Art Forgeries

It is commonly assumed that even if some forgeries have aesthetic merit, no forgery has as much as an original by the imitated artist would. Yet even the most prominent art specialists can be duped by a talented artist turned forger into mistaking an almost perfect forgery for an original. For instance, reputed critic who persisted in believing it to be a Vermeer even after van Meegeren’s confession.

Given the experts’ initial enthusiasm, some philosophers argue that van Meegeren’s painting must have possessed aesthetic characteristics that, in a Vermeer original, would have justified the critics’ plaudits. Van Meegeren’s Emmaus thus raises difficult questions regarding the status of superbly executed forgeries. Is a forgery inherently inferior as art? How are we forgery? Philosopher of art Alfred Lessing proposes convincing answers to these questions.

A forged work is indeed inferior as art, Lessing argues, but not because of a shortfall in aesthetic qualities strictly defined, that is to say, in the qualities perceptible on the picture’s surface. For example, in its composition, its technique, and its brilliant use of color, van Meegeren’s work is flawless, even techniques for embodying this new way of seeing through distinctive treatment of light, color, and form.

Even if we grant that van Meegeren, with his undoubted mastery of Vermeer’s innovative techniques, produced an aesthetically superior painting, he did so about three centuries after Vermeer developed the techniques in question. Whereas Vermeer’s origination of these techniques in the seventeenth century represents a truly impressive and historic achievement, van Meegeren’s all its aesthetic merits, lacks the historical significance that makes Vermeer’s work artistically great.