The point is made in the article; Art is about branding not quality.
He made original art in Vermeer's style. All the experts of the day authenticated them as Vermeer's. Frankly, had he not confessed, they'd likely still be Vermeer's today.
Their value was locked up in the Vermeer name; the brand. Once they weren't Vermeer their value dropped by 3 orders of magnitude.
To all creators, heed the lesson. The brand is the valuable part. Building a brand is the expensive part. AI might replace your product but it can't replace your brand.
vanderZwan 17 minutes ago [-]
> Frankly, had he not confessed, they'd likely still be Vermeer's today.
Speaking as a Dutch guy with an arts degree, I more or less agree with everything else in your comment if with "art" you mean "prestige and fame in the art world" (you forgot to mention the gallery art and tax evasion angle though), but I'm not so certain about this one. I've seen his paintings side-by-side with actual Vermeer paintings and you can tell they're not the real deal. The faked aging is pretty noticeable. Aesthetically too, the paintings are still "Vermeer as interpreted by someone else", and you can see the "Van Meegeren" touches. Sure, that is with the benefit of hindsight, but I think a side-by-side view would have raised questions regardless.
On top of that, you have to consider how they tricked the art world: they found a vain professor who also had a selfish incentive to be the person to find one of the presumed "missing" Vermeer paintings. They knew exactly who to manipulate.
Being an art critic who discovers a forgery also comes with some prestige, so surely later critics would have been more eager to be skeptical about these "new" Vermeer paintings.
Also, if "F for Fake" has shown me anything it's that forgers kind of want to be caught, because they ultimately want to brag about fooling everyone. So he probably would have announced to the world that he made the forgeries at some point. But that kind of breaks with your "if he hadn't confessed" condition so it doesn't really count.
robotmay 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah this has been the hard part for me with both transitioning into a photography business and trying to run a YouTube channel, albeit a different variation on the issue compared to the art world. Both (most) people and algorithms want you to fit neatly into a specific little box, like "high contrast black & white street photographer"; that's the dream for them. They can't deal with or understand somebody who then also takes colour photos of birds, for example. YouTube in particular hates this and has no idea how to show your video to people if it breaks from the niche it thinks your previous work fits into. Many creators find that they get pigeon-holed into the one thing that brings them success and burn out when their attempts to break out of it are met with confusion.
It's much, much harder to build a brand that is you, rather than what people want you to be, but if you can build a brand that is the whole of your personality then you can make a success of anything you publish as people are following you for you, not just your work. As someone with a complete lack of focus this is likely the only way I can make it work for me, but it's still very much a work in progress.
lampcord 10 hours ago [-]
Respect the technical skill, even if the ethics are questionable. Reminds me of finding an elegant hack in a deeply flawed system.
ggm 9 hours ago [-]
A fictionalised account not entirely dissimilar to this kind of story is buried in "What's bred in the bone" (1985) by the Canadian author Robertson Davies. It's not a direct lift, but you'd see the resonances.
tugback 10 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of how some of the best security researchers started out on the 'other' side. Talent finds its way to usefulness, sometimes.
hexley19 10 hours ago [-]
From bug bounty hunter to celebrated 'fixer' – the ultimate career pivot. Kinda makes you appreciate the hustle.
crazycheesu 7 hours ago [-]
So refreshing to read something written by a human
inglor_cz 2 hours ago [-]
Ah, van Meegeren. I wrote about him in my latest book (in Czech).
There was an element of subtle social engineering to his work. For example, Prof. Bredius, mentioned in the article, strongly believed that Vermeer had a religious period, only not discovered yet. The Supper at Emmaus was intended to confirm his conviction and Bredius was happily fooled.
In the Nazi occupation period, Christ and the Adulteress was intended to reflect stark "Germanic" idea of morality and justice. It was maybe too good, because Goering took interest and inquired about the origin of the work (probably not suspecting it to be fake - rather than stolen). Meegeren was able to mollify him by promising to reveal the origin in two years' time, and the war ultimately proved shorter than that.
This guy was talented, but also a totally amoral manipulator. He didn't only swindle Nazis, but innocent buyers as well.
[0] https://timharford.com/2021/03/the-art-forger-the-nazi-and-t... (sorry I couldn't find a transcript on that page, I'm sure there's one somewhere)
He made original art in Vermeer's style. All the experts of the day authenticated them as Vermeer's. Frankly, had he not confessed, they'd likely still be Vermeer's today.
Their value was locked up in the Vermeer name; the brand. Once they weren't Vermeer their value dropped by 3 orders of magnitude.
To all creators, heed the lesson. The brand is the valuable part. Building a brand is the expensive part. AI might replace your product but it can't replace your brand.
Speaking as a Dutch guy with an arts degree, I more or less agree with everything else in your comment if with "art" you mean "prestige and fame in the art world" (you forgot to mention the gallery art and tax evasion angle though), but I'm not so certain about this one. I've seen his paintings side-by-side with actual Vermeer paintings and you can tell they're not the real deal. The faked aging is pretty noticeable. Aesthetically too, the paintings are still "Vermeer as interpreted by someone else", and you can see the "Van Meegeren" touches. Sure, that is with the benefit of hindsight, but I think a side-by-side view would have raised questions regardless.
On top of that, you have to consider how they tricked the art world: they found a vain professor who also had a selfish incentive to be the person to find one of the presumed "missing" Vermeer paintings. They knew exactly who to manipulate.
Being an art critic who discovers a forgery also comes with some prestige, so surely later critics would have been more eager to be skeptical about these "new" Vermeer paintings.
Also, if "F for Fake" has shown me anything it's that forgers kind of want to be caught, because they ultimately want to brag about fooling everyone. So he probably would have announced to the world that he made the forgeries at some point. But that kind of breaks with your "if he hadn't confessed" condition so it doesn't really count.
It's much, much harder to build a brand that is you, rather than what people want you to be, but if you can build a brand that is the whole of your personality then you can make a success of anything you publish as people are following you for you, not just your work. As someone with a complete lack of focus this is likely the only way I can make it work for me, but it's still very much a work in progress.
There was an element of subtle social engineering to his work. For example, Prof. Bredius, mentioned in the article, strongly believed that Vermeer had a religious period, only not discovered yet. The Supper at Emmaus was intended to confirm his conviction and Bredius was happily fooled.
In the Nazi occupation period, Christ and the Adulteress was intended to reflect stark "Germanic" idea of morality and justice. It was maybe too good, because Goering took interest and inquired about the origin of the work (probably not suspecting it to be fake - rather than stolen). Meegeren was able to mollify him by promising to reveal the origin in two years' time, and the war ultimately proved shorter than that.
This guy was talented, but also a totally amoral manipulator. He didn't only swindle Nazis, but innocent buyers as well.