Van Gogh Reborn!

Chapter 229:

229

Sin and Punishment (5)

Meanwhile.

Jang Mi-rae, who had found , burst into laughter, forgetting about the matter related to Damien Carter for a while.

Henri Marso’s self-portrait was 3.8 meters tall and stood out from afar.

His emerald eyes shone brightly and his tightly closed mouth revealed his stubborn personality.

“Wow.”

As she approached closer along the line, she couldn’t help but admire Henri Marso’s astonishingly elaborate expression.

She had thought that the 3D printer was not much different from the ordinary one, but she couldn’t close her mouth as she looked at the brush strokes that seemed to breathe and the hair that seemed to flutter in the wind.

“Did you rework it?”

Jang Mi-rae asked Ko Hun.

“Yes. The sensitivity is not good right now, so I have to fix it again.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The goal is to make it to the level where there is no need to do that.”

Jang Mi-rae nodded and walked along the moving line.

As she approached the 3.8-meter-high human face that was so realistically depicted, she felt both repulsion and curiosity.

It was a natural emotion to approach a huge ego.

“It’s a bit weird.”

Jang Mi-rae felt awkward with the unfamiliar feeling, while expecting what the inside of would be like.

“I feel that way every day.”

Ko Hun responded.

“Every day?”

“I’ve known and lived with him for a long time, so I should be used to it, but it’s weird every time.”

“Hmm.”

“I know he’s a great person and it’s not a strange thing, but I feel reluctant.”

“I know what you mean.”

“But I’m also curious why he’s like that. And he seems to know it too.”

Jang Mi-rae nodded.

The curiosity of what was inside, while feeling unfamiliar and reluctant.

Maybe was the work that best revealed himself, she thought.

“It will take some time, right?”

Jang Mi-rae lifted her feet and looked ahead.

There were many visitors waiting because only two people could enter at a time.

“He intended that too. He said it would be easier to see if he made it bigger.”

“And then?”

“He said there aren’t many people who can enter his mind.”

“Hahaha. He’s crazy. Really. Seriously?”

Ko Hun nodded seriously and Jang Mi-rae laughed again.

“Oh, but he did a great job. It looks great from afar. He’s so famous. But there’s not much chance to see it from the inside.”

Jang Mi-rae observed Henri Marso’s expression style with interest.

The self-portrait was the result of self-reflection.

From that perspective, expressed both himself as a hero of the French art world and Henri Marso as an individual.

She couldn’t see the inside yet.

She didn’t know what he was hiding or what he wanted to show, but she felt sincerity.

‘It’s rare to see someone who expresses himself so diversely.’

Jang Mi-rae looked at Henri Marso’s self-portraits, which came with a new feeling every time, even though he had published more than 800 of them.

‘He must have thought seriously.’

Henri Marso showed the process of finding his identity as an individual in the modern society where he didn’t know who he was or what he had to do, through more than 800 self-portraits.

“He’s amazing.”

Ko Hun opened his mouth.

“In what way?”

“The fact that he only deals with self-portraits, but his expression style changes every time.”

Jang Mi-rae confirmed that Ko Hun had the same thought as her and nodded.

“That’s why he’s loved. Because it’s a time of uncertainty, maybe people are vicariously satisfied with Marceau.”

“Uncertain?”

“Um. It might be a bit off topic.”

“It’s okay.”

Jang Mi-rae thought it was a hard story for a child to understand, but she remembered that Ko Hun had accepted before.

She thought he would understand enough and spoke.

“A few years ago, I couldn’t even think of something like a driverless bus. There were a lot of people who couldn’t adapt to the kiosk at first, but now there’s no one who can’t handle it.”

After self-driving services became widespread, public transportation such as subways and buses started to operate under central control.

Automation and unmanned systems also occurred across all sectors of society, from service to production.

The same was true for households.

Robot vacuums that had undergone continuous improvement did not stop at sweeping and wiping the floor according to the set time. They also emptied the dust bin and changed the mop on their own.

In the process, humans who lost their labor power did not know what to do and how to live.

People who used to earn money and lead their lives by working felt frustrated by their inability to contribute to society and eventually regarded themselves as worthless beings.

Ko Hun, who encountered such a situation at the Shuminke paint factory where automation had taken place, nodded his head.

“They used to teach us that studying hard, going to a good college, and getting a decent job was happiness.”

“Yes.”

“But when I got a job, it wasn’t like that. I had to please my boss, work overtime every day, and I didn’t know why I went through all that trouble. I didn’t know why I had a job. I had plenty of time because I didn’t have to do any chores, but I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Ko Hun recalled the time when he worked at the Gupil Art Gallery long ago.

It wasn’t exactly the same as the current situation, but he felt resentment at his daily life that only satisfied the rich’s vanity.

He guessed that modern people felt similar to what he felt back then.

“People who are excluded from the competition are also a problem. There aren’t many people who can develop and maintain technology. Europe has good welfare, so they won’t starve to death, but they just eat and play.”

Ko Hun nodded.

He had already achieved his dream of a prosperous life.

But having delicious food and a nice house did not satisfy all his needs.

Just like Ko Hun wanted to draw and communicate.

Cha Si-hyun wished for his grandfather and father to reconcile, and Ferdiando Gonzalez wanted a society where more people loved each other.

Humans who satisfied their physiological needs wished for a stable life.

When survival was met, they wanted to communicate with people, strive to be recognized by others, and become better people accordingly.

Ko Hun sometimes felt sad when he saw people saying they wanted to be rich and unemployed on the internet.

It meant that survival was fierce.

“Marso’s work seems to fill the emptiness that arises from there. That person is also looking at himself so hard. What about me?”

Me, who is not a worker.

Me, who does not work, had to seriously think about who I was in this era.

In a society where individual parts were prevalent.

Both the parts and the individuals who could not even be parts had to love themselves more than anyone else.

Otherwise, they could not survive.

“Can we go in next?”

Jang Mi-rae and Ko Hun, who had been talking with , finally faced the next turn.

As soon as the person in front of them came out and they got a chance to see it for 30 seconds, Jang Mi-rae exclaimed as she entered.

“Wow.”

The inside of contained a view of Paris.

It was a morning in Paris filled with hopeful light.

Was this the Paris that Henry Marso, who was improving the Antermittent and developing the Open Wall, wanted to achieve?

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

Jang Mi-rae sincerely admired.

7 p.m.

Alex Wood, a YouTuber who came out after seeing , jumped up.

“This is crazy. I’m telling you, this is crazy. It was worth waiting for four hours. You guys should definitely see it if you have a chance.”

When the viewers complained about how they could go to Europe, Alex explained that seeing alone was a valuable thing.

“What was inside? It was Paris. It wasn’t exactly the same as the photo, but it was a three-dimensional reconstruction of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe that you could only recognize. It looked like the sun was just rising, and that was the feeling of the Paris he was making. With the Open Wall, I mean. I didn’t know he could paint landscapes so well. He only painted self-portraits. No, wait. In a broad sense, the Paris scenery itself was a self-portrait, right? It was amazing.”

Alex barely calmed down his excitement.

“The really cool thing was that it was so realistic at first that it was weird to go inside. Should I say grotesque? But as soon as I went in, wow. I got it right away. What Henry Marso was thinking right now. He said he wanted to break down the old-fashioned era and open a new one, right? It was exactly that. You know what gave me goosebumps?”

└Are you kidding?

└How do we know that?

└Don’t beat around the bush and tell us.

The viewers who couldn’t see the inside raised their voices, and Alex quickly told the story.

“There was a staircase inside that you could climb up, right? When you go up there, you stand right at the pupil position, and boom. The inside is reflected in the pupil. It showed me floating above Paris. You have to feel it for yourself. Really.”

A question about Demian Carter’s work came up in the chat.

“Demian Carter’s work was, how should I say it, not easy. It was a stained glass made of jewels like sapphire, ruby, and diamond, but what should I say. The shape was very distorted. Stained glass often expresses biblical stories, right? So I could see some intention to change something idealistic, but I wasn’t sure.”

└Who do you think will win?

└Can’t you film it?? Is it because of the king’s rights?

└I heard the jewels are fake.

“That’s right. It turns out the jewels were fake. Demian Carter made them himself. As for who will win… Honestly, I think it’s Henri Marso. Maybe it’s because I have to wait and see, but there was a big difference in the lines.”

Alex compared the two artists by his own standards.

“First of all, both of them attracted attention. How can you just ignore Henri Marso’s face, which is 3.8 meters long? I couldn’t resist. Demian Carter’s work was also huge, 4 meters long, but when I saw it from afar, I was like, what is that? I had to go closer. The first impression was better for Demian Carter. Even though the jewels were fake, they shone brightly because of the lights. On the other hand, Henri Marso was a bit intimidating.”

Alex checked his watch.

“But after seeing the two works, I felt differently. Henri Marso made me learn more? Admire more? Enjoy more? Something like that. And Demian Carter made me wonder, what is this? That’s how I felt.”

Since the results were about to be announced, Alex hurried to find the seminar room.

└Demian’s articles keep coming up.

└Isn’t Henri’s work at a disadvantage because fewer people have seen it?

“That could be true. But you have to see it for yourself to appreciate it. Oh? Wow. It’s Shara Georgia. Shara! Shara!”

Alex was delighted to see the American painter Shara Georgia standing in front of the presentation hall.1)

She was a young painter who was loved for her honest and colorful palette and her deconstructive depiction on a traditional composition.

“Alex.”

“Can I interview you for a moment?”

“Of course. Are you on air right now? Hello.”

└That’s really Shara Georgia.

└Are you crazy? You know Shara?

└Why is she in this humble place?

“What do you mean humble!”

Alex pretended to be angry and captured Shara Georgia on camera.

“What brings you to Rotterdam?”

“How can I miss this event? I was curious about the breakthrough. I came to see it.”

“How was it? You look happy.”

It was a question that reflected the fact that some artists regarded the breakthrough as nothing more than a convenient tool, while the public gave it a great response.

“It was amazing. Henri Marso let me experience art through the breakthrough. It felt like I traveled to Marso’s Paris. It was really cool.”

“I know what you mean.”

Alex was glad that she had the same experience as him and asked her the next question.

“What about Demian Carter?”

Shara Georgia shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

Alex guessed that she didn’t have much to say about Demian Carter’s .

Or it was hard to express.

As Alex expected, Shara Georgia avoided answering with a smile.

“I’m curious why he used fake jewels after using real ones until now.”

1)Shara Hughes(American, born 1981)

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