The power of the deferral to expertise and what it says about human nature

Over the past few days, I've immersed myself into the world and psychology of art forgery. No, I have not retreated to my attic with some 17th century canvases and vintage pigments in hopes of turning out Old Masters, a la Charles Bouchet in How to Steal a Million. Nor have I followed in the steps of renowned English forger, John Myatt, who's "Monets," "Miros," and "Rembrants" earned him a reputation as a lovable art crook.

Fresh from a class on the physics of light and the chemistry of art, I picked up a rather interesting book at the library entitled The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick, published in 2008. The book interested me on three main accounts: first, it was about a forger of Vermeer, my favourite artist; second, it was an history set in Nazi Europe, a subject in which I have particular interest; third and finally, it detailed the compelling story of one of the most notorious and (oddly) successful art forgers in history, Han van Meegeren, a Dutch artist of little renown who sent the highest echelons of Holland's art world into a spin in the 1940s.

Dolnick narrates the story with ease and tact, weaving from van Meegeren's arrest as a suspected supporter of the Dutch Nazi party in 1945, through his painstaking measures to produce a veritable "17th century Vermeer" (he completed 7 "Vermeers," all which sold for astronomical prices to a willing audience. "Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery" sold to the Nazis' second-after-Hitler, Herman Goering, who acquired it in exchange for 173 priceless paintings), the startling approbation of art critics and laypeople all over the world, and, finally, in van Meegeren's trial and conviction as a "genius" of a forger.


A Vermeer? Um, apparently.

I was both surprised and intrigued to see that The New York Times ran two articles on the van Meegeren scandal this week. I have posted links to parts one and two of the articles below:

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/bamboozling-ourselves-part-1/?scp=3&sq=van%20meegeren&st=cse

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/bamboozling-ourselves-part-2/

All the best experts looked at these paintings and almost all of them fell, and fell hard, for what even the most naive art student would immediately identify as poor effigies of Vermeers, compared to Girl with a Pearl Earring or The Milkmaid. They cried, "Masterpiece!," "Astounding!", "the triumph of Vermeer's career and the most sincere outpouring of his soul!" And everyone followed suit. There were no tests conducted, no questions asked (save, how much?), and van Meegeren got caught only when he turned himself in (even that went over badly. The officials scoffed at him for daring to claim that he could paint a masterpiece that only Vermeer's rare skill could execute). In short, he got them.
And he got them good.

What does this say about human nature?

Well, first of all we are often trapped in our deferral to expertise. If an "expert" says something, chances are we will believe them. Second, we believe what we want to believe. If you find a priceless work of art, you want to believe it's real. In the words of Edward Dolnick in his interview with The Times,

"How could it be that when you’re going to lay out $10 million for a painting, you don’t test it beforehand? And the answer is that you don’t test it because, at the point of being about to buy it, you’re in love! You’ve found something. It’s going to be the high mark of your collection; it’s going to be the making of you as a collector. You finally found this great thing. It’s available, and you want it. You want it to be real. You don’t want to have someone let you down by telling you that the painting isn’t what you think it is. It’s like being newly in love. Everything is candlelight and wine. Nobody hires a private detective at that point. It’s only years down the road when things have gone wrong that you say, “What was I thinking? What’s going on here?” The collector and the forger are in cahoots. The forger wants the collector to snap it up, and the collector wants it to be real."

Third, this is a cautionary tale about the value of a name. People love brands. They love big names. They love celebrities. It's a central part of human nature. When van Meegeren introduced his most successful forgery, "Christ at Emmaus" under his name, people scoffed and called it "sentimental," insipid, and lacking in depth. When he presented it as a Vermeer, it was hailed as the masterpiece of Vermeer's career. Is it any surprise that Han van Meegeren was bitter? What a slap in the face! To be rejected as yourself but hailed as someone else!

Just something to think about...