Van Gogh Reborn!

277

Caterpillar and Pork Rice Bowl (2)

I was shocked.

For the past three months, since we joined the Chocolatier group, Henri Marso had shown no interest in Blanche Fabre.

Even when she thought she had painted a good picture, he didn’t spare her a glance.

She wanted to be like Marceau.

She wanted to be acknowledged by Marceau.

But every time, her pride was hurt.

“What are you doing?”

Henri Marso urged her.

Fabre stepped forward with her self-portrait, drawn with the scratch technique.

Some of the students admired it, but most of them frowned.

She had filled the paper with nine small snowdrops, magnified to the fullest.

A caterpillar was crawling on the colorful stem of the snowdrops, which were red, yellow, blue, and green.

There was no trace of Blanche Fabre in the picture.

The students did not think of Fabre’s picture as a self-portrait.

“Didn’t he tell you to draw a self-portrait?”

“She must really want to stand out.”

“Doesn’t she ever get tired of this?”

Some of the high school students mocked Fabre’s picture.

They couldn’t understand why she had painted flowers when Henri Marso had clearly asked for a self-portrait.

‘How annoying.’

Fabre had always been like that.

She liked disgusting insects.

She made works by attaching corpses.

She was a weirdo who did incomprehensible things.

The students thought she looked like a madwoman who craved attention.

Sometimes they felt disgusted by her deliberate actions.

And when some of the media reported her as a genius painter, they thought the adults were all fooled by her pretty face and acting.

They didn’t like it.

“Explain.”

Marceau asked her to explain the picture, but Fabre shook her head and refused.

She thought that showing it was enough, since she had put everything she wanted to say in the picture.

Henri Marso smirked and sent Fabre back. He placed the two pictures that had been presented earlier on the blackboard, side by side. And he observed them for a while.

The students were puzzled when the teacher didn’t call the next student. Then, Marceau turned around and started his lecture.

“If you take the advanced art class, you must want to do something related to art.”

The students didn’t answer, but they nodded inwardly.

There was no other reason to choose the advanced art class while attending the prestigious Henri IV Middle and High School, which had produced many artists.

Some students wanted to do traditional art like Henri Marso or Ko Hun, and some wanted to go into the design field. 𝐟re𝚎𝘄𝚎𝐛𝚗o𝚟el.c𝐨𝚖

“You.”

Henri Marso pointed to the first student who had presented.

“What do you want to paint?”

“I want to paint like you, sir.”

“Think again.”

“What?”

“You’ll starve to death if you paint like that.”

Henri Marso pointed to the first scratch picture.

“Those who were impressed by this, think again.”

The students were shocked by his blunt words.

It was more serious because it was said by Henri Marso, who was called the hero of the French art world.

“There are millions of people who can paint like this in France.”

The students’ eyes were filled with disbelief.

The first student who had presented was among the best in the prestigious Henri IV High School.

They found it hard to believe that there were millions of people who could do as much as him.

“Do you think I’m lying?”

Henri Marso searched for the number of people registered in the Antermittant system and showed it to them.

“There are 580,000 people who are recognized as artists by the state and SNBA. How many of you can graduate from college and work as artists?”

No one could answer.

“There are only two in this classroom.”

It was obvious who he was talking about.

Ko Hun, who was invited to the Whitney Biennale, won second place in the Art Nouveau contest, and participated in , which had a record-breaking success worldwide, and Blanche Fabre, who ranked tenth in the Art Nouveau contest.

Only two out of a hundred.

“No matter how hard you try, there are hundreds of thousands of people who can draw better than you. Why? Because they have more talent, work harder, and were born earlier than you.”

“…”

“Then why are you drawing such a thing?”

Henri Marso glared at the student.

The student, who had been confident with the support of his friends, could only open his mouth without saying anything.

Henri Marso asked the other students around him.

“Is that not enough to admire?”

His voice was full of contempt.

“I’ve seen enough of you guys. You’re proud of drawing a little in your class, neighborhood, or among your peers, but you become ordinary in college where you gather similar people. You’re nothing in society. You guys who praise such people are not even that.”

Henri Marso put his hand on the self-portrait that the student drew.

“You can’t draw better than anyone else no matter what you do.”

“…”

“I’m here now. And later, there’s that guy.”

Ko Hun frowned.

‘Why did he break it when he was doing well.’

He was listening silently because he knew what Henri Marso was trying to say, but he was confused.

“Do you think it’s unfair? Do you think I’m telling you to give up if you have no talent?”

Most of the students in the classroom felt that way.

They couldn’t refute Henri Marso’s words because they were true, but they couldn’t help their rising feelings.

“Then what should we do?”

The first student who presented asked with a rebellious tone.

He wanted to draw well and was working hard, but he didn’t know what to do when he said he could never draw better than anyone else.

“Draw something only you can do.”

Marso said, hitting the picture.

“Anyone can do this kind of thing if you ask them to draw on the street. Even people who don’t know anything about you can draw this much.”

“…”

“There will be millions of people who can draw much better.”

Marso looked at the students’ eyes filled with disbelief and dissatisfaction, and pointed to Fabre’s picture.

“And this is a picture that only that white-haired kid can draw.”

“I can draw that too.”

“Me too.”

The kids who had pushed Fabre away raised their voices with resentment.

They drew well, but it wasn’t something they couldn’t imitate. They thought they could draw anything like a silver bell flower if they spent a little time.

“If you think the flowers you drew and this picture are the same, pack your bags and leave.”

Henri Marso scolded the students again.

“I told you to draw a self-portrait. Does this look like a flower?”

“…”

“This is that kid. Why? Because he likes it. Because he grows this flower and is always with it.”

Ko Hun nodded and supported Henri Marso.

“Draw what you feel, what you like and dislike, how you see the world, and what you create in your heart.”

Henri Marso came down from the podium and headed to Ko Hun.

Ko Hun was expressing a shaded sunflower.

He left the sunflower black and peeled off the background so that only the shadow of the sunflower could be seen.

Instead, the peeled-off background was dazzling and colorful, so that you could see at a glance what the sunflower was looking at.

Marso showed it to the students.

“If you want to be a painter, draw something no one can draw. I can’t draw the world this guy is looking at. Even if you bring Picasso, Matisse, or Van Gogh, they can’t draw it.”

“I did.”

Ko Hun picked a fight.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Henri Marso took Ko Hun’s picture and went forward.

“You don’t have to think hard about what you can only draw. The only thing you know among the things you know is yourself.”

As Ko Hun was taken aback by the sudden loss of his picture, the students were already listening to Henri Marso’s lecture.

They couldn’t draw better than others.

But they were moved by the words that they could draw what others couldn’t.

“Think. Who are you. What do you like and what do you see. When you know that, you can be a real painter. Like me, Ko Hun, and that white-haired kid.”

Marso took my picture away. It’s the second time after .

I wonder if he’s using the excuse of performance evaluation too much.

I would be willing to give it to him if he didn’t exhibit it at the Marso Art Museum, as the lesson was excellent.

The kids were pondering over the scratch paper that Marso had just handed out to them.

They had already prepared their self-portraits as homework, and they seemed to have learned something from it.

Drawing themselves would be a great help for the kids who dreamed of becoming artists.

They didn’t need to use any unique techniques or materials to create an original work.

The basics were to know, feel, and express themselves.

They couldn’t improve if they just drew things as they were taught by others, or copied them as they were.

As Marso said, there was a limit to the technical skills of each individual.

And it wasn’t very important to reach that level first, since anyone could do it with enough effort.

Some people could draw realistic pictures in a year.

Some people could do it in ten years, but that was it.

Unless they were special cases like Marso.

The important thing was what kind of picture they drew.

If they followed what others did, they would only be compared. They had to draw their own world that no one else could draw, to become the best.

My picture was the best drawn by me.

Marso’s picture was the best drawn by Marso.

The reason I didn’t bother to correct Cha Si-hyun’s or Rabbani’s pictures was that they drew better than me.

They had to love themselves.

They had to trust themselves, even if others pointed fingers at them. That was the kind of lecture that Henri Marso would give.

It must have been a wake-up call for the kids who ignored and shunned Fabre.

They should have come to their senses, instead of crushing their individuality with words like wanting to stand out or being weird.

“Ko-hoon, white hair. Come to the front.”

As the bell rang to end the class, Marso called me and Fabre.

I turned my head, wondering what was going on, and Fabre looked puzzled too.

We came to the front and he gave us a piece of paper.

Fabre got three.

“What is this?”

“Write a reflection.”

“…What?”

“You were late.”

He told us to write a reflection for being a little late to class.

It was outrageous to punish us, when we should have been rewarded for calming down the student and getting him to participate in the class.

“You told me to bring him. Where is this rule?”

“Quiet.”

Marso turned his head.

“You. This is the last time. If you don’t show up next time, I’ll expel you from the attendance book, so remember that.”

Fabre, who used to say that he had to resist Marso, nodded obediently.

The matter ended strangely.