Apples - Rand on Still Life Paintings, Plus


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** A 31st Vermeer may come to market.

Personally, I have yet to be convinced that that's a Vermeer. I don't think it is. Or at least it's not a Johannes Vermeer. I think Wheelock is full of it, just like the experts who validated Van Meegeren's work as Vermeer's.

J

I'm hardly an expert, but I'm strongly doubtful that that's a Johannes Vermeer.

Ellen

The painting lacks modesty. While I'm supicious of new findings of old masters--the money at stake might corrupt the appraisal process--there are so many fools paying multiples of tens of millions of dollars for valuable names put on modern crap--I couldn't care less.

--Brant

the Mona Lisa doesn't lack modesty

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"...set by Rand and obeyed by Tony".

There is nobody here who understands Rand on Romanticism. And to refute her completely requires you grasp her completely. Ellen, alone, has made some serious attempt.

And nobody who will believe that what Rand described as of fundamental importance in art, the moral and 'spiritual' (or conceptual) need individuals have of it - is what 'I knew' or sensed, since I began reading fiction in childhood. Long before reading Rand.

I fully believe that you felt that Rand confirmed your personal experience. However, your feeling this is a very long way from demonstrating that Rand produced a theory adequate to the phenomenon of art.

As to there being nobody here who understands Rand on Romanticism, I think that I do understand. I sympathize with where she was coming from. I've said so a number of times. But I think that she produced an artificial demarcation between "Romanticism" and "Naturalism," even in literature - and I agree with Jonathan that she mis-extrapolated her ideas on "Romanticism"/"Naturalism" to other art forms.

Ellen

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** A 31st Vermeer may come to market.

Personally, I have yet to be convinced that that's a Vermeer. I don't think it is. Or at least it's not a Johannes Vermeer. I think Wheelock is full of it, just like the experts who validated Van Meegeren's work as Vermeer's.

J

I'm hardly an expert, but I'm strongly doubtful that that's a Johannes Vermeer.

Ellen

I've been reviewing Van Meegeren's forgeries, and now I'd say that I'm 99% certain that he created the "Vermeer." It has all of Van Meegeren's stylistic tastes and mistakes: Heavy bulbous eyelids, wide bridge of the nose, noodle fingers, darks going into blacks too early, too neutral in the mid half tones (where Vermeer glows), lack of ability to render translucency of skin, too cool highlights, overall bad modulation of hues, frumpy rendering of cloth, and general anatomical sloppiness.

J

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I've been reviewing Van Meegeren's forgeries, and now I'd say that I'm 99% certain that he created the "Vermeer." It has all of Van Meegeren's stylistic tastes and mistakes: Heavy bulbous eyelids, wide bridge of the nose, noodle fingers, darks going into blacks too early, too neutral in the mid half tones (where Vermeer glows), lack of ability to render translucency of skin, too cool highlights, overall bad modulation of hues, frumpy rendering of cloth, and general anatomical sloppiness.

J

From the announcement site William linked to:

Many specialists remain dubious about “Saint Praxedis”, but leading scholar Arthur Wheelock Jr believes that it is authentic, and included it in the 1995-96 Vermeer exhibition that he co-curated at the Washington National Gallery of Art. As Christie’s says, “The results of recent material technical analysis conducted by the Rijksmuseum in association with the Free University, Amsterdam endorses Vermeer’s authorship of the picture.”

Do you know what "material technical analysis" might be involved?

Also, do you have a good web source about Van Meegeren's forgeries easily to hand?

Ellen

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So I'm going searching about Van Meegeren's Vermeer forgeries.

A good-sized image of "Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus" is just below this paragraph.

essentialvermeer.com link

In 1937, Abraham Bredius (who as one of the most authoritative art historians had dedicated a great part of his life to the study of Vermeer) was approached by a lawyer who claimed to be the trustee of a Dutch family estate in order to have him look at a rather large painting of a Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus. Shortly after having viewed the painting, the 83 year old art historian wrote an article in the Burlington Magazine, the "art bible" of the times, in which he stated, "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 pointillés 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."

Fascinating.

Ellen

PS: I like "Woman Reading Music," which you can see in the right side panel at the above link.

It's compositionally convincing. (The pun wasn't deliberate.)

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The Bizarre van Meegeren Trial

essentialvermeer.com link

In May 1945, Van Meegeren was arrested, charged with collaborating with the enemy and imprisoned. His name had been traced to the sale made during WW II of what was then believed to be an authentic painting [by] Vermeer to Nazi Field-Marshal Hermann Goering. Shortly after, to general disbelief, Van Meegeren came up with a very original defense against the accusation of collaboration, then punishable by death. He claimed that the painting, The Woman Taken in Adultery, was not a Vermeer but rather a forgery by his own hand. Moreover, since he had traded the false Vermeer for 200 original Dutch paintings seized by Goering in the beginning of [the] war, Van Meegeren believed that he was a national hero rather than a Nazi collaborator. He also claimed to have painted five other "Vermeers" as well as two "Pieter de Hoochs" all of which had surfaced on the art market since 1937.

[....]

At the end of the trial, the collaboration charges were changed to forgery and Van Meegeren was condemned to one year in confinement, but it was said he was tickled to get only one year in jail. "Two years," he told a reporter, "is the maximum punishment for such a thing. I know because I looked it up in our laws twelve years ago, before I started all this. But sir, I'm sure about one thing: if I die in jail they will just forget all about it. My paintings will become original Vermeers once more. I produced them not for money but for art's sake."

[Another page on the site says:]

12 November 1947, Van Meegeren was convicted of falsification and fraud, and sentenced to the minimum punishment of one year in prison. He never served his sentence, but before he could be incarcerated the forger suffered a heart attack and died on 30 December, 1947.

essentialvermeer.com link

Van Meegeren's Dilemma

"As he moved from strength to strength as a forger...Van Meegeren grew increasingly disenchanted with the way he was perceived, or misperceived, by his peers. And with some justification. Known in public as the inoffensively traditionalist court painter to the patricians of The Hague, Van Meegeren was, in reality, one of the most successful artists alive in Europe. When Joseph Duveen bought the Lace Maker, in 1927. Not even Picasso could have sold a single canvas for £38,000 - or even a quarter of that. Moreover, Van Meegeren had risen to the top in a field of creative endeavor so radical that it went beyond cutting edge to criminal. Yet, only his closest confidantes knew that he had painted The Lace Maker, and The Smiling Girl before it. It was a bitter pill for a man like Van Meegeren, who had craved a public triumph "

Jonathan Lopez, The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing

the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren, 2008, p. 86.

essentialvermeer.com link

Woman Taken in Adultery was sold to a Nazi banker and art dealer Alois Miedl who later sold it to Göring for 1,650,000 guilders, the highest price ever paid for one of Van Meegeren's forgeries.

Göring attempted to reclaim the painting at the end of the war once it had been recovered from Nazi art hoard buried in the Alt-Aussee salt mine in Austria. [....] On 17 May 1945, Allied forces entered the salt mine and recovered all the artworks.

[....]

It is said that when Göring had learned that Van Meegeren had [forged] his treasured "Vermeer,""he looked as if for the first time he had discovered there was evil in the world."10

10. "Han van Meegeren" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren>

Ellen

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I've been reviewing Van Meegeren's forgeries, and now I'd say that I'm 99% certain that he created the "Vermeer." It has all of Van Meegeren's stylistic tastes and mistakes: Heavy bulbous eyelids, wide bridge of the nose, noodle fingers, darks going into blacks too early, too neutral in the mid half tones (where Vermeer glows), lack of ability to render translucency of skin, too cool highlights, overall bad modulation of hues, frumpy rendering of cloth, and general anatomical sloppiness.

J

From the announcement site William linked to:

Many specialists remain dubious about Saint Praxedis, but leading scholar Arthur Wheelock Jr believes that it is authentic, and included it in the 1995-96 Vermeer exhibition that he co-curated at the Washington National Gallery of Art. As Christies says, The results of recent material technical analysis conducted by the Rijksmuseum in association with the Free University, Amsterdam endorses Vermeers authorship of the picture.

According to the essentialvermeer.com site:

[During van Meegeren's trial], the chemist and seventeenth-century painting expert Paul Coremans was able to determine the chemical composition of van Meegeren's paints. He found that van Meegeren had prepared the paints by mixing them with the plastic bonding agent Albertol, a phenolformaldehyde resin which had been invented only in the twentieth century. A bottle with exactly that ingredient had been found in van Meegeren's studio.

The resin enabled the paint to harden faster than usual with oil paint.

Surely the people testing the recent find would have analyzed the paint used, yes?

Ellen

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Not to mention the lead for white paint in the 17th century from Dutch mines had traces of silver and antimony whereas his white paint contained pure lead. Modern day smelters purify all the other elements out. As well PMI (positive metal identification) could non destructively test this.

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I don't try to differentiate real from fake when it comes to Vermeers but I don't like some of the possible fakes, real fake or not or up in the air real fake or not--by how the face is done, mostly the eyes. The possible Vermeer #31 revolts me for that and the subject matter and composition. Everything about it including use of color. It's characteristic of The Suppper At Emmaus, the real fake I can't stand either. The brain of the artist has no modesty and the Vermeers I like or not dislike reflect modesty, not pretentiousness. That said, some of the discovered real fakes, in so far as I can tell from the small reproductions, seem to reflect modesty too.

--Brant

immodest art critic

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It's hard for me to imagine people's thinking that "The Supper at Emmaus" and the other van Meegeren Christ paintings were by Vermeer.

On the other hand, something about "The Supper at Emmaus" triggered my thinking of Picasso's "La Vie," a painting I do like.

"The Supper at Emmaus" (called there "The Disciples at Emmaus")

"La Vie"

Ellen

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It's hard for me to imagine people's thinking that "The Supper at Emmaus" and the other van Meegeren Christ paintings were by Vermeer.

On the other hand, something about "The Supper at Emmaus" triggered my thinking of Picasso's "La Vie," a painting I do like.

"The Supper at Emmaus" (called there "The Disciples at Emmaus")

"La Vie"

Ellen

Not to leave this on the previous page

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La Vie: could it be the toes and feet? I mean, partially?

--Brant

and it reflects modesty

I think it's something about the placement of figures - although that's different in the two paintings, but there are figures "bracketing" the center in "La Vie."

Also, definitely, the blue.

And the expression on the Christ face. I thought of the male figure on the left in "La Vie," and sort of, of the face of the woman at the right from the face of the standing figure to the right of Christ in "Emmaus."

However, like you, I find the expressions in "Emmaus" off-putting - sickly sentiment, is how I think of them.

Whereas those in "La Vie," although sad, I find "honest."

Ellen

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Frankly, Ellen, I can't stand to look at "Supper"--not one figure in it and not the totality. I can't believe it was once certified as a real Vermeer. You can do a lot with technical evaluations, but Jesus H. Christ, step back and look at the whole damn thing!

--Brant

I can believe the expert was bribed more than he was just wrong--that the faker artist did all this on his own ("Will this be good enough for you or should I do another and how should I change it?")

I'm an art expert par nothing

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I can believe the expert was bribed more than he was just wrong--that the faker artist did all this on his own ("Will this be good enough for you or should I do another and how should I change it?")

Repeating the story told on essentialvermeer.com about the certification of that painting:

essentialvermeer.com link

In 1937, Abraham Bredius (who as one of the most authoritative art historians had dedicated a great part of his life to the study of Vermeer) was approached by a lawyer who claimed to be the trustee of a Dutch family estate in order to have him look at a rather large painting of a Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus. Shortly after having viewed the painting, the 83 year old art historian wrote an article in the Burlington Magazine, the "art bible" of the times, in which he stated, "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 pointillés 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."

That doesn't sound as if Bredius was bribed.

I'm not sure if Bredius lived long enough to find out he'd been duped.

Also, according to Jonathan Lopez in The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren:

essentialvermeer.com link

[bold emphasis added]

[...] Van Meegeren was neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist as he claimed to be, but an ingenious crook who worked virtually his entire adult life making and selling fake Old Masters through networks of illicit commerce that operated across Europe between the wars. Through various front men he had managed to sell fakes to powerful dealers and famous collectors such as Andrew W. Mellon (American businessman and banker as a politician and statesman), Daniël George van Beuningen (Dutch shipping baron and icon for the city of Rotterdam) and Willem van der Vorm (wealthy ship owner and Van Beuningen's arch rival in art collecting). Only a handful of art historians and connoisseurs of the time were able to see through Van Meegeren's scams; the overwhelming number regarded Van Meegeren's forgeries not only as genuine, but often exquisite.

I don't understand this passage from the essentialvermeer article:

essentialvermeer.com link

[bold emphasis in original]

How could have Van Meegeren's forgeries fooled even the great art historians of the time? "In essence, what these forgeries had done was to re-interpret Vermeer in the light of art inspired by Nazi ideology with which Van Meegeren ...sympathized. The late Vermeer forgeries are basically a Nazi fantasy of Vermeer, and this was, of course, an entirely plausible image of Vermeer if you happened to be living in occupied Europe during the war, when Nazi imagery was an absolutely ubiquitous part of daily life." 3

[The quote is from Lopez' book.]

I don't understand what's Nazi-inspired in the forgeries.

Ellen

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The resin enabled the paint to harden faster than usual with oil paint.

Surely the people testing the recent find would have analyzed the paint used, yes?

Yes, one of Van Meegeren's techniques of achieving the aging effects of brittleness and craquelure was to use resins which hadn't existed in Vermeer's time. But he is said to have experimented with many techniques. So, the absence of modern resin doesn't prove that Van Meegeren didn't create the painting. It doesn't eliminate him.

He was generally very concerned with using panels, canvases, oils, pigments and varnishes from the times of the artists whose work he was faking, but he sometimes slacked off and resorted to using modern materials. I think that his use of cobalt blue, which didn't exist in Vermeer's time, is another mistake that he made. But not in all paintings which included blue. Sometimes he used hand-ground ultramarine. So, the absence of cobalt blue in a painting doesn't eliminate Van Meegeren from having painted it, just as the absence of modern resin doesn't eliminate him.

Not to mention the lead for white paint in the 17th century from Dutch mines had traces of silver and antimony whereas his white paint contained pure lead. Modern day smelters purify all the other elements out. As well PMI (positive metal identification) could non destructively test this.

We don't know that Van Meegeren used only modern white lead on all of his forgeries. He had studied the artists and materials very carefully, and, through experience, got to be quite good at finding or replicating canvases and materials from the artists' times. Sometimes he would purchase cheap, finished paintings from the time period, scrub the images off, and then paint the forgery. Sometimes he was too hurried or lazy to do so, and would just paint directly over the existing image. Occasionally he would also purchase blank or nearly blank canvases which had been found in attic studios or other long-forgotten storage areas that had been abandoned after the artist who had used them died. Sometimes he ground his own pigments, sometimes not. Sometimes he settle for modern conveniences in his materials, sometimes not. So, we can't conclude that he didn't use natural white lead just because we've discover that some of his forgeries included processed white lead.

Additionally, as I understand the lead analysis that was performed earlier this year on the Saint Praxedis painting, the lead was compared only to two "Vermeers" which I also doubt as being legit (Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, and Diana and Her Companions). I mean, WTF? Shouldn't it occur to those doing the testing that the Saint Praxedis samples should be compared to images which everyone agrees are actual Vermeers, and not the two which, along with Saint Praxedis, are the most controversial?!!!

But, anyway, you and Ellen make good points, and I'll admit that my "99 percent certainty" comment is probably a bit too certain. There's a possibility that Johannes' daddy painted the images. Or maybe an uncle or something.

It's hard for me to imagine people's thinking that "The Supper at Emmaus" and the other van Meegeren Christ paintings were by Vermeer.

Yeah, I think the whole Van Meegeren mess illustrates that the "experts" don't have the visual aptitude that is assumed of them, and which some of them like to cultivate as having. Despite their talk of analyzing "brushwork" and other subtle details, they don't seem to be able to see basic structural and anatomical flaws and massive stylistic differences. Plus they often seem to be emotionally motivated by enjoyment of the history more than of the artistry. Which is what Van Meegeren preyed upon. He studied up on what the experts were hoping and praying to find, and then gave it to them. Their passion for finding and verifying something of historical significance, especially when it contained subjects they had speculated/predicted, blinded them to the quite obvious visual inferiority of the forgeries.

J

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Interesting to compare the bread to the right on the table in "The Milkmaid" -

here and here

(the first is more accurate in color, but you can stretch the second to get a close-up) -

with the bread in "The Supper at Emmaus" (called there "The Disciples at Emmaus").

(For those who can stand to look at the second, which leaves Brant out. :smile:)

Ellen

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I don't understand what's Nazi-inspired in the forgeries.

Might have been a touch of Lysenkoism. In any case, it seems the issue is dead--except for that #31.

I don't understand what Lysenkoism has to do with it.

Btw, it isn't #31. It's #37.

You can see the Felice Ficherelli painting and the Vermeer/"Vermeer" near duplicate side by side here.

The author of the article, Jon Boone, opines:

In looking at Saint Praxedis one does have a hard time understanding its attribution to Vermeer. It is a second-rate copy of a mediocre painting by an undistinguished artist, with certain features - such as the awkward wrap-around hands - antithetical to Vermeer's sensibility as well as his draftsmanship. While the face itself is beautiful, certainly more charming than that of the original, it is still a facsimile face, a close copy of the source. The theme of the painting is fussy and contrived, way over the top of Vermeer's burlesque Allegory of Faith; even as a very young painter, Vermeer seemed loathe to engage in such simple narrative. Because of the lacuna of detailed historical context surrounding Vermeer, there may have been an overwhelming unconscious temptation to fill it with more complete and satisfying explanations about Vermeer's religion, while lending more substantial support to questionable notions of his Italianate stylistic origins. Whatever the reasons, the Saint Praxedis attribution is severely strained, failing the standard of Ockham's razor: The simplest explanation covering all the facts of the case is that the painting is a copy executed either by the original painter, Ficherelli, in Florence, or by another artist in Ficherelli's circle. The later signatures on the painting likely refer to one or several of the many artists at the time with the name of Meer or van der Meer, not Johannes Vermeer of Delft.

Ellen

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But, anyway, you and Ellen make good points, and I'll admit that my "99 percent certainty" comment is probably a bit too certain. There's a possibility that Johannes' daddy painted the images. Or maybe an uncle or something.

See Jon Boone's suggestion in the article I quoted from above:

essentialvermeer.com link

The simplest explanation covering all the facts of the case is that the painting is a copy executed either by the original painter, Ficherelli, in Florence, or by another artist in Ficherelli’s circle. The later signatures on the painting likely refer to one or several of the many artists at the time with the name of Meer or van der Meer, not Johannes Vermeer of Delft.

Ellen

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I'm not sure if Bredius lived long enough to find out he'd been duped.

Answer, yes.

Wikipedia gives his dates as "Dr.Abraham Bredius (18 April 1855 Amsterdam - 13 March 1946 Monaco)."

This source, in Dutch, gives the same dates.

The mystudios.com Chronology for Van Meegeren says that Bredius died in April 1946, but probably it has the month wrong.

So, Bredius was still alive when the forgery came to light, and I suppose he heard about it, but I can't read Dutch and the brief Wikipedia piece doesn't say.

Ellen

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I don't understand what's Nazi-inspired in the forgeries.

Might have been a touch of Lysenkoism. In any case, it seems the issue is dead--except for that #31.

I don't understand what Lysenkoism has to do with it.

Playing to a pe-determined cultural, intellectual or scientific conclusion despite any contrary evidence to the satisfaction of those wielding totalitarian political power.

--Brant

which, I admit, is getting seemingly too arcane here

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Ok, here's some explanation of the "Nazi fantasy of Vermeer" comment.

The following is from an interview with Jonathan Lopez on the essentialvermeer site (Lopez is the author of The Man Who Made Vermeers):

essentialvermeer.com link

They are very ugly paintings.

That's true. They are. Van Meegeren's Supper at Emmaus looks like an episode of The Munsters. And yet the great expert Abraham Bredius declared it to be the Vermeer's greatest masterpiece in 1937. It was praised in the newspapers when it was first "discovered"; it hung in a major museum; exhibitions were organized around it; poetry was written in its honor. This was no small achievement for a forgery. But Emmaus and the other biblical Vermeer forgeries succeeded for a good reason: they really did blend in with the contemporary visual culture of their time. And today it's very hard for us to see that, because the elements of contemporary culture that they were drawing upon, or from which they sprung, were essentially wiped away, wiped off the face of the earth after the war.

How so?

In essence, what these forgeries had done was to re-interpret Vermeer in the light of art inspired by Nazi ideology with which Van Meegeren, by the way, sympathized. In the book, I tease this out by pairing the forgeries with actual Nazi propaganda art produced during the time, including Nazi-influenced works that Van Meegeren himself produced during the war (under his own name) for the German occupation government of the Netherlands. The late Vermeer forgeries are basically a Nazi fantasy of Vermeer, and this was, of course, an entirely plausible image of Vermeer if you happened to be living in occupied Europe during the war, when Nazi imagery was an absolutely ubiquitous part of daily life. But today these fakes are stranded on a historical desert island. We don't know what they're referring back to. And they just look weirder and weirder as time goes by.

Was Van Meegeren actually a Nazi?

His relationship to Nazism was complex. On a personal level, Van Meegeren greatly admired Hitler - a fellow traditionalist artist, among other things - and he was a big fan of Mein Kampf, which he read just shortly after it came out. Then, during the war, he did these commissioned artworks for the Nazis. He also gave large sums to Nazi causes, joined Nazi-sponsored arts organizations, and once even sent an inscribed book of drawings to Hitler as a token of appreciation. So, I think it's fair to say that Van Meegeren found Nazism quite appealing. On the other hand, though, he never officially joined the Party and, despite occasional crude comments, he wasnt a pathological anti-Semite. Van Meegeren's interest in the Nazi movement, like virtually everything else about Van Meegeren, was mostly narcissistic. He liked the idea of being the Übermensch, of standing, as it were, outside of history and bending the world to his will. For a forger, that's a very powerful idea.

This blog review of Lopez's book provides some further information:

link

Review, June 30, 2009

[....]

What makes Jonathan Lopez's book such an engrossing read are not only his details of art forgers and their methods (such as over-painting on canvases fitting a particular period, after scraping them to the base layer), but his description of how van Meegeren read the minds of the collectors he was set on fooling.

A Dutch-fascist theorist of the 1930s, and friend of the forger, claimed that the Netherlands earlier glory - don't forget it was the world's chief power in the 17th century - was based on the fact that, though the elite was Protestant, the masses were Catholic, and their spirituality gave the era a special, elevated tone. Vermeer, who was a Protestant that had married into a Catholic family, had, aside from a few early, weak works, never painted a religious picture. Since the artist left few works overall, many critics speculated that he may have taken up biblical themes in lost pieces. Van Meegeren obligingly provided them, after being inspired by the kitsch he saw at the Aryan art festival accompanying the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

[....]

~~~ Jim Feast, The Brooklyn Rail

I ordered The Man Who Made Vermeers.

Ellen

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