Cheating History: The Rhetorics of Art Forgery

Abstract

Art forgery is a curious crime. If aesthetic appreciation is based only upon the beauty of the work itself, forgery should not be considered a crime. However, art appreciation may be defined to include more than the form and content of the work itself. Appreciation can be connected to historical, biographical, legal, and economic issues which create the context of the work of art. I examine how art forgery is viewed by various participants in the art world and by the general public. Typically, forgers emphasize the beauty of the symbol abstracted from its circumstance, claiming that the value of the art work is not a function of its history. The establishment art critic insists on seeing the art symbol in its social and historical context, and defines a forgery as a work which cheats history. In order to examine the sociological nature of art appreciation and deviant art creation, I examine three case studies of forgers: 1) Han van Meegeren, the Dutch forger of Vermeer and De Hooch, 2) Elmyr de Hory, the Hungarian-born forger of modern French art, and 3) Tom Keating, the Cockney forger of Samuel Palmer and other artists. In these case studies I describe how the forger entered his trade, his attitude to the art world, the extent to which his works were accepted, his justifications for forgery, and the rhetorical strategies used by others to define his “crime.”