Urban System in America-Chapter 114 - 113: What Do I See?

The light settled. The space was still.

The figure before him — circled the easel with quiet reverence, like a priest preparing for a sacred rite. His robes moved like smoke, his steps measured, timeless.

Then, a voice. Deep, steady, ancient — but not aged. It rang within the chamber, and within Rex’s chest.

"Let us begin from the very beginning.

You will begin with what mortals call ’the basics’ — but here, there is no such thing as basic.

Each stroke you learn is a seed. Each principle, a pillar.

And without a true foundation, no art can stand.

Rex straightened unconsciously. Something in the air shifted — not pressure, but expectation.

The master raised his hand, and glowing glyphs formed around them — delicate strokes of light, symbols that pulsed with quiet wisdom.

"You will learn not tricks, but truths.

This is not imitation. This is understanding.

Not surface — but structure. Not decoration — but discipline."

Then, the curriculum appeared, etched midair in luminous strokes:

The Curriculum of Sight & Soul:

Sketching & Observation – learning to see not just with the eye, but with intention.

Line Art & Form – the language of shape, flow, and silhouette.

Perspective & Proportions – space and scale, the illusion of depth, the logic of size, to bend space without breaking it.

Anatomy (Human & Animal) – the architecture of the body, its balance, its rhythm.

Composition & Framing – the silent power of arrangement, of what is placed where and why, to guide the eye and shape the unseen.

Color Theory & Light – emotion in hue, thought in contrast, story in shadow, to paint not with pigment, but with mood, meaning, and emotion.

Painting Basics – oil, watercolor, acrylic... — each with its own soul.

Still Life, Landscape, and Portrait Study – learning from stillness, from nature, from people, to study the soul of objects, places, and people.

Basic Styles & Movements – realism, impressionism, abstract, manga, stylized — not to copy, but to understand their vision.

Storytelling Through Visuals – the heart of it all: conveying meaning beyond words, because every image is a tale waiting to be told.

The words hovered for a moment, then dissolved into motes of golden dust.

The master stepped forward, now standing behind the easel.

"But before any of that—

You must understand this: What is drawing? What is sketching? What is painting?"

He waved his hand.

From the emptiness, a brush appeared — hovering midair, its bristles untouched, its handle carved with ancient patterns.

It lowered into his palm as if called by memory alone.

The master spoke again — but now his voice seemed to come from all directions, as though it had entered Rex’s thoughts directly.

"Art begins not with the hand, but with the act of seeing.

Not with the eye, but with attention."

The brush pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat in the master’s fingers.

"Sketching is thought made flexible.

Drawing is observation made solid.

Painting is emotion made visible."

he waved the brush in the air and suddenly — the void stirred, and visions bloomed across the sky.

They came not like pictures, but like echoes across the bones of time — as if the soul of humanity whispered its story through brush, line, and color.

---

A child’s trembling fingers pressing ochre against rough cave stone, the first mark of self — a desperate need to exist, to be seen.

A hunter’s tale scratched onto the wall of a cave, antlers and arrows etched in urgency — the first story told without a voice.

A priest’s hand guiding gold leaf onto papyrus, adorning gods and kings with reverence — turning art into worship.

A potter’s wheel spinning as a mother painted myths in clay, the tale of gods and monsters circling endlessly with each revolution.

Da Vinci’s hands moving with surgical grace, sketching muscle and bone, science and spirit, genius blooming on parchment.

Michelangelo’s chisel liberating David from marble, a silent scream of defiance frozen in stone.

Hokusai’s wave rising through centuries, capturing chaos and order in a single curl of blue.

Botticelli’s Venus, born of foam, drifting into light, her gaze eternal, her skin a hymn to creation.

Van Gogh’s sky, mad with motion, stars spinning in his sorrow — loneliness turned luminous.

Picasso’s shattered faces, warping reality, breaking form to birth feeling — a scream trapped in color.

Frida’s bleeding heart painted with deliberate pain, each stroke a confrontation, each canvas a confession.

Basquiat’s graffiti crown burning with rebellion, truth scribbled in haste, defiance in every line.

Abstract fragments — color with no name, shape with no frame, emotion with no limit — not trying to show the world, but to make sense of it.

Digital pulses — a stylus moving across glowing glass, pixels becoming passion, the modern flame in a new cave.

Abstract colors exploding with soundless fury and shape — painted by souls unknown, perhaps untrained, but undeniably real.

---

The visions faded like memories sinking back into time.

Only the canvas remained.

Blank. Beckoning.

Rex sat there in awe and realization, his mind still processing the images.

After some he master looked at him in the eyes, like he could reach deep in his mind broke and said:

"Art is not technique,"

"Not first. Not ever.

Technique is the servant.

Perception is the master."

The master did not move. And yet Rex could feel the intensity behind those words like heat off a forge.

"Sketching is a conversation between the hand and the mind."

"Drawing is the skeleton of reality laid bare."

"Painting is the breath of the soul — given shape, space, and color."

Rex’s fingers closed around the brush.It felt heavier than it looked — as if it carried the weight of every artist who had ever dared to begin.

"In this space," the master whispered, "you do not create to impress.

You create to understand."

"Not to replicate the world, but to see it — truly — for the first time."

And then the master leaned in — not with body, but with intention.

"Begin."

"Not to make something beautiful...

But to look — until the world, at last, reveals itself to you."

Then suddenly, the space around them shifted again — subtly at first, then completely. The empty room melted into a dark, starless void lit only by memory and firelight.

"Words will fail you here," he said softly.

"So I will show you."

And with that, the history of human expression began to unfold.

It started with a spark.

A child’s hand, small and trembling, dipped in crushed ochre and pressed against the rough surface of a cave wall.

The first mark. The beginning.

From there, the flickering flame of time roared to life.

Scenes played out in layers of glowing memory:

A hunter crouching beside a wall, etching the tale of a successful hunt, so the tribe would remember.

A priest in an ancient temple, drawing symbols on clay tablets — not for beauty, but to preserve knowledge.

An Egyptian artisan carving hieroglyphs and sacred symbols into limestone walls, believing the images would carry the dead into the afterlife.

"Every line was a prayer," said the master.

Rex watched in awe as civilizations rose and fell before his eyes:

The Indus Valley, with its seals and motifs — simple, elegant, mysterious.

The Mesopotamians, who invented writing by carving wedge-shaped cuneiform onto tablets — the fusion of language and art.

The Greeks, who sculpted idealized human forms and painted myths upon pottery — beauty, proportion, narrative.

The Romans, who transformed realism into propaganda, etching power into marble and mosaic.

The Chinese dynasties, with delicate ink landscapes, where a single brushstroke held the weight of philosophy.

The Japanese Edo era, birthing Hokusai’s wave, crashing across centuries.

The Mayan and Aztec civilizations, drawing gods and cosmologies, painting rituals into codices made from bark.

The African kingdoms, their walls adorned with tribal symbols, masks, and sacred geometry, each piece speaking of ancestry, rhythm, and spirit.

The Indigenous Australians, painting dreamtime stories in dot patterns on stone and skin.

The medieval monks, laboring for years in candlelit silence to create illuminated manuscripts, gilded in gold and sacrifice.

Then came the Renaissance, and with it, a man who dissected bodies not out of cruelty, but curiosity.

Da Vinci, sketching veins and muscles, flight patterns and inventions — the mind of art meeting the mind of science.

The master narrated without speaking — his voice was now woven into the visions themselves.

"This is not hobby.

This is not decoration.

This is how humanity remembers itself."

He showed Rex the broken minds of artists painting during war, sketching in the trenches, in prison cells, in the margins of starvation.

Van Gogh, swirling his madness and heart into the night sky.

Picasso, fragmenting the world in Cubism after watching it collapse into war.

Frida Kahlo, painting her pain across her skin and her bedframe.

Basquiat, exploding color and anger onto concrete.

Zdzisław Beksiński, painting nightmares that spoke louder than any scream.

And yet, in contrast — the joy:

Children in slums drawing with coal on the walls of crumbling cities.

Street artists turning broken buildings into murals of resistance and hope.

A mother sketching her newborn, tired and smiling.

A soldier carving his lover’s name into a tin box.

He spent all his time, observing the history of Human expressionism, he didn’t know how many days, months or years had passed. He had stopped counting a long time ago.

because the time moved differently here, and he didn’t feel any hunger, thirst or exhaustion, instead he felt something greater: awe.

A sacred stillness settled inside him.

Art was not a trick to impress.

It was not a career path.

It was not a shortcut to fame.