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A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

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Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#11

Post by rippercushions »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #8
rippercushions wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is so hell bent on casting a poor light on Han van Meegeren He forged art, made money by selling it to literal Nazis, and blew the money on hookers and palatial houses. Are we supposed to feel sorry for the guy? I do have complicated thoughts on the same piece of art being valued completely differently depending on if it's signed by person X or person Y, but for better or worse this is very much a thing.

> made money by selling it to literal Nazis He gave Nazis something with zero practical use in exchange for huge amounts of money. This is a bad thing?

The article says the Nazis traded him 137 looted paintings in exchange for the Vermeer, so yes, at the very least he's profiting off the original owners, who likely died in concentration camps.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#12

Post by solomonb »

causi wrote: post #10
solomonb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the book ("The Forger's Spell") this article is based on, the author actually gives Van Meegeren quite a fair analysis. His personal artwork is criticized but he is given a tremendous amount of credit as a forger. Unfortunately I cannot remember the specifics of the critique of his original paintings but it revolved around him being overly focused on classical technique and applying it to trite contemporary still…

classical technique and applying it to trite contemporary still lifes which were not considered of interest at the time. Doesn't that also describe half of the work of "great artists"? When they were painted they were just "some lady I know" or "some guys standing in a room".

The key part of that sentence is "which were not considered of interest at the time". When Van Meegeren was working, the artistic zeitgeist was focused on exploring new concepts of abstraction and extended technique.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#13

Post by sacrosancty »

jacquesm wrote: post #3
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #2

I’m convinced by the article which is so hell bent on casting a poor light on Han van Meegeren it’s hard to care enough to read but if you are interested in forgers and forgery - a fascinating subject - I heartily recommend Orson Welles F for Fake . It’s for most part a documentary about the famous forger Elmyr de Hory and his biographer Clifford Irving, himself somewhat a forger. I say for most part because to serve…

I know a Dutch painter whose main trade is that she can basically copy any style in a way that even trained people have a very hard time telling from the real thing. It's a good thing she's not into forgery.

No post body was provided.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#14

Post by varajelle »

rippercushions wrote: post #11
Dylan16807 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> made money by selling it to literal Nazis He gave Nazis something with zero practical use in exchange for huge amounts of money. This is a bad thing?

The article says the Nazis traded him 137 looted paintings in exchange for the Vermeer, so yes, at the very least he's profiting off the original owners, who likely died in concentration camps.

I don't really understand this ethical framework. What can be done with these paintings? Must they be destroyed, or anything else is "profiting off victims of Nazis"?

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#15

Post by rippercushions »

varajelle wrote: post #14
rippercushions wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says the Nazis traded him 137 looted paintings in exchange for the Vermeer, so yes, at the very least he's profiting off the original owners, who likely died in concentration camps.

I don't really understand this ethical framework. What can be done with these paintings? Must they be destroyed, or anything else is "profiting off victims of Nazis"?

It's stolen property that should be returned to its owners, and we have a standard legal framework for that. Obviously it's complicated when entire generations were annihilated, and there is still litigation going on today about the provenance and fate of some works stolen in WW2.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#16

Post by jillesvangurp »

Reminds me of another Dutch forger called Geert Jan Jansen who was active until the mid nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Jan_Jansen

He imitated a wide variety of painters and even got one of them (Karel Appel) to authenticate a forgery as real.

He later opened a gallery where he now sells paintings signed under his own name in the style of several famous painters with very different styles. He's made quite a nice career doing that since he got caught.

When he was still forging, he sold lots of paintings and drawings via auction houses all over Europe and it is suspected that there were quite a few that were never found out or where the owner decided to not press charges for financial reasons. So, there are likely to still be some of his forgeries in private collections.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#18

Post by Tade0 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #4

A 'mediocre' artist 'of limited ability', despite pulling off a stroke that required both successfully imitating the style of a master artist and coming up with an advanced (for the time) innovation in the chemical medium (the substrate that holds the pigment). The art world is not a meritocracy, excellent artists can languish because their ideas are out of fashion or too far ahead of the public's taste (van Gogh bei…

Art is not about technique. Sure, artists experiment with technique, but that is only a means to a creative end.

My mother used to be an artisan in a theatre and she had to come up with creative ways to make incompatible materials work together on a daily basis.

Still, that wasn't art.

Re: A mediocre Dutch artist cast 'the forger's spell' (2008)

#20

Post by Someone »

> Van Meegeren was tried, convicted and sentenced to a year in prison in 1947. Nearly two months later, he died of a heart attack without serving even a day.

What the article doesn’t say is that he originally was charged with selling Dutch cultural property to the Nazis, for which he could have gotten the death penalty.

That made him confess that he sold a forgery. They didn’t believe it, so he “painted his last forgery between July and December 1945 in the presence of reporters and court-appointed witnesses: Jesus among the Doctors, also called Young Christ in the Temple in the style of Vermeer.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren#Trial_and_pri...)

That got him of the hook for the death penalty, but also, of course, 100% unmasked him as a forgerer.

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