Customer Reviews

The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century (P.S.)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

When I saw this book mentioned in the New York Times, I went out and bought a copy because I had really enjoyed Edward Dolnick's previous book, The Rescue Artist. I wasn't anywhere near as impressed with The Forger's Spell. What made The Rescue Artist so good was the way Dolnick described the detective Charlie Hill on the hunt for a stolen painting. Hill was a really great, quirky character that Dolnick made come to life on the page. In The Forger's Spell, there's no character like that. The forger, Hans Van Meegeren, is interesting for what he was able to do - sell a forged Vermeer to Hermann Goering - but you never get much sense of who he was. Dolnick presents Van Meegeren as a greedy, second-rate painter who managed to fool a bunch of art experts and rich people because they were stupid and easy marks. It's not so compelling, and there's way too much padding here - a lot of chapters that don't advance the plot, and are pretty easy to skip. I would recommend buying Tom Hoving's book, False Impressions, which is a really good book about forgery. The Forger's Spell is nowhere near as good or interesting

I am a fan of Edward Dolnick's book The Rescue Artist, but I have to say that I was disappointed in The Forger's Spell. I bought it as soon as it came out because I was interested in the story of Han Van Meegeren. Van Meegeren was a fascinating crook who figured out how to fool people into seeing what they wanted to see. But I had already read Van Meegeren's story in John Kilbracken's book The Master Forger and, unfortunately, I didn't learn anything new in Dolnick's book. Anyone interested in Van Meegeren should look at Kilbracken's book, which does a better job of bringing the story to life. I wouldn't recommend The Forger's Spell.

Dolnick has a good story with a lot of hooks: big money, Vermeer, Nazi intrigue, etc. And, I think he delivers with an interesting core story and a lot of good side notes on Nazi personalities, art forgery and art history -- especially of the Dutch school in the 17th cent.

But, where his more frenetic style payed dividends in "The Rescue Artist," I think it takes something away from this subject. The book is composed of dozens of very short chapters and bounces around -- sometimes without real solid continuity.

Which is why I recommend the paperback. If you're looking for something to read in short bursts on the train or at the beach, this book is very manageable, tells a good story and brings you out of the Evanovich-level mass market fiction zone.

Han Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist with an enormous ego. Convinced that his talents were being maliciously ignored by the Dutch artistic community, he used considerable patience and ingenuity to develop a way of forging paintings by some of the greatest artists of Holland's Golden Age, especially those of Johannes Vermeer. His activities peaked during the Great Depression and the Nazi takeover of Holland during World War II, a time period when the Dutch were especially vulnerable as they looked for reminders of a more peaceful, prosperous, past.

When I first opened this book I looked at the illustrations first. Comparing the Van Meegeren "art" with the real Vermeers completely confused me. If someone like me with no art training could spot the differences between sublime works like "Girl With A Pearl Earring" and travesties like "Christ at Emmaus," why on earth couldn't experts and cognoscenti do the same? Edward Dolnick does a good job of explaining the role preconceptions and prejudices play in evaluating a suspect painting and the way the milieu of the period affects judgement. Therefore, in the 1930s the Van Meegeren forgeries could pass muster because they displayed generally accepted views on beauty. Ten years later they were very obviously fakes because by then they looked out of date, which a true masterpiece could never do.

I found Dolnick's discussions of the methods forgers use and the ways forgeries are detected the most interesting parts of this book. I disliked Van Meegeren at first, but he grew on me despite myself for the sheer brazenness of his gall and his obvious delight in fooling so many experts for so long. And it certainly didn't hurt that some of his most celebrated victims were among the nastiest and most horrible people of all time: Hitler and Goering and their ilk. I was very glad to know that while in prison Goering was told that he had been tricked into buying a Van Meejeren fake, and that that, at least, seemed to cause him real anguish in a way that his multitudinous crimes against humanity did not. Most importantly, this book causes its readers to ponder where the line between illusion and reality really lies at times.

Interesting, but many parts are boring. Seems to repeat the same things over and over again.

The story of how Hans van Meergeren faked Vermeer paintings and fooled the experts and Goering is now 60 years old and has been told many times. This retelling is somewhat gee-whiz and frenetic (60 breezy chapters in 300 pages) although Dolnick appears to have done all the relevant homework. It skips around, repeats itself, and needs editing. For a book which is about how just looking at pictures fooled so many, its own pictures are too few and too small - deprives the reader of the pleasure of "seeing" what all the fuss was about. Does give some insight into the how and why of art fakery

My impression from reading other reviews of this book are that those who criticized it did so for one (or more) of 4 reasons. Either (1) it's not as good as his previous book "The Rescue Artist", (2) Van Megeeren's story has been told better by other authors, (3) it's redundant in parts and/or (4) it trivializes the evil nature of the Nazi's. I had not read The Rescue Artist and, philistine that I must be, was not familiar with Van Megeeren's story. However, I must say that I thought this book was wonderful. I was hooked right from the get-go. I did not find it redundant but rather appreciated the way he explored not only Van Megeeren but how forgers work and many other aspects of the art world and forgery. Even if some of these were somewhat tangential to the main story, I still found the entire book fascinating. I also appreciated the color illustrations of the paintings themselves, which allowed the reader to compare the forgeries with the real things. It may be that for those who have already read extensively on Van Megeeren, this may not be the book for you. For everyone else however, I highly recommend the book.

I found this book most interesting. I am an art lover, but certainly no expert. I just know what I like and I enjoy reading about the art world.
What I found fascinating about this book was not just the story of the forger van Meegeren or even how Goering was duped, but how supposed experts were duped as well. The psychological aspects of how and why art critics and dealers cannot see beyond a terrible forgery made for very interesting reading, and I daresay are as true today as during the time of this narrative.
I loved the fact that so many so-called experts were (and continue to be) fooled by worthless imitations, therefore putting a big hole in the pretentiousness of so many in the art world.
In the end, this is not just a story of van Meegeren. It sheds light on some of the more unsavory aspects of the art world, and why people in that world act as they do.

Some reviewers have given this book less than a five star rating which I think does the volume a mite of injustice. Granted that there is a bit of filler in Dolnick's tale of van Meegeren but I have found those sidelights interesting in themselves and truly informative.

The story of the Vermeer/van Meegereen affair would appeal to art lovers, historians, mystery mavens, and people who enjoy a good practical joke. The most amazing aspect of the whole situation is how buyers and critics simply wanted to believe that although van Meegeren's forgeries didn't even resemble Vermeer's work in the slighest way, they were neverless highly praised as superb creations of the master's art.

Interesting as well are the techniques of art forgery which require lots more than simply duplication.

If you enjoy a good story involving Herman Goering, Hitler, and even Andrew Mellon and, of course, the knave van Meegeren himself then you will love this almost unbelievable tale of a great and historical hoax.

Some themes -- What is in "The forger's spell"?

* It's a fascinating story about interesting and entertaining
characters, ones that you can hate and despise, as well as admire
and root for. And, you will find yourself seduced into wanting to
learn what they do and what will happen to them. Han Van Meegeren
may have been a despicable cad, but he was also a entertaining
one and a brilliant as well as a skilled craftsman.

* It's an engaging meditation on value and valuation in art, on who
sets values (in particular, monetary values) and how. You may
become skeptical about the value of expensive works of art, or
you may learn to appreciate them more, but you will certainly be
encouraged to think through your own feelings about them.

* And since it's a story of events and deeds, it encourages you to
become an active participant in the formation of ideas and values
about character and art. In fact, it's difficult *not* to be
drawn into doing so.

* It encourages you to do your own analysis of several works of
art. You get guidance on how to evaluate these works of art, but
that guidance is given almost in the form of an argument that
encourages you to form your own values.

* It's an account of another aspect of Europe in a time of war (WW II):
history from the point of view of the looting of art, where
those artistic treasures went, how (some of them) were found
and recovered.

* And, it's a series of lessons on the craft and technology of the
forgery of painting. What must a forger do in order to succeed
at producing a fake that deceives experts and art viewers? And,
how does he produce that fake?

In summary, "engaging" is the word that suggests the most about
what I find in "The forger's spell". In engages me, and it pushes me
and pulls me and motivates me to think through my own feelings and
ideas and values about art.