The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren

EAN:9780151013418 Label:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Author:Jonathan Lopez Binding:Hardcover

Art is one of the big holes in my education A lot for the lay reader to take in . I picked up this book because I love memoirs and biographies and thought the story of one well-known art forger, Han van Meegeren, might be a good way to pick up a little art history2009-03-14 Rating 3. (And, of course, Vermeer is always a draw. Loved Girl with a Pearl Earring, Deluxe Edition. ) My review, then, arises from my position as the ultimate lay reader. The book was dense with information and analysis. This is a great thing for a book. But it was too much of a good thing for me. Not having any background in art, everything was new to me. I tried valiently to take it all in, but found myself skipping ahead to get to the next major point. My greatest disappointment was finding at the end of the book a list of people Mr. Lopez interviewed in the course of his research. These are descendants of the main characters in this book! I would have loved to hear their thoughts and reminiscences in the text. It would have enlivened the dry, scholarly approach the author has chosen, I think. I know you can go too far in that direction. I recently read The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime, and its author made a muddle of his story, introducing ridiculous musings and pointless asides in his attempt to make the narrative readable for the general public. But his prose was evocative and accessible and brought to life through interactions with his sources. In the end, I came away with one line of thinking that was new to me. I always assumed art forgery meant simply copying artwork of the old masters. One of Mr. Lopez's main points is that successful art forgery relies more on the artist being able to tap into what his or her audience wants to see, and is therefore able to impose modern-day sensibilities onto old canvases. The art forger can also be successful by creating a body of work that fills in gaps in an artist's life and work, wherein each individual painting resembles the others, so that taken as a whole, they appear genuine. Did I get that right?. A good book Review of Book. The illustrations are excellent and help to made the story clear2009-01-28 Rating 4. The book is a little long and complex. I supect the story could have been told in a book half the size of this one. This fast-paced account of art world fraud and Nazi collaboration in WWII Holland is one of five nominees for the 2009 Edgar Award in the "Fact Crime" category An Edgar contender. The Edgars (as in Edgar Allen Poe) are awarded each year by the Mystery Writers Association of America2009-01-25 Rating 5. This year's winner will be announced at the Edgars banquet in New York in April. The other nominees are: Leopold and Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz, American Lightening by Harold Blum, Havana Nocturne by T. J. English, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. Congratulations and good luck to all the finalists!. As an author of an Art History monograph, I approached this book with skepticism A stunning account. I am delighted with it! I found it a stunning array of criteria and research2009-01-25 Rating 5. Especially, I appreciated the economics and political climate that Lopez uncovered. Politics and economics helped the swindler to succeed. It is uncanny how this story translates to our contemporary bad lot of swindlers in other fields, who use economics and politics to create a false image of their trustworthiness. (Hello, Bernie Madoff!) In other words, Lopez has created a much-need format in which to study deception, both historical and contemporary, in art and other fields. Congratulations! Well done!. In the last year I've read the Dolnick and Wynne books, and just now finished Lopez's The most scholarly and well-researched one out there. Mr2009-01-19 Rating 4. Lopez clearly has done a staggering amount of research and includes a lot more info about Van Meegeren's life, artistic oeuvre, and various associates than the other books. There are several forgeries pictured and discussed that were not mentioned in any of the other books. He also includes a lot of info about life in the Netherlands during and after WW2 and about Nazi functionaries. Unless you are a serious scholar of Van M. or of Dutch art, you may find this book to be "too much information. " Frankly I enjoyed the Wynne book more. As another reviewer noted, the total absence of color illustrations is a major weakness in Lopez's book -- and the b/w ones are all tiny to boot. Also, Wynne's book helpfully shows you side-by-side illustrated comparisons of Van M's forgeries and the genuine Old Masters that he was trying to imitate, which Lopez does not. Also, not that I would ever judge a book by its length, but be aware that Lopez's book is a quicker read than you might think. The last 80-100 pages are all notes and acknowledgments! But anyway, in a nutshell, this book is more for the art scholar than the casual reader intrigued by "the guy who fooled the experts with his fake Vermeers. ". It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: a lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering, making a mockery of the Nazis And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it just isn't true