User:Tobepriscille/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar)/ Group 2/Evidence/Evidence in Art forgery

Evidence in Art forgery
by Priscille

Art forgery
It’s easy to prove the genuineness in fashion or in technology, there are certificate of authenticity. However, it turns to be harder in Art when the artist is already dead, and nobody knows how many sculptures or paintings he/she has left. Art forgery is the creating and selling of works of art which are falsely credited to other, usually famous artists. There are so many counterfeits in circulation in museums. So how to prove the authenticity of a work of art? A counterfeit in art is an imitation of a work of art which is not presented as a fake or an original masterpiece credited to an artist more famous with something he hasn’t done.

Anthropology
All societies don’t consider that copy an artwork is a counterfeit. Kwoma people (Aboriginal Australia) reckon that all art pieces are copies, some are just less similar to the original than others. This means that any art piece is an attempt to copy the nature. Therefore, artworks from tribal societies are not assigned to an individual artist but to a whole community. Unlike in the modern wester society, where no matter the beauty of a forgery, it is not valued as much as the original work because newness is the mark of creativity and creativity is one of the defining features of art. Something that is creative can be created only once.

Sciences
When Curators cannot determine whether a work of art is a deception and provenance is obscure, sciences can help but it’s as the other methods not absolutely reliable. One of the most used method is microscopy. By looking under a microscope, the investigator can find out whether a layer of paint has been added recently or checks if there are craquelures, a proof that the painting is old. Another way is to analyse the chemical compositions because some materials was not available for the artist at his time. There are lot of other methods like mass spectrometry or infrared reflectography but the more the techniques to foil the forgers become precise the more the forgers develop their own methods to swindle. However these methods are useful only for old artworks.