Old Master Forgeries

I just finished reading Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Daniel Silva. The novel features Israeli spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon, finally in retirement, who gets involved with the sale of old master forgeries. The plot is typically unwieldy and confused: Allon uses almost superpowers and his endless network of connections to find the forger and the distributor to derail the operation. This book got me thinking about the value of art and just what the purpose of art is.

The premise is that one-of-a-kind, very valuable paintings are forged or created as previously unknown paintings and sold as originals. This is clearly fraud and illegal. However, the paintings are so good that they are pretty much indistinguishable from the originals, and they pass muster by multiple experts. Of course, Allon recognizes them as forgeries. To set up a sting, Allon paints a few forgeries of his own, which look as good as the originals and are likewise undifferentiated from the originals.

My query is: what is the purpose of art? Is the primary purpose to decorate rooms and create pleasant feelings when looking at them, or are they primarily objects of value and ego? Would the painting look any different if it was an indistinguishable forgery? Both would look the same and provide the same beautification of any room they were hung in. The only difference between the forgery and original for all practical purposes is that the original could be worth over a hundred million dollars and the forgery perhaps a few thousand dollars. Further, the owner of the original would get some sort of gratification or ego enhancement from owning a unique and valuable object.

Now let’s look at this rationally. When you put the original and forgery together, the only difference is the value. Does knowing the value make the original more pleasing to look at than the forgery? If your answer is yes, then what is the value of the painting’s subject, style and composition? Would painting a blank canvas a single color, adding a few contrasting lines of different colors, and assigning it a very high value make it pleasing to look at and desirable to own?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I have been pondering them since I read that book.

By the way, the forgery would be designated in some manner that it is not the original, perhaps on the back, and also, it would be in different dimensions, so it could not be mistaken as the original.