“Art itself is not immortal, but the immortality lies in the understanding that it conveys about human beings and the world.“
- Vincent van Gogh

I came to New York to hold a party in the cold winter, and met many young people from the Web3 community. Though Web3 was dormant as the economic winter approached, the young people at the party were still full of faith.

If I had to sum up their characteristics in a few words, I think they are adventurous, curious, inquisitive, passionate and bold explorers.

I feel so relaxed when I come to Manhattan, it's like a journey of cleansing the mind. But if I lived here 365 days a year, I would obviously feel exhausted. The weather in Vancouver in January is always the same ---- cloudy and gloomy, which seems perfect for organizing and calming your thoughts.

On a lazy afternoon, I opened an art book and planned to make a replica of some pictures, but I was attracted by the text of the book.

Pierre Joseph Redoute Collection

- Bold in exploration and full of charm

The Belgian painter Joseph Redouté is the most famous naturalist flower painter. He spent his life doing one thing: capturing the scientific beauty of flowers in watercolour.

The portrait of Reynard painted by the painter Louis Léopold Boilly

He advocated careful observation and scientific description of the appearance of flowers, adding the beauty of painting to the strict academic and scientific requirements.

In 1789, out of appreciation for his beautiful paintings, Napoleon's Queen Joseph invited Reinard to visit Josephine's garden at the Château de Malmaison.

At that time, there were more than 250 species of roses, with a total of more than 30,000 precious roses. Out of respect for the beautiful garden and the Queen herself, it is said that the British and French navies even temporarily suspended their swords to ensure that the roses reached Malmaison as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, this rose garden was destroyed by the war, and we can only glimpse the grand occasion from the paintings of the painters at that time.

Redouté spent 20 years in Joséphine's garden and created his most famous book, Les Roses, one of the milestones of botanical literature, described as "the most elegant work, the most beautiful study", with 170 lifelike, scientifically scaled copper engravings of roses that carry Redouté's passionate aesthetic and make it impossible for readers who love flowers, painting and botany to take their eyes off the book.

This method of painting is called natural history painting. Natural history painting, like Bai Juyi's poem in Chinese classical literature, conforms to the basic principles and intuition of life. No matter the aesthetic level of the audience, it can intuitively feel its beauty.

Redouté invented a unique engraving pointillism technique to ensure the vibrant colours of flowers under the premise of scientific precision in printmaking, which has made his natural flower prints, especially the vibrant rose prints, the only rose in the art world.

Les Roses was published in 30 editions between 1817 and 1824, with ten artists, engravers, and hundreds of colourists involved in presenting Redouté's masterpiece to the world. Originally published as a large five-volume folio, each rose was available in both monochrome and hand-coloured versions. Over the past 200 years, as painting technology has improved, more than 200 editions have been published.

Web3 Waves -

Intrepid explorer Steve Aoki

At the time, Redouté's masterpiece required the collaboration of countless engravers, and it took 10 years to present Les Roses to the world. Today, with the rapid development of Web3, the distance between the public and the work of art is rapidly decreasing.

I recently read an interesting interview on “Entrepreneur” about Web3 and found another interview with the interviewee in CoinDesk, sharing his insights on Web3 and cryptocurrency from an artistic creator’s perspective.

Steve Aoki, one of the most respected DJs in the world, who has been in the top ten list of DJ Magazine’s World’s Top 100 DJs for ten consecutive years, and he also believes that Web3 ((NFT, metaverse and cryptocurrency) will be a new outlet for new age art, especially for individual independent artists, and that Web 3’s momentum can be described as unstoppable.

There are a few insights that are impressive to read:

"Instead of focusing on the money that NFTs can generate, focus on the art behind them, just as I would never put a bitcoin image on the background of a social network, but instead get a Michelle Baquer piece tattooed on my hand; the uniqueness of NFT is “ownership”, a unique power that was not available to users in the Web2 era.”

He also owns many NFTs, and even excitedly displayed the "Doodles" series of NFTs he just bought at the event.

He was also outspoken about the future of NFT：

"People will create communities more rationally rather than making quick money; as GrayVee said, although 98% of the existing NFTs may disappear into history, NFTs will eventually survive and give everyone the opportunity to own their own artwork through the block-chain."

I think his theory has some merit. If we ignore the price of NFT as a medium and focus on the modality of the art itself, they are not fundamentally different from traditional canvas and Redouté etchings - they are just a technique, a vehicle for the art itself.

Traditional Art - Van Gogh &

Digital Exhibition - NFT Web 3

Through the technological development of today's Internet, NFT and Metaverse can also help more ordinary people who know less about artworks to recognize the beauty of art, and it is also easier to spread, share and carry their own art collections.

Another direction for Web3 is a modern, immersive and new approach of curating artwork.

Photographer: Nina W. Source: Immersive Van Gogh LA

Lighthouse Immersive was founded in 2019 by Toronto-based producers Corey Ross and Svetlana Dvoretsky, along with Toronto-based developer Slava Zheleznyakov and Chicago-based producers Maria Shclover and Irina Shabshis. Lighthouse Immersive is the first experiential entertainment complex designed to foster community and creativity through large-scale events and exhibitions in a variety of art forms.

They focus on providing a fully immersive experience, hoping to allow audiences to fully experience the charm of movies and artworks. Moreover, the E.T. exhibition, which lasted for six months, brought 650,000 visitors.

I was very interested in the Van Gogh exhibition, which has been running for many years. They use the new technology of the 21st century to allow more people to experience traditional works of art in a new way.

The effect of their Van Gogh exhibition halls varies from city to city, and for Chicago, the exhibition hall was set up in the Germania Club, which has a history of more than 100 years in the city centre.

The flowing 'Starry Night', the swaying 'Irises', and the blooming 'Sunflower' are all brought to life by the high-definition projection up to 30 meters around the room.

Source：Fred Squillante/Columbus Dispatch

In the past we have always argued that the only way to understand a masterpiece is to see it in real life, simply looking at a picture does not really capture the beauty of art handed down from generation to generation. The size of the canvas the masters chose, the materials they used, and their delicate brushwork, cannot be truly reproduced in even the highest-resolution images.

However, with the advent of technology and the rapid development of the Web3 era and scanning technology, art viewing once considered a 'luxury' in the eyes of the general public, has gradually become more affordable.

The immersive, wrap-around, ultra-high-definition, extreme-resolution artwork experience gave me a real sense of the new art experience of the Web3 era. You can look at the artwork from any angle, in any direction, without worrying about whether there is a queue behind you. You can also find a soft chair that you like and take your time to appreciate every detail of these works of art from the oversized projection, and at the same time, make yourself a part of the work.