Authenticity in art

Authenticity of provenance: The Yellow Dragon jar from the Jiajing period (1521–1567) of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644); a practical item in the 16th-century, and an objet d’art in the 21st century.

The authenticity of provenance of an objet d’art is the positive identification of the artist and the place and time of the artwork's origin;[7] thus, art experts determine authenticity of provenance with four tests: (i) verification of the artist's signature on the work of art; (ii) a review of the historical documentation attesting to the history of the artefact; (iii) scientific evidence (x-rays of the canvas, infrared spectroscopy of the paint, dendrochronological analysis of the wood); and (iv) the expert judgement of a connoisseur with a trained eye.[8]

In Sincerity and Authenticity (1972), the literary critic Lionel Trilling said that the question of authenticity of provenance had acquired a profoundly moral dimension, that regardless of the physical condition and appearance, the quality of workmanship of an artwork, it is greatly important to know whether or not a Ming vase is authentic or a clever art forgery.[9] The preoccupation with the authenticity of provenance of an artwork is historically recent, and particular to Western materialism; in the Eastern world, it is the work of art, itself, which is important; the artist's identity and the provenance of the artwork are secondary considerations.[10]

The art of forgery: The Supper at Emmaus (1937), by Han van Meegeren, a Dutch master forger who deceived the Nazi leader H. Göring that the painting was a genuine Vermeer painting.

Consequent to a critically truncated career, the painter Han van Meegeren (1889–1947) earned his living as an art forger, by specifically producing fake paintings by 17th-century artists, such as Frans Hals (1582–1666) and Pieter de Hooch (1629–1684), Gerard ter Borch (1617–1681) and Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). Van Meegeren produced masterly paintings that deceived critics and art experts, who then accepted and acclaimed the forgeries as genuine masterpieces, especially the Supper at Emmaus (1937) painting accepted as a real Vermeer by experts, such as Abraham Bredius.

In the event, to survive the Second World War (1939–1945), van Meegeren dealt forgeries to the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In the post–War reckoning among the nation, the Dutch authorities arrested van Meegeren as a Nazi collaborator who had sold national treasures to the German enemy. To avoid a traitor's death, the painter van Meegeren demonstrated his technical skills as a forger of paintings by the Old Masters, to prove he sold forged paintings to the Nazis.[11]

To guard against unwittingly buying a forged work of art, sellers and buyers use a certificate of authenticity as documentary proof that an artwork is the genuine creation of the artist identified as the author of the work — yet there is much business in counterfeit certificates of authenticity, which determines the monetary value of a work of art.[12] The inauthenticity of forged painting is discovered with documentary evidence from art history and with forensic evidence gleaned from the techniques of art conservation,[13] such as chronological dating, to establish the authenticity of provenance of paintings by the Old Masters.[14][15] The potential monetary value represented by a certificate of authenticity can prejudice collectors and art dealers to buy recent-period artworks with determined provenance, sometimes established by the artist.[16]

Critical interest in a forgery as a work of art is rare;[17] yet, in the essay “The Perfect Fake” (1961), the critic of architecture and art Aline B. Saarinen asked what “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?”[18] In The Act of Creation (1964), Arthur Koestler concurred with Saarinen's proposition of “forgery as an art”, and said that if a forgery fits into the body of work of an artist, and if the forgery produces the same aesthetic pleasure as the authentic artworks, then the forged art should be included to exhibitions of the works of the plagiarised artist.[19]

In the art business, the artistic value of a well-executed forgery is irrelevant to a curator concerned with the authenticity of provenance of the original work of art[20] — especially because formally establishing the provenance of a work of art is a question of possibility and probability, rarely of certainty, unless the artist vouches for the authenticity of the art.[21] Nevertheless, to the arts community, a forgery remains a forgery, regardless of the excellent artistic execution of the forgery, itself; regardless of the artistic talent of the forger; and regardless of critical praise when critics and public believed the forgery was authentic art.[17]

Mechanical reproduction of art: Facsimile of a 1611 woodcut of the Renaissance French composer Josquin des Prez (1450–1521) copied from an oil painting, the authentic work of art.[22]

Relief printing is a form of mechanical reproduction of art; thus (i) an artist created a drawing; (ii) a craftsman used the drawing to create a woodcut block for relief-printing, usually destroying the original artwork when cutting the drawing into the block of wood; and (iii) the woodblock, itself, was discarded when worn-out for relief printing copies of the drawing. From that three-step process for the production of art, the printed copies of the original drawing are the final product of artistic creation, yet there exists no authentic work of art; the artistic copies have no authenticity of provenance.[23]

In the essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935), Walter Benjamin discussed the then-new visual media of photography and cinematography as machines capable of producing art that can be reproduced many times — yet no one version of the image is the original, artistically authentic image. As visual media that reproduce — but do not create — original images, photography and the cinema shift the concept of artistic authenticity from “art as ritual” to “art as politics” and so make works of art accessible to the mass population, rather than just the aficionado.[24]

A contemporary extension of Benjamin's observations is the perpetual authenticity of the sculpture Sunbather (1971), by the artist Duane Hanson (1925–1996), who gave permission to the conservators of the life-sized sculpture (a woman sunbathing whilst reclining in a chaise longue) to replace parts of the sculpture (cap, swimming suit, towel, etc.) that became faded and worn.[25] Likewise, in light of the artistic production and mechanical reproduction capabilities of computers and the internet, the media artist Julian H. Scaff said that the authenticity of provenance of a digital image (painting, still photograph, cinema frame) cannot be determined, because a digital work of art usually exists in more than one version, and each version is not created, but authored by a different digital artist with a different perspective of what is art.[26]

In the West, the market for “primitive art” arose and developed at the end of the 19th century, consequent to European explorers and colonialists meeting and trading with the cultural and ethnic groups of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Artistically, the native peoples who dealt with the explorers and colonists quickly incorporated to their production of art new materials from Europe, such as cloth and glass beads. Yet European collectors and art dealers would not buy “inauthentic”, mixed-media primitive art made with native and European materials. To overcome resistance to inauthentic primitive art, the art dealers produced artefacts, made with local materials, which Westerners would accept and buy as authentic native art.[29]

The 19th-century business model of artistic production remains the contemporary practise in selling authentic objets d’art to Western collectors and aficionados. Usually, the artefacts are designed and modified to give the impression of possessing popular attributes and authentic provenance, such as religious-ritual use, antiquity, and association with aristocracy and royalty.[30] In the 20th century, during the 1940s, Haitian artists created commercial reproductions of “voodoo images” provided to them by foreign businessmen, to sell as “authentic voodoo art.” To the Haitian artists, the foreign representations of Haitian artistic culture, which they were paid to make, demonstrated the art-theft inherent to cultural appropriation and how White foreigners truly saw Haitian Vodou art as a commercial commodity, and not as religious art.[31]

To distinguish a work of art from a crude artefact made for tourists, art collectors consider an artwork to be artistically authentic when it meets recognised standards of artistic production (design, materials, manufacture) for an original purpose. In the Philippine Islands, throughout their history, the Igorot people have used carved-wood bulul figurines to guard the rice crop; the bulul is a highly stylized representation of an ancestor that gains power from the presence of an ancestral spirit.[32]

Although still used in traditional ceremonies, the Igorot people now produce souvenir bulul figurines for tourists; a secondary purpose that does not devalue the bulul as art. Within the culture, an Igorot family might use a souvenir bulul as suitable and acceptable for traditional ceremonies — thereby granting the souvenir bulul an artistic and cultural authenticity otherwise absent.[2] From that perspective, “tribal masks and sculptures” actually used in religious ceremonies have greater commodity value, especially if authenticity of provenance determines that a native artist created the artefact by using traditional designs, materials, and production techniques. Such Western over-valuation of native art is predicated by the artefact being an authentic example of a tradition or style of art practised by a primitive people.[33]

The artistic evolution of the Maroon people of French Guiana, shows that contemporary artistic styles developed through the interaction of art and commerce, between artists and art businessmen. The long history and strong traditions of Maroon art are notable in the forms of decoration of everyday objects, such as boat paddles and window shutters, art of entirely aesthetic purpose. To sell Maroon artworks, European art collectors assigned symbolism to the “native art” they sold in the art markets, to collectors, and to museums; a specific provenance. Despite the mutual miscommunication betwixt artists and businessmen about the purpose, value, and price of works of art, Maroon artists used the European semiotic language to assign symbolic meanings to their works of native art, and make a living; yet young Maroon artists might mistakenly believe that the (commercial) symbolism derives from ancestral traditions, rather than from the art business.[34]