Things that today seem to be handled by the government were once the responsibility of the guilds. So, there must be some things that must be undertaken by the government, such as the police and the army?

Now, please step out a little and take a look at the themes of the decorative paintings on the walls of your home.

There should be few decorative paintings in the homes of "get" users such as "Home and Everything Happens" and "Ten Marshals Riding Ponies". I have carefully observed the decorative painting market and found that even when buying Western paintings, Chinese people prefer Chinese-style themes, that is, flowers, birds and landscapes. In the European decorative painting market, according to statistics, the biggest sales volume is a portrait of an unknown lady with a green tone and a bit of modern style. Chinese people don’t like to hang portraits in their rooms, except for their own artistic photos and wedding photos.

Despite these differences, it is a universal axiom that everyone likes their own "artistic photos".

European paintings are far superior to Chinese paintings in terms of "shape resemblance". Especially after the invention of perspective, portraits have the effect of artistic photos. It was a long-standing tradition for aristocratic families to show off their family trees and hang portraits of their ancestors in their grand mansions. Civilian society naturally has the urge to imitate the upper class. Once they have money, they also like to find a painter to customize their portrait. Oil paintings are generally charged according to size, and good painters are expensive, so savvy consumers thought of a way: to raise funds to paint group portraits. Rembrandt's masterpiece "The Night Watch" is one such fund-raising work.

Among Rembrandt's group portraits in his later years, the most famous is "The Directors of the Cloth Merchants' Guild".

There are 6 people in the picture. If you look at this picture on a mobile phone screen, it is easy to treat them all equally. But Holmes would see at a glance that the fourth person from the left was a bit special, hiding in the back row without a hat, while the other five people were all in the front row, wearing black wide-brimmed hats of the same shape. If you zoom in on the head of the fourth man, you will see that he is actually wearing a hat, but it is a small black hat without a brim, which was standard for followers or assistants at the time.

The five people in the front row have the same identity. They are all Amsterdam cloth merchants and directors of the Cloth Merchants Guild. Directors are elected for a one-year term, and they are required to conduct random inspections of fabric samples sent by textile workers three times a week. If the quality is up to standard, they will stamp the cloth with the city logo on the front and the guild logo on the back. This is the prototype of the trademark. The quality of fabrics is divided into 4 levels. The first-class cloth has 4 printing marks, and the fourth-class cloth has only one printing mark. This is the early star rating system.

After Rembrandt painted this group portrait, it was hung in the guild hall of the Cloth Merchants Guild.

Many large guild halls in cities eventually became city halls.

Let’s compare it to the movie "Ip Man" we talked about last week. The role played by Sammo Hung is essentially the chairman of the martial arts guild, and the directors of several other martial arts gyms are also guild directors. They inspected Ip Man's martial arts skills and then granted him the qualification to open a martial arts school. This was equivalent to the cloth merchants' guild stamping high-quality cloth, letting consumers know that Ip Man's martial arts skills had been evaluated by his peers, and everyone did not have to worry about being deceived. If Ip Man is unfortunately injured or even dies during a match with a British boxer, then the guild has the obligation to take care of his wife and children. Without this protection, the hero is likely to shed both blood and tears. The guild chairman played by Sammo Hung dies in the ring. Who will raise his wife and so many young children in the future? This is a question that the movie does not answer.

Having said that, in the Netherlands in the 17th century, Rembrandt was one of the most profitable painters. But from the perspective of the overall environment, the income of Dutch painters is not as good as that of Italian painters. This is not all a matter of level, but because the patrons of Italian painters are all popes and princes and nobles, while in the Netherlands, even top painters like Rembrandt receive orders from the burgher class. Rembrandt's most famous work "Night Watch" is no exception. The Self-Defense Forces raised funds for him to paint it. The so-called Self-Defense Forces, although armed with live ammunition to maintain public order, are actually just a guild-type civil organization.