A congress on art authentification (ctd.)
January 24 2013
Picture: AIA
The website of the planned 2014 Authentication in Art congress I mentioned a while ago has been updated with some additional information. The Committee of Recommendation is comprised (so far) of Professor Martin Kemp (of Oxford and Leonardo fame) and Dr Rudi Ekkart (of the RKD in Holland). So far so eminent. Here's some more info on what the Congress hopes to achieve:
Within the disciplines mentioned above until now no specific education is available to experts specialising in authentication processes. Nowadays training mainly entails the gradual development of empirical knowledge that appears mainly within the international art and auction sector and in some cases in museums. Structural development of academic skills and competencies focussed on the complex domain of authentication in art simply does not exist. The congress organisers strive towards the development of specialised professional training entirely focussed on expertise on authentication matters.
The educational character will be demonstrated through a well-balanced and academic selection of topics, speakers and specific workshops. The congress requires participants with an inquisitive attitude that are willing to look across the boundaries of their own field.
Students from disciplines Art History, Conservation techniques, Material and Legal sciences from around the world will be invited to participate.
Presentations, lectures and discussions at workshops will be recorded and audio/video reports will be made available.
Programme overview
- Common terminology and understanding
- Standards for scientific research and technological research
- Education and training
- Cataloguing and publishing
- Dispute settlement
- Practical use, users
- Finance, Legal, Art trade implications
- Legal implications
This all sounds most encouraging. Hopefully, the educational aspect can be spread further, particularly to university art history departments and students. Perhaps there might be a concerted attempt to get teaching departments involved?
It's an area I feel strongly about. I was recently invited to a seminar (and a fine lunch) at the Paul Mellon Centre to discuss matters of attribution and connoisseurship, along with others from the art trade. The discussion was to look at ways in which the trade could help art history academics and students, and vice-versa. I noted that one thing my fellow dealers had in common was that they had only really started to interract with paintings on a meaningful level (that is, really subject to close study) once they had left university. Isn't this a shame?
Now, I know some art history courses are better than others when it comes to the close analysis of objects. But too much art history teaching is done from small screens and books. The result is that many art history students are missing out on the basic skills they need to work in the art world, particularly when it comes to attribution and authentication, and assessing condition. Students and teachers need to get out more. Hopefully events like this authentication congress can encourage further debate in this area. I know the Mellon Centre are looking to explore this further too.
That said, I'm still looking for the 'c-word' - connoisseurship - on the authentication congress website, but so far with no luck. I do hope the congress will make the case for connoisseurship as part of the authenitication process, but it appears that the emphasis is heading towards a scientific one. This is all well and good, but as I've said before, it is rare that you can scientifically prove a painting.
Science can help you rule out a number of factors - for example, whether a painting is a later copy. But it is rare that it can rule something in. Some artists worked in isolation from the mainstream, and thus developed their own idiosyncratic painting techniques (Vermeer is a good example), and it is true that here scientific evidence can assume a greater importance. But with most artists, particularly those who used a workshop (and who therefore had a number of followers working with exactly the same painting tecniques and styles), science can only offer a more general guide. And since many of the artists we are most interested in authenticating are those who did operate large studios, such as Rubens and Rembrandt, then science can usually only ever get you so far. You still need the connoisseur's eye for the final conclusion.
That said, I would also make the case for the connoisseur's eye at the beginning of any authentication process. Here's why - the trend for getting paintings scientifically analysed has given rise to an interesting phenomenon I call 'the dossier delusion'. Increasingly, we are presented here in the gallery (and also at 'Fake or Fortune?' HQ) with paintings that are manifestly not by, for example, Turner, but which have nonetheless been subjected to a full technical examination; x-rays, infra-red, pigment and support analysis. The analysis invariably comes up with a conclusion such as; 'yes, this is an early 19th Century painting, with the right sort of canvas and paints, and there is nothing to disprove the suggestion that this is by Turner'. In other words, it's all a bit vague. The conclusion is presented with a thick, professional-looking dossier - and of course a whopping bill.
However (to continue our Turner example), despite this dossier all the Turner experts, and even anyone with a general knowledge of his work, would say merely on looking at the painting, 'this is not by Turner'. So here's an interesting, indeed ethical question - why, if a connoisseurial look can tell you that a picture is manifestly not by Turner, should an owner be encouraged to spend a great deal of money to prove, scientifically, that it is? If the owner of the putative Turner had asked the Turner experts first, and trusted the expert's judgement, he would have saved himself many thousands of pounds, a great deal of time, and not a little hope. But, as someone wise once said, 'hope is the most powerful human emotion'.
I didn't mean this to become a rant about connoisseurship, but you know me, once I start...
Update - a reader writes:
I read your comment about connoissuership with interest. I seem to remember a program in the "Fake or Fortune" series about a disputed Monet painting during which the presenters,especially a certain Mr. Philip Mould, railed against the Wildenstein Institute. A barrage of scientific tests, and the testimony of the other experts, indicated the painting was authentic but the Wildenstein's in their infinite wisdom said "non" for the sole reason, as I remember that it didn't look right. Isn't that the problem with connoissuership ; there are just too many connoisssuers?.
Should the program "Fake or Fortune" speak to the connoissuers first before the barrage of tests or would that make it a ten minute program each week?
Having said that, I agree in many ways. I would much prefer to look at a painting and make up my own mind than read a 500 page report which has probably been commissioned simply to justify an insurance valuation. My judgement is probably wrong but it doesnt matter as painting is not a science; it is an art.
Good points - yes, 'you could say there are too many connoisseurs'. But I would say instead - 'there are too many bad connoisseurs'. As I've said before, in any occupation or skill there are good and bad practitioners. Some doctors are good, some are rubbish. But we don't say as a result, 'medicine is rubbish, let's try another way to cure people.' The trick with attributions and connoisseurship is very simple; to find someone who is good, who is tried and tested. In the case of the 'Fake or Fortune?' Monet we did have a tried and tested connoisseur, Professor John House of the Courtauld, who knew merely from looking at the painting that it was right. Ultimately, I think one of the reasons the Wildenstein's refused to play ball was because the science never proved that it was vraiment a Monet, merely that it could be.
Update II - Another reader writes:
Your flagging-up of the conference and its ramifications also bring to mind the intense hostilities engendered over declarations of authenticity across the board in paintings etc. from Monet onwards where there are committees and families involved.
I have in particular been hearing about one deceased artist’s foundation, now fronted by the grand-daughter. This is now insisting on scientific analysis of anything put in front of them, which has just recently led to a certain work being ‘removed’ from the canon despite having earlier written testimonials from both the artist’s daughter and said grand-daughter (used as back-up by Christie’s).
This is as nothing against the Warhol shenanigans which have been well reported.
You are also quite right to highlight the need for students to include real experience of artworks away from the computer screen or slide show.
Subsidised unsnobby internships would be ideal ......in our dreams !
I've never understood this business of having an inherited right to authenticate paintings. Who the hell came up with that idea?
Update III - a reader writes:
With growing concern I witness how museums and art historic scholars are trying to reattribute paintings of minor quality to be "masterpieces" simply by arguing with science. The most "shocking" example in my opinion is the new John the Baptist at the Prado. Even someone who is not a conoisseur can see at an instant, that this painting cannot have anything to do with the master. The clumsy manner in how the upward gaze of the figure with his hand pressed to its chest has been handled is unworthy of a Titian. This is such a "baroque" gesture that one can ask if the painting has anything to do with the master at all. At an auction such a painting would fetch a few thousand Euros at its best. One could therefore just forget about it if there would not have been a noted scholar affiliated to an institution like the Prado who brought it to the attention of the art world. Now we have to deal with it which means that a lot will be written and about it. In my opinion the discussion will not be about the style, becaus here the painting can definitely not stand its ground.
To make one's point the discussion will therefore focus on the restoration report instead. Take the alleged Raphael painting of pope Julius II, that has recently been aquired by the Städel in Frankfurt. The x-rays show pentimenti what has been interpretated as part of "the creative process" that was inflicted upon the painting by the master himself. A standard argument by now to silence critics. As none of us has been with the artist as the painting was created how can we be so sure it was him? Only because a scientific report says so? It is hard to argue against it if you have only got your eye and your subjective opinion on your side. But what will become of conoisseurship if we rely exclusively on science? Nothing much, I guess.
Update IV - a reader from Spain adds, in response to the above comment:
The authenticity of the work by Titian from Prado is not based obviously in the picture visible surface. The paint surface is destroyed by the heat of fire and in my opinion the restoration has not had the best results. I can not say if the work by Titian or Titian's workshop, but what I have clear is that the x-rays show that the work is a composition masterminded by Titian. The manner in how the upward gaze of the figure with his hand pressed to its chest is presented in a secure work by Titian and its radiograph.
True, the St. John the Baptist only would be sold at auction for a few thousand and for this we must be thankful that there are museums that spend money on restore and analyzing a painting, which draws an important lesson about how the master worked. That said and knowing that the Prado recognizes that the value of the painting is essentially documentary I just hope that when finished the exhibition about its restoration and discoveries the curators are responsible enough (and I'm fear that no) to not expose the painting next to other works by Titian, because like happens with the Fracastoro in the NG lowers the level of collection.
Science to art history is not the end, [it] is an aid that connoisseurs have to learn to read.
