Chapter 245: The Future Artist

After a sumptuous dinner, Trini sent Van der Lenteren to his private guest room to rest—the full set of bathroom facilities would surely satisfy him. Pleasing visitors from the “central government” was a kind of inertia for those in the “local” areas, and the 17th-century Dutch were no exception.

Mr. Leib Trini returned to his studio. It was a large room by the standards of any era, with large glass windows that were extremely luxurious even by European standards. This provided ample light for Mr. Trini’s daily work.

The studio, like all artists’ studios, was a bit messy. The huge workbench was piled with rolls of paper, and there were paintbrushes and paints everywhere—many of which were European goods shipped from Batavia.

On the shelves along the walls were many plaster busts and statues. In the middle of the room, easels and stools were arranged in a semicircle. This was the equipment used by Trini’s drawing class.

In a corner of the room was his carving workbench, on which stood a half-finished stone sculpture—an order from the Australians. They wanted to erect a small victory monument at the foot of Chengmai City. From design to carving, Leib Trini was responsible for everything. His orders were far from over.

In the history of art, the Italian Leib Trini was an obscure and unknown figure, but in terms of both fine art and applied art, he was a “master” in Lin’gao.

In the studio, there was a small coke furnace, various sizes of crucibles for melting glass and metal, and on the table were various tools for making glass and metal crafts. Here he made stained glass and various metal decorations, from the ironwork decorations with the ornate Latin letters “S.S.A.E.” inlaid on the lintels of the Council of Elders’ buildings to the various medals and coats of arms issued by the Council of Elders…

The Australians’ demand for art was so great that Trini found that his main time was not spent on consular or intelligence work, but on completing the Australians’ orders.

He sat down in his rattan chair, lit a cigar, and slowly smoked it, savoring the aroma. The cigars made by the Australians were a luxury in this place, and it was said that only “Elders” could enjoy them. But for Trini, Australian cigars were just a processed product of American tobacco—just like those cheaper paper-rolled cigarettes.

The luxury goods of this era generally had the characteristics of being from a distant place and being rare. The two were complementary; what was distant was naturally rare. Just like Chinese silk and porcelain, although they were not everywhere in China, they were not priceless treasures. Once they crossed the ocean and were transported thousands of miles to Europe and America, their value would increase tenfold, twentyfold. The safe arrival of a single ship could bring back countless wealth. Sourcing strange and rare items from distant places and then transporting them over long distances to obtain high profits was the most common trade model in this world.

But the Australians always changed the appearance of things, using some unknown secret methods to increase their value, whether it was the “Great Tang Princess” wine they used to sell in Guangzhou, or the cigarettes and cigars they sold now.

Strictly speaking, the Australians did not have anything that the Europeans and Chinese did not have. It could even be said that, except for their weapons, there were no real “Australian goods.” The so-called Australian goods were all made in Lin’gao, using Chinese and imported raw materials.

After the cigar was finished, the room had completely fallen into darkness. The Dutch servant with a perpetually stern face came in. He came in holding a candle and carefully lit the gas lamp with an explosion-proof lampshade in the corner of the room. The whole room was soon brightly lit.

After lighting the gas lamp, he withdrew. Trini’s spirits began to revive—his apprentices would soon come to study with him at night.

For some reason, the Australians were keen on working at night. Of course, they had the conditions for it. The bright gas lamp allowed him to still see clearly the large oil painting on the easel as he sat in his rattan chair. This was an order from the Lin’gao Monastery, to be used to decorate the Bairen Cathedral. The Council of Elders had half-forced, half-lured fifteen students to study art with Trini, and a few of the children who had shown sufficient talent had already been taken in by him as disciples. A 12-year-old girl made Trini have fantasies every night.

Trini liked the Australians’ attitude towards women. They let women show their faces and enter all occasions without any concern, letting them be craftsmen, farmers, and engage in all walks of life, and freely interact with men. They even let girls go to school and serve as officials. This made the whole society more colorful—especially since the Australians made all the female students wear scandalously short skirts, even revealing their knees! It was said that on some special occasions, there were even women wearing skirts that revealed their thighs. Mr. Trini was not a man who had never seen a naked woman. Like all Italian painters, he had painted many female nudes, but the sight of a female student in a short-sleeved blouse and a short skirt aroused his desire more than a naked woman.

The Australians were keen on naked women in paintings, but the religious affairs officer, He Ying, had clearly instructed him that when painting naked women, it was limited to religious subjects—in most cases, they had to have wings and could only appear in a few specific occasions, such as in front of martyrs, in the sky behind the Elders, or in the approved church icons of the Religious Affairs Office. But among the holy figures in front, there would always be one or two with the faces of certain Elders. For example, the one offering frankincense to the Holy Child was Dean Wu Shimang, and the one striking down a six-winged beauty with a flaming sword was the winged Chairman Wen…

Of course, these unpleasantnesses could not shake Trini’s love for Lin’gao. The Australians provided Trini with high-quality paper, canvas, dip pens, high-quality ink, and the previously unheard-of fountain pens and pencils.

Trini was very fond of the Lin’gao-produced painting tools, especially the drawing pencils. The various models of drawing pencils with different shades greatly reduced the workload of the painter when drawing sketches. As for the plaster busts, he admitted that this was a wonderful method. Many people learning to paint could not afford marble replicas, but with molds and plaster powder, they could easily mass-produce replicas of the most beautiful sculptures for people to copy and admire.

His four best students came in, three boys and one girl, and bowed to him. Then a young man in a uniform came in. He stood up and smiled at the visitors. He could not yet speak Chinese and could only teach his lessons through a translator. And this serious-faced translator was said to be an Elder. He came here every day to act as a bridge between the students and him, never missing a class, rain or shine. And the students he served were all the most ordinary Chinese children of humble birth. This made Trini full of respect for the Australian Elders.

Trini’s teaching of these four students was the traditional master-apprentice method. The apprentices did some simple auxiliary work within their ability, observed his actions, and he would then give them some guidance. This was also the traditional teaching method of Italian artists during the Renaissance.

“What lesson are we having today?” the translator asked.

“Oil painting lesson. We’ll start with the most basic preparations for painting,” Trini said.

In the 17th century, to paint an oil painting, a painter first had to be a craftsman. In the old world, one could go to a stationery store and buy all the necessary painting tools to start painting, but this was not possible in this era. Whether it was canvas, paint, oil, or even paintbrushes, the painter had to prepare them himself.

In a corner of the room were many small drawers, filled with pigments transported from Europe over a long distance. The pigments were not in tubes, but were various solid fragments, mostly minerals, but also products from plants and animals. The most peculiar was the blue glass fragments from Venice—used to mix a relatively common blue color. On the table were various sizes of mortars and pestles and saucers.

Trini taught them step-by-step how to select the pigment fragments, how to break them into suitable sizes, and then how to grind them. The grinding was done in stages, first crushed in a larger mortar, and then ground finer in a smaller mortar, until it became a powder of different fineness that could be mixed.

The students gradually became interested in the work. First, they were curious, and then they put on a serious face. They helped the master prepare a poisonous potion: dissolving arsenic disulfide and mercuric chloride in alcohol, and then pouring it onto a wooden board—to prevent the board from being eaten by borers. Then, they applied the first layer of gesso, filling all the joints and cracks with a mixture of alabaster, resin, and frankincense, and then using a smooth polishing iron to smooth out the uneven places.

The work always seemed easy and quick in the master’s hands, as if it were a recreational activity. While working, Trini taught various techniques for preparing oil painting tools, teaching the students how to bind paintbrushes: from the coarsest and hardest hog bristle brushes wrapped in lead ferrules to the finest and softest squirrel hair brushes inserted in goose quills. He had also tried to use Chinese brushes, but he always felt that they were not very handy.

The students were eager to try. Although it looked simple and easy when the master did it, it seemed very clumsy when they did it themselves. Then Trini slowly heated a pure oil on the stove. This was extracted from hemp seeds. Because it had a slight hallucinogenic effect, the Council of Elders required them to wear masks when heating it.

Following his instructions, the students used small pieces of sheepskin to rub the hot hemp oil on the drawing board, allowing the board to fully absorb the oil.

“You have to rub it while it’s hot, otherwise it won’t be absorbed when it’s cold,” Trini constantly instructed the students.

The young Elder stood aside with great interest, translating Trini’s instructions and the students’ questions from time to time, and watching their every move with great interest. He noticed that the Italian cast his eyes on the female student from time to time, and was more focused when guiding her. He smiled knowingly.