Watercolors as photography, the would-be Vermeer, Ridge Running, and Charles Darwin: newsletter, April 19, 2016

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Han van Meegeren: His Vermeers fooled everyone (part 2)

Last week we introduced you to Han van Meegeren, the Dutch artist who, before World War II, passed some of his paintings off as newly discovered works by the famed Johannes Vermeer.

In May 1945 Dutch artist Han Van Meegeren found himself on top of the world. The war was over, the Nazis were gone, and he was a rich and famous man. He was, however, about to take a steep tumble.

It started with a visit to his studio by members of the Allied Art Commission who were trying to track down the original owners of a painting by Johannes Vermeer titled Supper at Emmaus. It had been found in the collection of Hermann Göring, and because the Nazis kept very good records, Van Meegeren’s name appeared as one of the subsequent owners — the one who had sold it to Göring​.

Who was the original owner? they asked. Van Meegeren refused to say.

He did so for a very good reason. The painting was a forgery, one that Van Meegeren had painted himself, had passed off as a genuine Vermeer in the 1930s, and had made a ton of money from when it was certified as the real thing by Abraham Bredius, a leading art historian of the day. After his “success” at convincing viewers that Supper at Emmaus was genuine, Van Meegeren painted six other “Vermeers” and became fabulously wealthy.

Despite the efforts of the Dutch to protect their artwork from the Germans, Supper at Emmaus ended up in the Göring collection and was exhibited prominently. Now it was coming back home, and Van Meergeren had a dilemma — a potentially deadly one. When he refused to reveal the owner of the painting, he was arrested and charged with collaboration and treason. A conviction would probably mean execution.

After six weeks in prison, Van Meegeren confessed. He was a forger, not a finder of long-forgotten masterpieces.

But, by that time, no one believed him. They thought he was confessing just to save his own skin. In an attempt to convince people of his confession, Van Meegeren invited reporters to watch him paint a “Vermeer.” The demonstration was convincing, and the charges against him switched from treason to fraud.

At his trial, in yet another twist of this twisted tale, some of the art experts who had originally certified his paintings as genuine, testified that they still believed they were correct and that Van Meegeren was lying. Still, he was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail. He was freed and was living at home awaiting the sentence to begin when he had a heart attack on Nov. 12, 1947. The next month, he died.

Frank Wynne, the author of I Was Vermeer: The Legend of the Forger Who Swindled the Nazis, says that Van Meeregen taught the art world a valuable less: doubt.

Han van Meegeren’s greatest gift to the art world is doubt. If forgers throughout the ages have taught us anything, it is to re-examine why we love what we love, to overcome our obsession with simple authenticity and appreciate the work for itself. Is a minor Rothko truly worth more than the finest Ellsworth Kelly? Are we captivated by the serenity and light of a Corot watercolour, or simply the signature? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3654259/Th…

You can explore more of the Van Meegeren story beginning at this website devoted to his life and work.

Above: Han Van Meegeren (from a photo taken at his trial), watercolor

Ridge Running: A Memoir of Appalachia

WatercolourWorld.org: watercolors as the pre-20th century photography

How can we know what something or some location looked like 200 or 300 years ago?

If some master painter depicted someone or something, and it hung in a museum, gallery, or collection, that would be one means. Usually, these works were done in oil and took much time and training to complete. Consequently, they are relatively rare.

A much more commonly used medium was watercolor, and for every oil painting that made it to a museum wall, there are thousands of watercolors — completed often by amateurs and hobbyists — that were stuck in boxes and drawers and attics. These paintings often depict scenes and places with great accuracy, and while many have been discarded and destroyed, many others still exist and remain undiscovered.

That’s where WatercolourWorld.org comes in.

This website is treating 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century watercolors as the equivalent of the photography of that day, and it is trying to collect, digitize, and present as many watercolors — many heretofore unknown — as it can find. The site describes itself in this way:

Before the invention of the camera, people used watercolours to document the world. Over the centuries, painters – both professional and amateur – created hundreds of thousands of images recording life as they witnessed it. Every one of these paintings has a story to tell, but many are hidden away in archives, albums and store rooms, too fragile to display. The Watercolour World exists to bring them back into view.
We are creating a free online database of documentary watercolours painted before 1900. For the first time, you can explore these fascinating visual records on a world map, search for topics that are important to you, and compare watercolours from multiple collections in one place. We hope that this project will not simply preserve the watercolour record but revive it, sparking new conversations and revelations. By making history visible to more people, we can deepen our understanding of the world.
We are a UK-based charity, but the project is truly global. We work with private and public collections from around the world to locate and publish their images, many of which have never been photographed before.There are thousands of watercolours still to add. If you think you can contribute, let us know.

The site is beautiful and fascinating. It is searchable in many ways, and you can easily find yourself going from one topic or place or another, seeing what those of a previous century saw. Just out of curiosity, I did a search of Knoxville, Tennessee, and found this beautiful 1871 painting by Harry Fenn that I had never seen before.

At the top of the newsletter: Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, Thomas Shotter Boys, 1831-1845