From Art to Science
Jo Sudeok could not believe his ears.
"You're putting a team together?"
Finding another authentication panel comes first. If that doesn't pan out, we'll have no choice but to build one.
"You mean... p-put a team together and massage the results in our favor..."
As if.
"Right? Aigoo—who do you take our Director for? There I go again, worn thin by the world's storms, worrying over nothing..."
A fair, scientific authentication will be enough.
Fairness went without saying.
Science, though...
As if he had read the doubt, Park Jihoon went on.
Watching the Oxford team, I started to wonder. How can a single word from a professor decide the whole result? That isn't authentication. It's closer to appreciation.
"You're saying objective fact matters more than a subjective verdict. And science is the instrument of that objectivity."
Exactly.
Jo Sudeok was quietly stroking his chin when the voice continued.
It's a little absurd, a system where a work becomes genuine the moment a da Vinci scholar certifies it. Leaning on one person's authority, with no scientific basis—that doesn't hold up.
"Quite right. That authentication rests on authority is a plain fact."
But even that authority isn't solid.
"Pardon?"
Count them and da Vinci left fewer than twenty oils. Not one of those was discovered in recent years, either. Expert or not... would they even have had the chance to authenticate an actual work?
Da Vinci was a man of the fifteenth century, an artist for whom an unpublished work turning up was vanishingly unlikely. Even a professor at Oxford would almost never have had occasion to pass judgment on a genuine piece.
"If I had to guess, it was probably their first time."
And they finish the authentication after a few looks down a microscope?
"I agree with you a hundred times over, Director. But..."
......?
"Find another panel and the situation will be much the same. They'll reach for methods closer to criticism than to science. They won't differ much from the Oxford team, is what I mean."
That's all right. We can build the team ourselves.
"A panel grounded in science, you mean."
Yes.
"And that team would... presumably... have to be assembled by me?"
Of course.
"I mention it only in case it slipped your mind, but I am a mere professor of fine arts..."
Choose your words with care. The best-connected fine-arts professor in the entire faculty!
"Ahem. As you say, Director... it isn't that I have no acquaintances on the natural-sciences side, but..."
Then we're settled.
"Hnnngh."
At that point a perfectly reasonable question occurred to him. The way he's suddenly harping on science... he already has the right person in mind, doesn't he? But perhaps it was that stubbornly dutiful nature of his. He never let the thought leave his mouth. Tell him to do a thing and he would do it first and look later. Right—just do the work well. The questions would answer themselves.
"Understood, Director. I'll close out the contract and come straight back."
I'm counting on you.
And so the call came to an end.
At that same moment, Martin was pacing outside the professor's door.
It does resemble the existing da Vinci pictures, and yet there's a subtle difference in the handling.
The professor's verdict would not leave his head. The authentication team in Oxford's department of art history—where da Vinci was concerned, it was undeniably the highest authority there was. Wasn't that the very reason he had gone all the way to Oxford for graduate school? And yet, after he joined the team, Martin's unease had only deepened, because the professor's method was far too one-sided.
Unlike the professor, who fancied himself an artist, Martin was a scientist to the bone. From a top prize at the science olympiad in his teens straight through his years in the physics department at MIT, he had swept every award there was to sweep. A hard-science mind was bolted into his skull, and they were finishing an authentication by muttering about a difference in style? He simply could not bear it. So he had dragged himself all the way to the professor's door.
"Hnnnngh."
He still could not bring himself to knock.
Was it the difference between America and Britain? Oxford was a place where rank sat absolute—so absolute that even doubting a professor's word was treated as taboo. At MIT, professors and students fought until they were sick of the sight of each other. Even a professor with a Nobel to his name, if he got a figure wrong today, had the error dragged into the open at once. What did authority matter, then? Inside the colosseum mathematics had built, everyone had no choice but to meet as equals.
And art?
Why is art in this state?
Far from opposing views striking against each other, everyone crawled in beneath a single towering authority. Raise a hand against that order and the other students would bury you.
So I'm just supposed to swallow this?
He was still pacing before the shut door when the latch clicked. From inside came the sound of the handle turning. Startled, he was whirling toward the corridor when a familiar voice nailed his feet to the floor.
"What are you doing here?"
"T-TA?"
"I just had something that needed signing off. That's all."
A lie you could see straight through. He had dropped off the professor's things and was on his way back.
"And what brings you here?"
"Ah. Yes. Well..."
"Business with the professor?"
"......"
"Martin."
"Yes."
"I told you not to go see the professor yourself. If you have something to say, you pass it through me."
"I'm sorry."
The TA's eyes were sharp enough that Martin ducked his head before he knew it. Perhaps the reaction pleased him. When he spoke again, his voice had loosened a little.
"Tell me. I'll pass it on."
"Ah, no. It's nothing."
"Then why are you like this?"
"It's just..."
"Out with it. Quickly."
"It's about the authentication..."
"What about it?"
The voice had gone harsh again. Martin nearly shut his mouth, then wrung out what courage he had left.
"In my view..."
"And why would anyone need your view?"
"Sorry?"
"Authentication is the professor's job. Why would your opinion be required?"
"But for a more accurate judgment..."
"You need to get out of the way."
"......?"
"For an accurate judgment, the likes of you need to step aside."
Ha!
If even the TA would not hear a single sentence, what hope was there with the professor? At that, Martin let his mouth close. No—closing his heart was the truer way to put it.
Empty.
Had he come all the way to Britain to see a spectacle like this? Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest genius in human history, the model who had fused art and science more completely than anyone—he had come to Oxford to know the man better.
Damn it.
Art, science, my ass. The only thing running wild in this place was politics.
In the end Martin turned away without so much as a goodbye and trudged the long corridor, on and on. The TA seemed to be ranting at his back. He paid it no mind. He drove his hands into his pockets as if for show and took a step.
Tap.
Something met the tips of his right fingers.
What am I supposed to do with my life now.
His mind was elsewhere when, out of habit, he checked his trouser pocket.
Huh?
A small slip of paper, a phone number written on it. Beneath the number, a hotel name in smaller letters. And under that, a sentence scrawled in a crooked hand.
From Art to Science
Mid-step, he came to a halt.
From art to science.
For a long while he simply looked down at the words, the way a man smiles at the first thin sunlight after the rains finally break.
The hotel. Park Jihoon's room.
Rrring!
At the sound of the phone I snatched up the receiver. Martin's face had risen in my mind. Wait. If he came at me in English... how was I supposed to answer? I pressed the awkwardness down and took the call.
"Yes, this is Park Jihoon."
But what came through the receiver was Korean. Fluent—allegedly.
Director, it's the assistant.
"Yes, Assistant."
I'm sorry to call so late.
"No, no. Go ahead."
The reason I'm calling—the German authentication team has delivered a result.
They had said it would take quite some time. Surely not this time too? My eyes, caught in the window glass, were narrowing when the voice went on.
They say there is no doubt it's genuine.
"Didn't you say it would take a week? How has the whole period collapsed like that?"
Ah, yes. The hand was so unmistakable that it went easily, they said. Anyone can imitate the drawing of a line, but copying the point where the line ends—that touch—is extremely hard. And besides...
"......?"
With oils you paint layer on layer, so authentication isn't easy. This is a drawing made in a single pass. Apparently it's comparatively simple to confirm.
"So the point is, it's certain?"
Yes. Certain.
Hah.
I had already known the outcome. Maybe it was the da Vinci business. Hearing the word genuine left me strangely unsettled all the same.
"You've worked hard. It's late, so I'll head over first thing in the morning."
You've worked hard as well, Director.
"Me? It's thanks to the staff running themselves ragged to find the picture."
Words alone wouldn't do.
"There'll be a bonus, of course. It'll be a sum that shocks you, so look forward to it."
I shall serve you as my liege for the rest of my life!
Trust a disciple of Jo Sudeok to lay the flattery on.
I was about to hang up.
"Oh—Assistant. Has anyone called?"
Called?
"Even if it wasn't a call. If anyone from the Oxford team came by..."
Nothing unusual while I was there, but I'll check once more.
"No. You needn't go that far..."
Still, one never knows. I'll ask the juniors and call you back.
He didn't seem likely to listen, so I said all right and set the receiver down.
Rrring!
What? The call had barely ended, and he'd already checked? Startled, I picked up.
"Yes, Assistant."
But an unexpected voice came through.
Hello.
A conversation by phone was never going to be easy, so we had to meet in a laboratory at the university. The graduate student helping with the interpreting had, unavoidably, to stay late. The interpreter and I sat first, and Martin took the seat opposite.
His clothes were much as before. Only the red checked shirt had turned green.
Ah!
The one real change was the glasses. With those, he had finally completed the nerd ensemble.
"Thank you for getting in touch first."
I dipped my head, and Martin waved it off.
"I'm only a graduate student... and you asked for my opinion. I was grateful for that. Th-that's why I called. I never thought we'd be meeting this soon."
"Is this inconvenient?"
"No. Not that. I was just... surprised."
Martin scratched his head, sheepish. We kept up a little ordinary talk, if only to loosen the awkward air, but the place the conversation was headed had been fixed from the start.
"You want to know what I think... about whether it's genuine?"
"Yes."
"To put it simply, my opinion is that the answer can't be known."
"Can't be known?"
At my question, Martin gave one large, certain nod.