Rainy day fun

At the end of a day spent dodging the rain that can you see above, my classmate Katy and I ducked into the overwhelming National Gallery. After being gobsmacked by the richness of the collection, we both decided to head to a temporary exhibition we were excited about, Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. It's on the use of scientific and art conservation techniques to prove forgeries, correct mistakes in attribution, and to help restore altered paintings to their original state. (Librarians in training, what can you do?) If you happen to be coming to London any time before September 12, it's worth a visit, if for no other reason than that many of the paintings themselves, even the fakes, are stunning. The exhibit includes Botticelli's breathtaking "Venus and Mars," so come for that alone.

Just in case you thought we'd created any totally new ideas in the late 20th century, a number of the works in the exhibit were paintings that had been reworked, generally by overpainting--arguably, a kind of early remix. For better or worse, art has long been in some part a business, and tastes change. A lot of the paintings had been altered to make them more salable. One Renaissance beauty was too hot for the Victorians, and so she was toned down. Another painting was altered to exchange a wounded man for a hunter's catch and dogs, presumably because focus groups of the time showed a preference for rural scenes with dogs over dying men. The big difference is that these remixes were unarguably destructive (at least until some very smart restorers got their hands on them). Building on someone else's work to create something new and transformative=cool. Destroying original artistic intent=not cool. For anyone that wants to learn more about the National Gallery's conservation work, selected articles from the Gallery's Technical Bulletin are available free online. You can find out more about the research the Gallery does here. Also, anyone interested in art forging has to see the part of Orson Wells' film "F for Fake" on Elmry de Hory; it's hard to separate truth from fiction in the movie, but the interview with de Hory is fascinating.