Once upon a time in one of the lands, there was a king who loved painting and nature very much. Therefore, he wanted to place the most beautiful painting in depicting natural landscapes in his kingdom. The king summoned a group of painters who lived in the kingdom. Then one morning, he took them to the natural landscape that he loved and saw as the most beautiful.
When the king arrived with the painters to the place he loved, he said: I have never seen that landscape in any painting inside the kingdom. Therefore, whoever can paint that landscape in its beautiful form will receive glory and fame as a skilled painter.
The painters were accustomed to painting birds of beautiful forms, but they didn’t see the place with the beauty the king was speaking of. They knew they wouldn’t receive glory or fame because of that painting, but they only thought about finishing the work as quickly as possible.
All the painters went in the middle of the morning of the next day to that place the king wanted to see in the painting. They took their tools and began painting, except for one painter only who didn’t go with them, because he was thinking about what his colleagues the painters were thinking. He saw that that landscape might not be beautiful when painted on the canvas. Therefore, he sat thinking about how to paint that place beautifully.
That painter went at sunset to paint that landscape. At that time, something wonderful happened. The sun was reflecting a beautiful color on the mountains that blended with the sun’s last rays. The rays also reflected on the waters of a nearby river. The winds mixed many attractive colors for the hundreds of flowers present in the place.
The painter felt the extent of the beauty of the scene in that magical moment. At that moment, he painted his wonderful painting, and his painting became the most beautiful in the kingdom. That painting was what the king was waiting for, and that painter became the most famous and best inside the kingdom. This was not because he was more talented than others, but he was more focused, as he loved his work and tried hard to make it wonderful work.
Translated from Spanish with the title: El cuadro más bello