wasn’t those Dota original illustrations, nor was it the office sketch he drew to irk Richard; it was the street sketch he initially drew for Yang Xi...

That was his most intense and fervent emotion.

And for this reason, that painting had such an immense impact that someone even offered 200,000 RMB for it online.

So before coming here, Ren He had been thinking that he wanted to experience what it truly felt like to commit oneself to painting. This was also... a way to experience how others pursued their dreams.

Ren He bought a bunch of painting supplies that night: canvases, paints, brushes, and the like, all very complete. He had just returned to the apartment when Yang Xi exclaimed, "Why did you buy so many painting supplies?"

Actually, Yang Xi only knew that Ren He was very good at painting, and that was because of the portrait of her and the Dota original illustrations he had photographed and boasted to her about.

Yang Xi knew that Ren He’s paintings were vivid and had a deep ambiance, but she wasn’t clear on the extent and level of his skills.

Because all of this was still a foreign field to her, she didn’t even have the qualifications to judge.

Ren He laughed and said, "I’ve already completed the enrollment procedures at Columbia University today, the School of Fine Arts, studying painting with an old man."

"Really?" Yang Xi exclaimed with joy. If there was anyone happier than Ren He about the continuation of his campus life, it was her.

Love is about giving, but she had been selfish once, making Ren He give up his campus life, and now she was of course happy to be able to make up for that regret and guilt.

"Of course it’s true, I am now officially an undergraduate student at Columbia University," Ren He said with an easy smile, "I’m preparing to delve into painting."

In the past, Ren He would have felt his time was pressing: busy creating Kunlun, busy playing Dota, busy being an Assassin’s Creed character, busy with tasks, climbing Mount Everest, speed skiing... so many things to do.

But now things were different; he finally had ample time to settle down and learn to be at peace, to do things that might seem boring yet were interesting, to examine himself in tranquility, to build his strength in silence.

He always felt as though he were undergoing some sort of transformation, but he didn’t know what it exactly was.

It was as if the flame in his heart was slowly retracting into a solid core, and one day when it matured, it would burst forth with an even more scorching power from within.

Yang Xi wondered, "How did you get in, was it really as simple as donating a library?"

"Not exactly, there was also an interview process. The dean of the art school asked me to do a sketch," Ren He explained.

Remembering the Dota original artwork Ren He had shown her, artwork that seemed imbued with a spirit, Yang Xi said with a smile, "Did you dazzle the dean?"

"Haha, not at all, I grossed him out!" Ren He burst into laughter when he remembered this incident.

Grossed him out...?

Yang Xi couldn’t quite understand...

...

After Ren He left, Dean Richard sat in front of the drawing board looking at the sketch for a full twenty minutes. It was truly magical for a drawing to evoke such intense emotional fluctuations so rarely.

How do ordinary people feel when they see Van Gogh’s Sunflowers? No feelings, okay? The biggest reaction is wondering why the painting is so expensive, and thinking the artist is too self-absorbed!

But Ren He’s drawing was different; the chaotic environment and complex lines would make anyone feel nauseated, without exception...

It wasn’t that Ren He was better than Van Gogh, just that they had different ways of expressing themselves.

After looking at the drawing for 20 minutes, Dean Richard finally couldn’t stand it anymore, got up, and started cleaning the room, and every time he got tired of tidying up, just the thought of that nauseating feeling seemed to reignite his motivation to clean...

He really was disgusted by Ren He!

What kind of person was this? Couldn’t he just paint properly? Everyone else aimed to please the viewer, yet there he was, intent on making others sick!

The more Dean Richard cleaned and organized, the angrier he became!

Yet, compared to his other students who were still exploring and finding their personal styles—whose work lacked individual style and while technically flawless, always seemed to miss something...

Ren He was different. Just in terms of sketching, his lines and structure were flawless, plus he had an unrivaled memory.

And as for style, the emotional intensity in his style and paintings was so thick it could make one nauseous, right?!

Even so, Dean Richard had to admit that Ren He was a genius, a genius among geniuses!

...

To celebrate the new birth of Not Cold Assassin’s son today, here’s an extra Chapter.