Katarina doubted her ears.
"... Did you just say something obscene and lewd?"
Then even Count Hamilton, who was standing next to Count Horace, agreed.
"I was also surprised. How could a lady as refined and elegant as Her Royal Highness paint such an explicit and harmful picture!"
Katarina looked back at her painting again with a bewildered face. It was just a man and a woman kissing. Since it was set in winter, they were wearing thick clothes and they were not touching each other. Katarina, who was speechless for a moment, tried to refute him belatedly, but Count Horace was first.
"Her Royal Highness is the flower that represents the empire. Who could have painted such a harmful painting style on such a noble person?"
'...I understand the intentions of these old men.'
Katarina clenched her teeth slightly. Katarina's painting teacher was a painter famous for his radical and freestyle. He was very different from the mainstream artists of the system, including Count Horace, in terms of both ideology and personality. However, recently, his disciples have been gaining considerable fame as they have advanced outside the empire. Accordingly, the status of his master has naturally risen. This must have been quite unpleasant for Count Horace and his party. So it seemed that he was planning to use his most representative disciple, the Princess, to kill his influence.
'Ha. You can ignore me!'
Katarina's eyes sparkled. How dare they use her, the only Princess of the empire, and embarrass her like this!
However, Katarina could not get angry easily. Her status as the Princess of the Empire actually hindered her. This was the center of the founding of the nation. Not only the imperial nobles but also foreign dignitaries were paying attention to her.
When Katarina swallowed her shame and kept silent, Count Horace smiled and said.
"Your Highness, I am being presumptuous, but would you mind if I put the painting down now? Your Highness, since you are so well-educated, you will surely be able to draw more elegant and refined paintings..."
"How strange."
A calm but resonant voice cut off the Count's words. Count Horace, who turned to the direction of the voice with a crumpled face for a moment, soon opened his eyes wide.
"Your Grace, who values 'moderation' so much, didn't you buy a naked angel statue at the founding ceremony last year?"
The Duchess of Heigenberg, who had been standing there for so long, asked the Count with a clean face. The Count, who understood the meaning of her words a beat later, let out an astonished laugh.
"Huh, how could you not know anything! That is not simply nakedness. It is an expression of the raw, divine beauty of the body created by God!"
Katarina, who had been staring blankly at Ariana's appearance, snorted at that.
'Huh! Divine beauty?'
Katarina also remembered the angel statue clearly. Wasn't the angel sticking out her ample chest a bit too much to be called 'sacred'?
Ariana said with an awkward smile.
"Well, for that matter, I remember the giant snake wrapping itself around the angel's body in a somewhat suggestive way."
"That too is an expression of the angel resisting evil, symbolized by the snake!"
Count Horace protested in a breathless voice. Ariana naturally turned her gaze to the Count's side as if she didn't hear him.
"And Count Hamilton. Didn't you buy a painting of a man and a woman feasting naked outdoors at a recent art auction?"
Count Hamilton exclaimed with a hollow laugh.
"My goodness! That is a masterpiece that expresses the beauty of human friendship that transcends even the norms of society. And you are condemning its intentions as impure!"
Katarina almost snorted, forgetting her dignity for a moment.
You guys are so good at buying and selling naked party paintings, but why are you making such a fuss over my painting of kissing?
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She wanted to use her royal authority to kick those two out of the park right away.
Katarina opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything. If she spoke now, her voice would tremble like a goat due to her agitation. Instead, what she heard was that calm and still voice again.
"As you said, all art has an intention."
Ariana, who spoke at a pace neither fast nor slow, looked around at the two counts.
"But why did you criticize Her Highness's work based on its appearance without even thinking about its intention?"
"Criticism? I was just worried!"
Count Horace shouted as if it was absurd.
"If there is any problem with the reputation of the most chaste Princess in the empire, won't it be a problem when she marries in the future?"
"...!"
Katarina pressed her fingernails against her palm. She knew very well that the Crown Prince was trying to sell her off to the most valuable place. Since she felled to become the Duchess of Heigenberg, she would probably marry abroad soon, as her brother had wished. The Emperor was currently preventing it, but his health was not good. Rumors were rife that he would soon abdicate.
"Well."
Ariana tilted her head slightly.
"It is not the Princess who is tarnishing the reputation of the empire, but... the two of you who do not even recognize the artistry of her work and start yelling at her."
"What, what did you say?"
Count Horace glared. He was extremely annoyed at the way she continued to talk without even blinking.
'A woman, without any shame, sat down to draw a picture of a man and a woman touching, and when you point it out, she acts so shamelessly!
The unique identity of the Imperial art. It was a refined, noble, and dignified tone. In the entire continent, the Empire was the only one that maintained conservative traditions. Those two women were ruining that tradition. And in front of foreign envoys!
'No matter how much effort the Duke put in, why did His Majesty the Emperor allow such a woman to be on the last stage!'
That's why that woman is so arrogant now!
In fact, that was the biggest cause of the rage boiling in Count Horace's stomach. It was the first time since Eduardo Lopez died that the last order of the music festival had been taken away. How dare such a young woman take the last stage, surpassing him, the master of imperial music? Culture and art are the foundation of the country, so how ridiculous must the empire look to foreign dignitaries?
"Then let me ask the noble insight of Horace, the Duchess, for a lesson. What artistic quality did I miss in Her Highness's painting?"
'If you openly lay the groundwork, she won't be able to say anything.'
Count Horace swallowed a sneer. No matter how much he looked at the Princess's painting, it looked like a crude Illustration from a popular novel.
"I'm not very good at painting, so I'm not sure if I understood Her Highness's intentions correctly, but..."
Ariana looked back at the painting with an uncertain expression. Well then, what else would there be to say?
At best, they would murmur things like, 'The colors are pretty' or 'The emotions are beautiful'. As Count Horace thought that and muttered to himself, Ariana slowly opened her mouth.
"From the moonlight to the lighting, the direction of the light was all unified to guide the gaze in one direction, but the perspective on the other side, which was immersed in darkness, was intentionally ignored. It's as if the reality outside of the moment when the two of them are touching each other has no value. How does it look to you, Envoy of the Kingdom of Ende?"
Ariana asked the Envoy in Ende's attire with a gentle smile. The Envoy nodded his head sharply.
"That's right! Even in the transposition technique where strange objects are placed instead of stars in the night sky, I can feel exactly what Lady Ariana meant."
"..."
Count Horace was speechless for a moment. Perspective and transposition technique?
What was even more absurd was that when he looked at the painting again, just as Ariana had said, such a point really stood out.
'Ha. It must have been a trick.'
The Princess, who had only learned art to a general level, could not have calculated and painted such things one by one. However, the moment Count Horace opened his mouth to refute.
"Now that I hear it... This is a truly profound piece of work."
Another envoy muttered in a blank voice. The noble guest next to him also smiled at Ariana and said.
"Thank you, Lady. If you hadn't pointed it out, I would have appreciated the piece without noticing such delicate points."
Starting with those two, comments began to pour in from all over the place. They were all praise for the Princess's delicacy and Ariana's keen eye for it. Count Horace and Count Hamilton froze in the middle of it all, unable to make up their minds.
Ariana smiled faintly.
"Do you two have different opinions?"
Count Horace gritted his teeth. Too many people were already agreeing with Ariana's opinion. To argue that her view was wrong here would mean refuting all of those guests.
"I..."
Count Horace muttered after a while.
"...I guess my eyes were dim today because I didn't wear my glasses."
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