Johanna and Theo's van Gogh's wedding picture done in watercolour by none other than you know who.  

 

     

  Click on this picture above to read what it says about Johanna and her brother.

  

   Authentication: Science & art at odds?

http://www.conservartassoc.com/spie.html 

From the Papers of;

 Duane R. Chartier^a and Fred G. Notehelfer^b 
and edited a little by vanrijngo, of his own findings and opinions.

^aConservArt Associates, Inc.; 4823 Berryman Avenue, Culver City, CA 90230-5109

^bDepartment of History, UCLA ABSTRACT

3. ELEMENTS OF AUTHENTICATION

Much of the work of authentication falls into the hands of very few specialists, usually art historians, who have extensively studied the work of one particular artist or group of artists.

Vanrijngo says this statement above is absolutely true, and why this is so, just dumbfounds the hell out of me!  Why so much faith is put into the hands of only a few who seems to always be at odds with themselves while not agreeing on much of anything, unless the money is right.  Scientific analysis would be able to put an end to all this useless bickering and prove exactly who the artists really are and were.

There happens to be science today involving three dimensional hand writing analysis use in a governmental organization called FISH that will lead the FBI and the CIA right to the doorsteps of the individual perpetrators of a threatening letter to any high ranking individual.  One asks oneself, which is more important, this thieving ass threatened high official, or possibly saving some high end art investor millions of dollars from buying a phony ass copied masterpiece done by another's hand?

There are basically two different venues for the work -- the museum and the "outside" world that is composed of dealers, auction houses, collectors, private curators, authenticators, and appraisers. It would require some time to understand and articulate the politics and the operations of these communities and the variations across national borders. That it not the purpose of this paper. However, it is important to note that, regardless of national and cultural differences, there are strong divisions between those within recognized institutions such as museums and those who are not. This is not an insignificant factor in terms of having a work of art accepted as "authentic". 

Vanrijngo asks,... Did all of you reading this above understand what exactly was said?  Unless you have a museums BIG OK, you have nothing worth taking anywhere, except your local neighborhood auction house, or to possibly hang on a shit-house wall. 

Also, there are inherently self-protective and insecure behaviors exhibited by both those on the "inside" and those on the "outside". This is not surprising when one considers the consequences of attribution or rejection of the attribution to a particular artist. It is no understatement that reputations and fortunes hang in the balance, so it should be no surprise that opinions can be vehement and reactions to criticism extreme.

Vanrijngo says It is evident that the previous paragraph pretty much describes its previous paragraph.

Most "clients" want a positive answer (i.e. a verification that the work is by an important artist) and are loath to be objective about negative findings or "grey areas". The default response of many people who are in a position to authenticate is "NO, THIS IS NOT ..." This is statistically true of most works that are routinely examined by the one of the authors⁽⁵⁾ and such a response guards against foolish mistakes that might ruin one's career or tarnish the reputation of a museum.

Provenance is probably the most critical element in authentication. There is no substitute for an iron-clad provenance back to the hand of the artist touching the canvas. However, this is relatively rare even in the most established of collections. Most works of art that arrive on the art market have changed hands multiple times. Also, wars and political upheavals have drastically changed the owners of record and the paper trail of many works of art. It is safe to say that most works of art fall far short of having impeccable provenance and that is where the interesting problems of authentication begin.

vanrijngo says to hear the MFA experts tell it, most works of art need good provenance and is the number one rule that guides their own abilities in being able to tell who done what. I say that all provenances should be absolutely dismissed and use nothing but good old fashion eye balls and other methods in comparing the artists works to his own supposed others works to find his actual idiosyncrasies by comparing actual artist brush strokes to one another.

All efforts must be made to track any clues that will improve the provenance of a work in question. When these avenues have been skillfully and completely exhausted then other data may be used to substantiate attribution. Clearly, a keen sense of artistic style and a good knowledge of art history as well as experience is needed to place an unknown work within an era and then, more particularly, within the oeuvre of a particular artist.

Now, after doing this above can the evaluations begin of these particular not known pieces of art, assumed done by the same artist. 

Having said this, it is important to examine the implicit assumptions in this statement:

• the oeuvre of a particular artist is well enough known to be able to include or exclude particular works
• artists evolve in somewhat programmatic ways, allowing simplifying generalizations of their style
• influences of contemporaries can be assigned and understood
• that artists confine themselves to fairly narrow stylistic limits (at least within certain periods)
• that uncommonly good copies can be easily detected solely by style (this is unlikely).

There may well be many other implicit assumptions that form the essence of what an artistic, aesthetic analysis must become. It seems logical and important to incorporate all other technical information to increase the data available and necessary to make an informed decision.

Yes, and when these findings all come to a head and prove history, is just as they say, the logical and important changes become not so important, and it is no longer important to incorporate this technical information as so to change history. 

There are common scientific methods used to examine works of art. Non-destructive techniques such as X-radiography, infrared reflectography, optical microscopy, and ultraviolet fluorescence have been used for decades to examine works of art. There are also many micro sampling techniques that are only minimally destructive and produce analyses of pigments, binding media, fibers and other materials.

Yes and all of these technical method have been under their own control and of their own supervisions, while the final determination are mostly made up of the so-called MFA experts. For years now this has been in their own control, through-out its entire existence.  It is time now to take these technologies out of the MFA hands, and put back in the hands of the ones who are experts in those particular fields, with out all these finding having to go along with,.... and mainly to keep things just as they have been for the last 150 or so years since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Unfortunately, an often overlooked area is the art technology. This is generally the area of expertise of art conservators and some technically minded art historians. A technological examination (an extensive conservation report) will yield potentially very important information such as: canvas type and dimensions, thread count, stretcher type, varnish(es), paint, ground, conservation interventions, rheology (craquelure), etc. These are very useful if put into context but this is only possible, as is the stylistic and art historical analysis, if there is a credible and accessible comparative database.

Amazingly these data bases are all very well kept secret and only know to the select few.  I believe these are kept secret mainly to not allow anything new into the masters of fine art, to keep emplace all there earlier decisions and to protect this vast market of deceit and deep pockets.  Can any of you imagine the hysteria that it would caused if and when a lot of these masterpieces we've all know become known as fakes and copies? 

  Amazing little MFA expert feat we all are looking at here,... saying one is, and one isn't.   I ask anyone of you want-a-be artists,..... if you were going to make a painting of a face and wanted to make a pencil sketch of it first to go by,.... don't you think the drawing on the right would suffice?

It is the opinion of the authors that the lack of access or existence of comparative data and/or the lack of creative use of those resources inhibits the development of more reliable and scientifically defensible art authentication. Only by combining approaches can we credibly attack difficult attribution questions with some academic purity. To that end we very briefly present below the findings of an exploration in progress as an example of a collaborative approach that has led to some very exciting hypotheses.

4 to 6 below is mainly all about this John Constable that's supposed to be a copy. click link below to read full article. 

http://www.conservartassoc.com/spie.html 

4. BACKGROUND TO A CASE STUDY [F. NOTEHELFER]

In 1992 a painting appeared in the United States that was sold by an antique dealer as "English Landscape Scene" without artistic attribution. The collector who bought it noticed that it appeared to be a depiction of Willy Lott's house, a favorite John Constable subject. Upon further study it became clear that the painting depicted the subject and composition of Constable's last major painting of the Stour Valley, namely the Valley Farm, his Royal Academy exhibition work of 1835 that now hangs in the Tate Gallery in London. In the Valley Farm Constable depicted his final version of Willy Lott's House, the simple farm cottage pictured in the Hay Wain that stood near Flatford Mill. In this painting Willy Lott's modest home has been turned into a great romantic structure. The house has, in fact, become a brooding, half-timbered building that is fronted by the mill stream. In the foreground at the right a ferryman and a passenger in a boat are moving towards the house. Preceding them are three cows processing through the water towards a small landing to the left of the house where there are several figures as well as another boat with a man leaning into it. Trees flank the house on the right and a pollarded willow on the left. Skimming over the water in the foreground near the ferry is a swallow whose wing has just touched the water and left a small wake. Two moor hens can be seen swimming near the bank at the left front, and a woman appears to be looking out of the door of the cottage towards the ferry and cows. The last of the three cows has her head turned to the right and appears to be lowing.

5. THE ART HISTORICAL EXPLORATION Art historical examination quickly revealed that while there were a considerable number of sketches associated with the final painting in the Tate, there was no known study that bore the usual close relationship that Constable produced between

(Image Not Available)

Figure 1 - "A Study for Valley Farm" by John Constable ??

Los Angeles, Private Collection

Oil on stretched canvas; 27 3/16" x 23 1/8"

"studies" and final "exhibition works." For example, none of the painted "sketches" included the cows and the ferry with passenger. Malcolm Cormack writing about this in his recent book, Constable, speculated that perhaps in the case of Valley Farm Constable may have "felt his pictures were so much from memory that he needed no trial run."⁽ Still, Valley Farm seems to present a clear anomaly in Constable's normal pattern of operation, for even in the case of his last painting, Arundel Mill and Castle, we have such a study. Why not for Valley Farm?

6. THE TECHNICAL EXPLORATION [D. CHARTIER]

PAINTING TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

In an effort to understand the painting technique and to establish the period of the oil painting on canvas, tentatively titled "Study for Valley Farm", a number of non-destructive examinations were carried out. It is important to note that it is rarely, if ever, possible for scientific techniques, alone, to determine the authorship or authenticity of a work. Scientific data can definitively disprove an hypothesis by establishing that materials within an object are later than the attributed date. More commonly, the results are insufficient by themselves to determine authenticity and require the careful integration of historic (provenance) data as well as an intimate knowledge of the particular artist's technique (connoisseurship).

7. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Much of art authentication seems to be done as a kind of sophisticated cottage industry. Science needs to have a higher profile in art authentication. There is also a real need to examine the process and consequences of authentication so that we may better serve the quest for historical accuracy. There are strong indications that there is a need for an objective, independent agency or committee capable of performing high level authentication research in an atmosphere less dominated by the risks of personal error, institutional prestige, and the blinding effects of money and/or fame.

Vanrijngo says, well,... its about time someone besides myself is saying all these things I've been say and screaming to the high heavens for the last eight years on my blogsite. I would only guess that it will be left up to science, to better serve the quest for historical accuracy along with the needs to have a higher profile in art authentication for more or less dominate risks, of a lot less personal error, no more need for institutional prestige, and the end to the blinding effects of money and/or fame.

vanrijngo     

http://www.conservartassoc.com/spie.html