Van Gogh Tries Again

 

 

 

In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh painted an oil on canvas titled “Sunsetat Montmajour”, a work that remained in his brother Theo’s collection until his widow sold it. After decades of buying and selling, and falling into the disrepute of fakery, the work has now re-emerged as genuine. It is presently on display at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Paintings are like any other object: they can be lost, stolen, faked, reproduced and destroyed. The fact that one can be hidden away in shame (so to speak) because some authority declared it a fake, only to be declared genuine years later, is an odd testimony to our need to feel we are looking at something genuine. Even though it was a fake or forgery yesterday, if today an expert through some new kind of analysis (or, as in this case, just taking some old evidence seriously) finds that it is good as gold, well, then, we’ll look at it. Otherwise, get this stinker out of our sight!

I bring this up because of its philosophical interest. How do we know that we know something is genuine? Do we take someone else’s word for it? Or, do we use our own two eyes and go with our own talents of observation? Clearly, few people know Van Gogh’s oeuvre, style, touch and chronology well enough to ascertain once and forever if this painting or that drawing is actually from the hand of the master. Nevertheless, I can aspire to have as reliable an opinion as anyone who makes the same mistake for 125 years. Yesterday it was a miserable, worthless fake, today it is a discovery.