HIV,
Art, and a Journey toward Healing: One Man's Story
by Tomas Kulka
If a fake is so
expert that even after the most thorough and trustworthy examination its
authenticity is still open to doubt, is it or is it not as satisfactory
a work of art as if it were unequivocally genuine?
It is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself
suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master,
untouched, on the original canvas, and without any restoration, just as
it left the painter's studio. And what a picture! Neither the beautiful
signature . . . nor the pointillé on the bread which Christ
is blessing, is necessary to convince us that we have here—I am
inclined to say—the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of
Delft . . . quite different from all his other paintings and yet every
inch a Vermeer. In no other picture by the great master of Delft do we
find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story—a
sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of highest art.
The author of these lines is Professor Abraham Bredius, the nestor of Holland's
art historians and the greatest authority on seventeenth-century Dutch painting.
The source is The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, the most
prestigious periodical for the history of art of the period. The year is
1937. The painting, however, is not a masterpiece of Vermeer but a fake
produced by the mediocre Dutch artist Han van Meegeren.
|
|
