To be blunt,

when Hanks saw the picture that Professor Yajima sent, it didn’t live up to the expectations he had after hearing the name "Wu Guanzhong."

One could even say he felt quite disappointed.

It’s like when a company boss announces a dinner and you expect a Three Michelin Stars meal, only to find yourself at a Kentucky Fried Chicken with mini burgers.

It’s not that it’s inedible, and it doesn’t even taste bad.

It’s just that there is indeed a significant gap from what Hanks hoped to see.

Ma Shi Gallery is in need of a miracle, someone who can set the trend in the global high-end art scene, the next Andy Warhol or Picasso.

If someone can create an art movement that stuns the world like Pop Art, then big boss Ma Shi III would surely have no hesitation in kneeling down to kiss the artist’s rear.

Even with Professor Jiu Kai Yicheng’s current art status and renown, the probability of achieving this goal is below 10%.

To put it plainly,

Ma Shi Gallery sent Hanks with the hope of using tens of millions of US Dollars in signing costs, and even more in marketing expenses, to gamble on a miracle with a success rate of less than one in ten.

Of course, an old-school great painter like Yakai Ichiro is unlike those avant-garde artists who build their fame on sand and play with various concepts.

He has exquisite painting techniques as a solid foundation for his work’s value.

In the past five years, the prices of Yakai Ichiro’s artworks have consistently shown a stable upward trend, inspiring confidence among collectors.

As long as Uncle Sakai doesn’t recklessly step into the political correctness minefields of Europe and America, it’s hard to imagine a sudden collapse in the prices of his works.

Signing Yakai Ichiro, Ma Shi Gallery is most likely not going to lose money.

Master Jiu recommended Hanks to switch targets. The work before him, compared to Professor Jiu Kai Yicheng’s painting, is far inferior.

It doesn’t even qualify as a substitute.

"Who painted this? Any inside scoop?"

Hanks blinked and helplessly smiled, saying, "If you can give me a name as renowned as Taylor Swift, then Ma Shi Gallery would be thrilled to collaborate."

Hanks was joking, and at the same time, he wasn’t.

When it comes to art hype, it’s either about the work or the artist.

If the work doesn’t hold up, a creator with an intriguing backstory can still fetch a price.

For example, being a celebrity or influential figure, Picasso’s student, or an accurately documented student of Da Vinci’s student.

Anything with a selling point that captures collectors’ interest can be sold at a good price.

Paintings by the German little moustache are sensitive, but always find buyers, and works by eminent figures like Churchill often get special auctions in the art market every few years.

The France-based Lisson Gallery built its reputation by collaborating with rock star John Lennon and selling his wife Yoko Ono’s artworks.

Ma Shi Gallery’s business direction doesn’t typically involve trendy celebrity artworks, but they would not reject such opportunities.

"For a celebrity, this painting is a bit too well done, right? An amateur painter wouldn’t have this skill."

Despite Hanks’ evident disappointment, Professor Yajima remained unfazed.

"But if it were a work by a mature professional painter, this painting would appear... not bad, just not good enough." Hanks spoke frankly, "This artwork lacks the frenzy value for viewers and doesn’t give Ma Shi Gallery a compelling reason to sign."

The specific value of an artwork,

is something outsiders who don’t engage in the art industry or art investment circles often can’t understand or even find unfathomable.

It’s easy for people to accept the astronomical prices of creations by Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso, and Mondrian because they are genuinely well done.

Audience members can easily feel the intense emotions and exceptional technique within the works.

But why is Duchamp’s submission of a urinal to an exhibition hailed as one of the century’s greatest artworks?

Why can a Dadaist artist command tens of thousands of pounds for merely dotting a white paper, and have it boldly exhibited next to Van Gogh’s works at the Rijksmuseum?

Even now, in recent years, why are NFT digital artworks, like individual pixels, selling for tens of millions of US Dollars, and why are collectors rushing to buy canned feces?

The reason is definitely not because Duchamp’s urinal has some special function or someone’s dot on paper is particularly round.

To professionals in the gallery industry, these artworks don’t even belong to the same category.

Even if they’re all called artworks, they differ vastly from each other.

The industry uses a straightforward criterion to assess the value of art—classical art values technique, modern art values form, and avant-garde art values concept.

Classical art doesn’t specifically refer to Classical and Neoclassical art philosophies, but generally encompasses the works of artists who pursue artistic techniques.

In other words, art that falls into the traditional painting category as understood by the average person.

They seek to move audiences through the beauty inherent in the works themselves.

Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Aestheticism, Realism, Symbolism... all pre-20th-century art movements, including traditional Chinese painting, fall under this umbrella.

The most significant difference between classical art and the other two—modern art and avant-garde art—is whether the "focus" of appreciation lies on the work itself.