Chapter 34 Part 5 True Wisdom in Laughter-4

Once, I played samba drums at a banquet.I played harder and harder, and one guy, especially affected by the drumbeat, went into the bathroom, took off his shirt, packed shaving cream all over his chest, made a funny pattern, and hung cherries on his ears , ran out and danced wildly.Of course, I immediately became friends with the madman.His name is Jirayr Zorthian, and he is an artist. We often discuss art and science.I would say: "Artists are a lost bunch, they don't have any real objects! They used to have religion as an object, but now they have lost their religion and have nothing. They don't understand the technological world in front of them, and they don't understand the beauty of the real world at all — which is the beauty of the scientific world — so deep down they have nothing to paint at all.”

But Zuo Shien would reply that artists do not need concrete objects, they are full of all kinds of emotions that can be expressed through art; and art can be very abstract, not to mention that when scientists decompose nature into mathematical equations, they simultaneously It also destroys the beauty of nature. Once I went to Zuo Shi'en's house to celebrate his birthday, and we started a similar stupid debate again, which lasted until 3 o'clock in the morning.The next morning, I called him up and said, "Look, the reason we're arguing and reaching no conclusion is because you don't know anything about science and I don't know anything about art. So we'll take turns on Sundays and I'll teach you Science, you give me art lessons."

"Okay," he said, "I'll teach you how to draw." "That's impossible!" I said.When I was in middle school, the only picture I could draw was the pyramid in the desert, because the composition of the pyramid is mainly composed of straight lines, and occasionally I will try to add palm trees and the sun.I have no artistic talent at all.And the guy sitting next to me, as bad as I am, every time the teacher lets us go free, he'll draw two flat, oval-shaped things like two tires stacked on top of each other, and then a tree trunk coming from Sticking out of it, with a green triangle on top - that's called a tree.So, I bet Zuo Shi'en that he will not be able to teach me how to draw.

"Of course you have to study hard!" he said. I promise I'll work hard, but I bet he can't teach me. In fact, I really want to learn how to draw, and the reason is only known to me: I really want to express my deep feelings about the beauty of the world, which is hard to describe because it is an emotion, which is very similar to a person’s feelings towards religion. Feel.In religion, there is a God who dominates all things in the universe; as long as you think that all things in the world are governed by the same organization and the same physical laws "behind the scenes", you will feel that there must be a kind of operation in this world general rule.

This is a feeling for the beauty of nature's numbers, admiration for the wonder of her inner workings; understanding that all the phenomena we see are derived from the complex interactions between atoms, and more feeling the beauty of nature and fantasy.It's a feeling of awe -- awe of the science.I think that through painting, I can communicate this emotion with someone who feels the same way, and maybe in an instant, I can remind him to feel the glory of the universe. In fact, Zuo Sien is a very good teacher.He told me to go home first and draw something casually.I tried drawing a shoe, and a flower in a vase, but they were all messed up.

When we met again, I showed him my work. "Oh look!" he said, "you see, here in the rear, the line of the vase doesn't touch the leaves." In fact, my original intention was to draw this line all the way to the position of the leaf. "Very well, this is a way of expressing depth of field, very clever." "Also, it's good that you didn't make all the lines the same thickness (I didn't make it on purpose). If a drawing had all the lines the same thickness, it would look very dull." So the lesson It went on, and every time I thought it was wrong, he taught me something else with a positive view.He never said I was wrong or embarrassed me.So I keep trying and getting a little bit better, but I'm never satisfied.

In order to have more opportunities to practice painting, I also participated in the courses of the International Correspondence Institute.I have to admit that their class is not bad.At the beginning, they asked me to draw triangular cones and cylinders, practice adding shadows, etc. The course covered several painting fields: sketching, crayon painting, watercolor painting, oil painting, etc. At the end of the course, my interest gradually faded. Cool down.I did an oil painting, but never sent it to them.The school kept writing me letters encouraging me to keep going, they were really nice.

On the other hand, I kept practicing sketching, and my interest in sketching became stronger and stronger.If I feel bored in a meeting—for example, once, the psychologist Carl Rogers came to our school and discussed with us whether Caltech should have a psychology department, I would start drawing other people present .I carry a small notebook with me, so I can practice drawing wherever I go.So, when I was in class with Zuo Shi'en, I really worked very hard. However, Zuo Shi'en didn't learn much physics, he was too easily distracted. I tried to teach him electromagnetism, but as soon as I mentioned "electricity" he told me he had a broken motor and asked how I could fix it.I wanted him to actually see how the electromagnet works, so I built a small coil, and then suspended a nail in mid-air. Once the electricity was turned on, the nail would automatically oscillate into the coil.He actually said: "Oh! It's like having sex!" I had no choice but to give up, and the physics class was over.

So we had a new debate: whether he taught better than me, or because I was a better student. I dropped my original idea - to teach an artist how I feel about nature so that he can paint that feeling.Now I have to redouble my efforts to learn to paint, so that I can paint what I feel in my heart.It was an ambitious attempt, and I didn't tell anyone about it because I thought I might not be able to do it. Not long after I started learning to draw, a lady I knew saw my work and said: "You should go to the Pasadena Art Museum. They have sketching classes and they have models—nude models—for the students to draw."

"No," I said, "I can't draw well enough, I'll be embarrassed." "You're good enough at drawing, you should see what some people have drawn!" So I mustered up the courage to go to the art gallery.In the first class, they only told you what kind of white newspaper and various pencils and charcoals should be prepared.In the second class, the model came and posed for ten minutes. I started sketching the model, but I hadn't finished drawing a leg, ten minutes had passed.I looked around and everyone had drawn the whole picture, even the shadow behind her.I understand that I am too overwhelmed.But slowly, the models finally posed for half an hour in class.I worked very hard, and after a lot of effort, I finally drew the outline of her entire body.This time it was a bit hopeful, so I didn't cover the painting like I did in the past, and I didn't dare to let others see it.

We had to look at other people's paintings, and I found out that they could really draw: not only the model, but also all the details and shadows, including the chair she was sitting on and a small book on it, Podium and so on, detailed!If each of their charcoal pencils reads "Sand! Sand!", everything is drawn.I feel like I have nothing to hope for. I walked back, intending to cover my painting.There are only a few sparse lines squeezed in the upper left corner of the white newspaper in my drawing, because I only draw on notebook-sized paper before, and it has become a bit of a habit.But at this time, there happened to be a few classmates standing next to my painting, and one of them said: "Oh, look at this painting, every stroke is just right!" I don't know the exact meaning of what he said, but I was so encouraged that I dared to continue in the next class.On the other hand, Zuo Sien kept telling me that a painting that fills the canvas too much is not a good painting.His task is to teach me not to worry about how other people draw, he said that other people may not be so good. I noticed that the teacher didn't talk much, the only thing he told me was that my drawing was too small on the paper.Instead, he encouraged us to try various new ways of drawing.It made me think about the way we teach physics: we have too many tricks, too many mathematical equations, so the professors keep telling students how to do this and how to do that.But the painting teacher is afraid to tell you anything.If your lines are too heavy, the teacher cannot say, "Your lines are too heavy." Because some artists draw great masterpieces just with thick lines.Painting teachers are unwilling to force you to go in a specific direction, so the communication problem they encounter is how to let students gradually understand the skills of painting instead of just teaching them; but physics teachers are always teaching the skills of solving physics exercises , rather than enlightening students from the spiritual level of physics. They keep telling me to be more relaxed when I'm drawing.However, I don't think it makes much sense or is likely to be successful to ask a person who is just learning to drive to relax the steering wheel.It is only possible to start relaxing when you know how to get things done carefully.So, I'm against this kind of non-stop relaxation. They also invented a relaxing exercise for us to draw without looking at the paper—never take your eyes off the model, and trace the lines with your hands without looking down at what you have drawn look. One classmate said, "I couldn't help but cheat, and I bet everyone in the class cheated." "I didn't cheat!" I said. "Oh, nonsense!" they said. I finished my practice and they all came over to see what I had drawn.They found out that I wasn't really cheating: my nib was broken from the start, so there was nothing on the paper but the impression of the bald pen. When I finally sharpened the pencil, I tried it again, and I found that my drawing had a certain power, a little funny, a little Picasso-like, and I liked it.The reason I'm happy with this painting is that I know it's impossible to paint much better this way, so it's no surprise that the painting came close.In fact, the so-called "relaxation" is nothing more than that.Originally, I thought that relaxation meant "doodling", but in fact, relaxation really means to relax, don't worry about what will be drawn. I have made great progress in the painting class, and I feel very good.All along, the models in the classroom are the kind with thick lines and no figure, but it is also quite interesting to draw.But when it came time for the last class, there came a beautiful blonde with just the right proportions.And only then did I realize that I still don't know how to draw: I can't draw anything resembling this pretty girl!When you draw other models, it doesn't make much difference if you draw them bigger or smaller, they don't have very good figures anyway.But when you want to draw a girl with such a shapely appearance and figure, you can't lie to yourself-every stroke has to be just right! During a break, I heard a guy who could draw ask her if she would like to be a private model, and she said yes. "Great, but I don't have a studio yet, I have to figure that out first," he said. He draws really well, and I think I can learn a lot from him; and I figured I'd never have another chance to draw such a beautiful model, so I said, "I have another room downstairs that I can use as a work room." They both agreed.I showed Zuo Shi'en some paintings drawn by that guy, and he was taken aback, "The paintings aren't that good!" he said.He explained to me why it wasn't good, but I never really understood it. Before learning to draw, I was never interested in looking at paintings, and I didn’t really appreciate artworks; except for one or two times, like once in a Japanese art gallery, I saw a piece of brown paper with bamboo painted on it.For me, the beauty of this painting is that with just a few strokes of the painter, the bamboo becomes natural, and I can linger between reality and illusion. The summer after my drawing class, I went to Italy for a scientific conference and stopped by the Sistine Chapel.I got there early in the morning, was the first to get a ticket, and ran upstairs as soon as the doors opened.Thus I was able to enjoy the rare pleasure of the cathedral to myself, in the silence and solemnity, during this short interval, before anyone else entered. Soon, tourists flooded in, and crowds of people were noisily running around, speaking different languages, pointing and pointing.I wandered around, looked up at the ceiling, then looked down a bit and saw a couple of large framed paintings.I think: "Wow! I never knew these paintings existed!" Unfortunately, I left the guidebook at the hotel, but I thought, "I know why these paintings don't get a reputation anymore, because they aren't painted well enough." Then I saw another painting and thought, "Wow! That's a pretty good picture." Look at some other pictures. "This one is good, and that one is good, but that one is bad." I've never heard of these pictures, but I think all but two of them are pretty good. Walk into an exhibition room called Raphael (Sala de Raphael) and find the same phenomenon.I conclude: "Raphael's works are very unstable, not every time he succeeds, sometimes he paints well, sometimes he paints a pile of rubbish." When I got back to the hotel, I looked through the guidebook, and in the section about the Sistine Chapel it was written: "Below Michelangelo's paintings, there are fourteen paintings by Bottiecelli, Perugino ) of the painting, " They were all great painters; "the other two were painted by unknown so-and-so and so-and-so." I was so excited that although I couldn't tell the names and authors of these paintings, I could tell which ones were good ones, Which ones are not!Scientists know what they're doing at all times, so when artists say, "This painting is a masterpiece," or "This painting is terrible," without being able to explain why, we tend to be skeptical of their claims.This is exactly what happened when I showed the painting to Zuo Shi'en.But now I can tell the difference too. What about Raphael's secret?It turns out that only a few of the paintings there are really from the master's handwriting, and the rest are the works of his students.And the few pieces I like happen to be the works of Raphael.My confidence in my art appreciation has grown tremendously. Later, my classmates and beautiful models from the painting class came to my house several times. I tried my best to draw and learn from my classmates.After practicing it a few times, I finally drew a picture that I thought was pretty good - a head portrait of a model - and I couldn't be more excited about this first success. When I finally felt confident enough, I asked my old friend Steve Demitriades if I could ask his beautiful wife to be my model, and I would reward him with this portrait.He laughed: "If she's willing to waste time posing for you, I'm fine with it, haha!" I worked so hard to paint this painting, and when he saw it, he was completely on my side: "It's really well done!" he exclaimed, "Can you get a photographer to make it Take a picture, how many more copies? I want to send it back to Greece to show to my mother!" His mother has not seen this daughter-in-law yet.It was really invigorating because I had progressed to the point where people wanted my paintings. Another similar thing happened.Once, someone from Caltech held an art exhibition, and I also provided two sketches and one oil painting."We should put a price on this painting," he said. I thought, "Don't be stupid! I don't want to sell these paintings." "This way the exhibition is more interesting. If you won't be reluctant to part with these paintings, just set a price!" After the exhibition, he told me that a girl had bought one of my paintings and she wanted to talk to me to learn more about it.The title of the painting is "The Magnetic Field of the Sun".In order to draw this picture, I specially borrowed a very beautiful picture of the solar prominence from the solar laboratory in Colorado.Since I understand how the sun's magnetic field affects the sun's flames, I thought of the technique of drawing the lines of the magnetic field (kind of like a girl's flowing hair), and I wanted to draw something beautiful that other artists wouldn't think to paint: the sun's magnetic field is complex, twisted , Sparse and dense lines. I explained all the ideas to her and showed her the photo that inspired me. She told me this story: She came to the exhibition with her husband, and both of them liked the painting very much."Why don't we just buy the painting?" she suggested. But her husband is the kind of person who thinks twice about everything. "Think again!" he said. She remembered that it would be her husband's birthday in a few months, so she went back to the exhibition hall that day, bought the painting, and decided to surprise her husband on his birthday. Her husband was downcast as he left work that night; it turned out that he later wanted to buy the painting to amuse her.But when he went back to the art exhibition, he found that the painting had been bought by someone else. I got some fresh revelations from this story: at least on a certain level, I finally understand why art exists.Art can bring joy; what you create can be pleasing to the point of joy, and loss of it can be frustrating!Science is universal and macroscopic, and you are unlikely to have an individual and direct understanding of those who appreciate science. I learned more that selling paintings is not for making money, but for people who really want this painting to buy it home, and for those who are sad if they don’t get it, they can have this painting. It’s really interesting Extremely. So, I decided to start selling paintings.However, the reason I don't want people to buy paintings is simply because "Physics professors don't usually draw, how interesting that is!" So I'm going to take a pseudonym.My friend Dudley Wright suggested that I call it Au Fait, which means "done" in French.I transliterate it in English as Ofey, which happens to be the word used by black people to call white people.Of course, I'm white anyway, so it doesn't matter. A model wanted me to do a sketch for her, but she had no money. Models usually don't have money, if they had money they wouldn't be in the business. She said that if I paint a picture for her, she will be a model three times for free. "On the contrary," I said, "I'll give you three drawings if you model for free once." Later, she hung one of the paintings I gave her on the wall of her room, and her boyfriend immediately noticed it and liked it very much.He was even willing to order me a portrait of her for $60 (my market was getting hotter). Then the girl thought about being my agent, going around telling people "There's a new painter in Altadena..." selling my paintings so she could make some extra money.It's such a different world, so interesting!She helped me arrange for my paintings to be exhibited at Pasadena's most exclusive Bullock's department store, and she and the clerk in the department store's art department picked out some paintings - some plants I painted earlier (I didn't favorite painting) - all framed.Block Department Store gave me a signed document stating that I had a certain painting on consignment there.Of course, not even a single painting was sold in the end.But that was a real achievement for me: my painting was actually on sale at Block's!Among other things, it is interesting enough that I can tell others that I have also reached my peak in the field of art. Most of the time, I find models through Zuo Sien, but occasionally I find my own way.Whenever I meet young women who seem interested in drawing, I ask them to be my models.But usually I just draw their faces because I don't know how to ask them to be naked for me to paint. Once I went to Zuo Sien's house and mentioned to his wife: "I have never been able to get these girls to pose naked, I don't know how Zuo Sien did it!" "Have you asked them?" "Oh! It never occurred to me to ask." The next model was a Caltech student, and I asked her if she would like to pose nude. "Of course!" she said, and that was it, and it wasn't so difficult.I think I think too much, and I always feel that asking this kind of question is not right. By that time I had done a lot of sketching; at that stage I preferred to paint nudes.I don't think it's all art, but a mixture, but it's unclear how much art is. A model introduced by Zuo Sien was once a playmate of Playboy magazine. She is tall and beautiful. Any girl who sees her will be very jealous.However, she felt that she was too tall, and she half-bent when entering the room.When she poses, I try to teach her to "stand up straighter" because she is so graceful and striking.She listened to me. Then she worried about something else: a dent in her groin.I'm going to get out an anatomy book and explain to her that the indentation is due to the attachment of the muscles to the ilium; Only those who are well-proportioned will have it. What I learned from her is that every woman worries about how she looks, no matter how beautiful she is. I want to draw a colored crayon drawing of her as an experiment.I want to sketch first with charcoal and then color.I draw charcoal sketches in a relaxed mood, without worrying about what it will look like when I draw.It turned out that this is the best painting I have ever drawn!I dismissed the idea of ​​coloring and just left the painting as it is. My "broker" saw the painting and decided to put it up for sale. "You can't just sell it like this," I said. "It's just drawn on white paper." "Oh, never mind it," she said. A few weeks later she came back with the painting, already in a beautiful wooden frame, with red stripes and gold borders.It's an interesting thing, but it can make the artist angry that a picture can beautify so much after being framed.My agent told me that there was a lady who liked it so much that they went to a framer.The mounter said there was a special technique for mounting white newspaper: dip it in plastic, do this, and that.This lady went out of her way to frame the painting and then asked my agent to bring it back for me to see!The woman added: "I think the artist himself will be delighted to see how lovely it looks when it's framed." Of course I am very happy.This shows that someone can get pleasure directly from my paintings, which is the real joy of selling paintings. For a while, there were a few topless restaurants in town—you could have lunch or dinner there, and the dancing girls were just topless at first, and then naked after a while.One of those restaurants is just a mile and a half from my house, so I go there a lot.I usually sit there and work out some physics problems on the lace doilies; sometimes I draw dancing girls or other customers for a little practice. My wife, Winnes (the third wife) is British, and she is very accepting of my patronage in this restaurant.“British men also go to clubs a lot,” she says. So, it’s kind of like my club. There are paintings all over the restaurant, but I don't really like them.They were all fluorescent paint on black velvet, which was kind of ugly, and they were all about girls taking off their sweaters or something.I have a picture of my model, Kath, and it's really nice.I sent the painting to the restaurant owner to hang on the wall; he was delighted. As a result, sending paintings to him brought me many benefits-the restaurant owner became very friendly and bought me something to drink every time.Now, every time I'm there, the waitress brings a free 7-up soda.I'd just sit there and watch the dance, do a little physics, do my homework, or doodle.If I'm tired, I watch the show and continue working.The restaurateur knew I didn't want to be disturbed, so if a drunk approached me, the waitress would immediately come over and dismiss him.If it was a girl, he wouldn't do anything.We became good friends and his name was Gianonni. Another effect of hanging my painting in the restaurant is that many people will ask about it.One day, a guy came up to me and said, "Giannone said you did that painting." "yes." "Okay, I want to order a painting with you." "Okay, what do you like to draw?" "I wanted to paint a nude Spanish bull girl who was attacked by a bull with a human face." "Well, uh, it would help me a little if you could tell me what you ordered it for." "I want to hang it in my shop." "What kind of store?" "Massage parlors. You know, just little rooms with massage girls—get it?" "Yes, I understand." I didn't want to paint this subject, so I tried to dissuade him: "What will your customers think when they see this painting? And what about these massage girls? These men come into your massage parlor, Excited after seeing the painting—do you want them to treat your girls like this?" He was unmoved. "If the police come in and see this painting, can you still keep saying that you only run a massage parlor?" "Well, well," he said, "you're right. I've got to change my mind. The painting I want is that if the police see it, they will think there is nothing wrong with this massage parlor; but when the customer sees it, he will understand. " "Okay," I said.We negotiated a price of 60 yuan, and then I started working on the painting.First, I had to figure out how to draw.I thought and thought about it, and I often felt that I might as well have followed his idea and painted the nude Spanish girl. Finally I figured out what to do.I'm going to draw an imaginary Roman slave woman massaging some great Roman figure, maybe a senator or something.Because she is a slave, she will have some special expressions on her face, with a somewhat resigned attitude towards the future. I put a lot of hard work into this painting.I used Kath as my model and then I found a male model.I did a lot of research and pretty quickly, I was paying $80 for models, but I didn't care about the money, I liked the challenge of having someone commission me to paint.In the end, I drew a majestic man lying on a long platform, and a female slave was massaging him. The girl's robe covered half of her breasts, and the other half was exposed. I drew the resigned expression on her face. Get it just right. I was about to take my masterpiece to the massage parlor for delivery when Giannone told me the guy had been caught and was in jail.So I asked the girls in the sky restaurant if there were any better massage parlors in Pasadena that would be willing to hang my paintings in the living room. They gave me a list of names and addresses and told me "If you go to such-and-such a massage parlor, ask for Frank, he's a good guy. Don't go in if he's not there." Or "Don't talk to Eddie, he doesn't know anything about painting .” The next day I rolled up the painting and put it in the back of my station wagon.After Winnes wished me luck, I set out to visit brothels in Pasadena to sell my paintings. Before heading to the first massage parlor on the list, it occurred to me: "I should ask the old one first. Maybe they're still open, and maybe someone who takes over will want to buy my paintings." There it was Knock on the door, the door opened a little crack, and saw a girl's eyes. "do we know each other?" she asked. "No, I don't know, but do you want to buy a painting that is suitable for hanging at the entrance?" "I'm sorry," she said, "but we've signed an artist and he's painting for us." "I'm the painter," I said, "Your picture is done!" It turned out that the guy had told his wife about the painting before he went to prison, so I went in and spread out the painting for them to see.The massage parlor is now run by the guy's wife and his sister, and they weren't too happy with my drawings and wanted to find other girls to take a look at.I hung the picture on the living room wall, and all the girls came out of the back rooms and started commenting. One girl said she didn't like the look on the slave's face. "She doesn't look happy," she said. "She should be smiling." I asked her, "Tell me, do you laugh when you're massaging a guy and he's not looking at you?" "Oh no!" she said, "I feel the same way her face shows! But you're not supposed to show that in a painting." I left the painting with them, but after a week of repeated questioning, they finally decided not to have it.It turned out that the real reason they didn't want the painting was the bare breasts.I explained that I had toned down the guy's original concept a lot, but they said people didn't think of the painting the way he did.Ironically, it's funny that the owner of such a massage parlor would be so reserved about a bare breast.In the end I took the painting home. My friend Rhett, who is a businessman, saw this painting and I told him what happened.He said, "You should triple the price. Nobody can really determine the value of a work of art, so usually they think, 'The higher the price, the more valuable it must be!'" I said, "You're crazy!" But , just for the fun of it, I bought a $20 frame to mount the picture in and wait for the next customer. Someone who worked at the weather bureau saw my drawing for Giannuni and asked if I had any other drawings.I invited him and his wife to my downstairs studio, and they asked about my newly mounted painting. "This one costs two hundred dollars." I multiplied the $60 by 3 and added the $20 for the frame.The next day, they came back and bought the painting.Therefore, the painting originally drawn for the massage parlor was later hung in the office of the Meteorological Bureau. One day the police raided Giannuni's restaurant and arrested several dancing girls.Someone once wanted to ask Giannuni to stop performing on the air show, but he didn't want to.Eventually the whole thing went to court, and the local papers made the news. Giannuni turned to regular customers everywhere, hoping someone would testify in his favor, and everyone had an excuse: "I run a summer camp, and if parents knew I was coming to this kind of place, they wouldn't send their kids to my camp." The summer camp at ..." or "I'm in some kind of business. If it's in the papers that I've been to one of these places, the customers will stop coming." I said to myself, "I'm the only one with nothing to worry about, and I have no reason not to testify. I like his store and hope it stays in business. I don't think there's anything wrong with dancing in the air." So I told Ji An Noony: "Okay, I'd love to testify for you." In the courtroom, the biggest controversy is, is sky dancing acceptable to the community?Do Community Standards allow aerial dancing?Defense attorneys wanted me to represent expert opinion on community standards.He asked if I had been to any other bars? "some." "So, how many times a week do you usually go to Giannone's restaurant?" "Five or six times a week." (It was published in the newspaper: The professor of the Department of Physics of the California Institute of Technology watches the sky show five or six times a week.), "Which classes in the community do Giannuni's customers cover?" "Almost every class is covered: there are people who do real estate, people who work in the city government, gas station workers, engineers, and a physics professor..." "Since so many people from different walks of life in the community watch Shangkong Show and like it very much, do you mean that Shangkong Show should be acceptable to the community?" "I have to know what you mean by 'acceptable to the community'. Nothing can be accepted by everyone, so the so-called 'acceptable to the community' refers to what percentage of residents in the community accept it. thing?" The lawyer proposes a number, and the other lawyer objects.The judge announced a suspension, and they went to the room inside to discuss for 15 minutes, and decided that the so-called "acceptable by the community" meant that 50% of the community residents could accept it. Although I forced them to think more precisely, I didn't have the actual numbers to back it up, so I said: "I believe that more than 50% of the community residents can accept aerial shows, so aerial shows should be acceptable to the community. " Giannuni temporarily lost the case, but his case and a similar one have been appealed to the Supreme Court.During this time, his restaurant was open as usual, and I still had free 7-up soda to drink. Around the same time, some people were trying to cultivate a little bit of art at Caltech.A donation was made to convert an old science building into an art studio, equipment and materials were provided for the students, and an artist from South Africa was hired to promote the school's art activities.Many different teachers were invited to teach. I arranged for Zuo Shi'en to teach sketching, and someone taught printmaking; I also tried to learn printmaking. 有一天，那南非艺术家到我家来看我的画。他提到为我办个展，说不定还蛮好玩的。这回我是在作弊了：如果我不是加州理工学院的教授，他们绝不会认为值得为我的画办个展。 “我有些比较好的画已经卖掉了，要我打电话给这些人把画借回来，我会觉得很尴尬，”我说。 “不用担心，费曼先生，我保证你不需要打任何电话，我们会安排一切，把画展办得专业而且没有瑕疵。” 我给了他一张向我买过画的人的名单。我的顾客很快就接到他的电话：“听说你有一幅欧飞画的画。” “噢，没错！” “我们计划办一个欧飞的画展，不知道你愿不愿意把画借给我们展览。”当然他们都乐意出借。 画展在加州理工学院教职员俱乐部的地下室举行。一切都有模有样，每幅画都有标题，而且借来展出的画都有适当的说明，例如“吉安奴尼先生提供”等等。 有一幅画，画的是绘画班的那位漂亮金发模特儿，我原本想用这张画作为阴影的研究。我把一盏灯放到她腿的高度，往旁边及上方投射灯光。她坐着的时候，我把实际的阴影画出——她的鼻梁在脸部投射出一个颇不自然的阴影，看起来还不太差。我也画了她的身体，所以你可以看到她的胸部及胸部投射的阴影。我把这幅画和其他画一起展出，并且把标题定为“居礼夫人观察镭的辐射”。我想要传达的是，从来没有人把居礼夫人当成一个有美丽头发、裸露胸部的女人，他们只会想到跟镭有关的部分。 有位名叫德瑞弗斯（Henry Dreyfuss）的知名工业设计家，在画展结束之后，请了很多人到他家作客，包括出钱赞助艺术的女士、加州理工学院校长夫妇等等。其中一位艺术爱好者走过来和我攀谈：“费曼先生，请告诉我你是临摹照片还是画真的模特儿？” “我都是直接画模特儿。” “那么，你是怎么找到居礼夫人替你摆姿势作画的？” 那时候，洛杉矶美术馆和我有同样的想法，认为艺术家一点都不了解科学。我的想法是，艺术家不了解大自然的基本通则以及大自然之美，因此也无法在绘画中把大自然的这一面表现出来。美术馆的想法是，艺术家应该对科技多一点认识，应该更熟悉机械及科学的其他应用层面。 所以，美术馆拟定了一个计划，在企业的赞助下，邀请当时一些杰出的艺术家去一些公司参观。艺术家可以随意在这些公司四处走动观察，直到他们看到一些有趣的事物，作为绘画的素材，美术馆认为，如果有一个懂科技的人可以在艺术家参观企业的同时，居间协调，效果可能会比较好。他们知道我很擅于向别人解释事情，而且我对艺术也不完全是外行（事实上，我想他们知道我在学画）。 总之，他们问我是不是可以从旁协助，我答应了。 跟艺术家一起参观企业，非常有趣。典型的情况是，有人拿个真空管给我们看，里面闪烁着蓝色、扭动的美丽光芒。艺术家兴奋极了，问我他们怎么样可以把这东西用在展览上，怎样才能让这种现象发挥作用？ 艺术家都是些很有趣的人。有些是彻头彻尾的冒牌货，他们声称自己是艺术家，别人也认为他们是艺术家；但是当你坐下来和他们交谈时，他们谈不出个所以然来！其中有个家伙是个特大号冒牌货，总是穿着奇装异服，戴顶大大的黑色圆顶高帽。他老是不清不楚地回答你的问题，当你想要更进一步了解他话中含意或问他刚刚用过的几个字眼，他又把话题带到另一个方向去了！最后，他对这次艺术与科学展览会的唯一贡献，是他的自画像。 其他有些艺术家的谈话，初听起来好像没多大意义，但是他们会尽力说明他们的意念。有一次，我陪厄文（RobertIrwin）一起去某个地方。那是个为时两天的旅程。我们反复讨论了很久之后，我终于明白他想解释给我听的是什么，而我觉得他的想法十分有趣而奇妙。 还有些艺术家对现实世界完全没有概念，他们以为科学家是某种伟大的魔术师，能制造任何东西，他们会说些像“我想画一张三度空间的画，画中的东西全悬浮在空中，发出闪光”。他们想像出自己想要的世界，完全不晓得这样想合不合理。 最后，他们办了一个画展，并请我担任评审委员。尽管其中有些还算不错的作品，是艺术家在参观企业界时激发出来的灵感；但是我觉得大部分的佳作，都是在最后一分钟才在绝望中赶着交出来的作品，和科技扯不上什么关系。其他评审委员都不同意我的看法，我发现自己的处境颇为艰难。我并不擅于评画，我发觉从一开始，我就不该加入评审委员会。 美术馆里有个人叫塔克曼（Maurice Tuchman）， 他真的懂艺术，他也知道我曾经在加州理工学院办过个展。 他说：“知道吗，你以后都不会再画画了。” “什么？这太荒谬了！为什么我不会再……” “因为你已经办过个展了，而且你只不过是个业余画家。” 往后，虽然我继续画画，但是我已不像从前那么投入和认真，也不曾再卖出任何一幅画。塔克曼是个聪明的家伙，我跟他学了很多。而如果我不是那么顽固的话，我应该可以学到更多的！