Jonathan's comments (member since Aug 16, 2008)

Jonathan's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Mary Ellen wrote: "Many cons play upon the desire to get something for nothing, or close to nothing, and create in the victim the sense that he is getting one over on the con artist. And this makes the victim feel a bit complicit in being conned, I would guess..."

Van Meegeren was pretty good at sizing up his victims' weaknesses: sometimes he appealed to their greed, as in the case of Goering and many of the art dealers mentioned in the book, and sometimes to their altruism, as in the case of Gerard Boon, the Dutch member of Parliament who introduced "The Supper at Emmaus" into the art market thinking he was doing a good deed to help a family persecuted by Mussolini.

I agree that victims of fraud can sometimes be reluctant to come forward, but I think that this is often due to embarrassment over having been duped--no?

In the Van Meegeren case, most of the victims were quite wealthy and didn't get much sympathy from the general public, in part because times were bad, and a private individual's loss of money could hardly compare with the horrors of war as far as hardship goes.

An interesting point of contrast: Bernard Madoff's victims were also, in general, pretty well off, but the public seems pretty sympathetic to their plight. What's the difference between them and the people Van Meegeren swindled?

Not all that much, really. But Van Meegeren convinced the world that he was a hero and his victims a bunch of emperors in new clothes. Even Bernie M., with all his skill at deception, couldn't pull off something like that.

Ruth wrote: "I should think most people in the Netherlands would know who he is, Bill. He's pretty famous. At least among those who pay any attention to art.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Jonathan?"

Ruth, you're right that most people in the Netherlands have heard of Van Meegeren, but they tend just to know the bare outlines of the story: misunderstood artist dupes the experts to get revenge, makes a lot of money tricking the Germans, etc.

Most people with whom I interacted in the Netherlands while researching the book were quite helpful and enthusiastic, particularly museum people, collectors, archivists, and also descendants of some of Van Meegeren's partners in crime.

The big exception, and I think that this is entirely understandable, was Van Meegeren's own family (or what little there is left of it: there are no close relatives living) who have basically had enough of the story. I should, however, mention that one cousin of Van Meegeren's was helpful in pointing me to sources and clarifying a few points of family history. But most other family members were less enthusiastic.

That being the case, it came as a very pleasant surprise recently to receive an email from one of the younger members of the Van Meegeren family, who had read the book and liked it very much. He said that he had always been curious about his notorious ancestor and had learned a lot more from The Man Who Made Vermeers than he ever had from his own relatives. He mentioned that he was aware many members of his family found Van Meegeren's Nazi involvement incredibly embarrassing and shameful, but his attitude was, basically, that the man did what he did, and not talking about it doesn't undo it.

Overall, the reaction to the book in the Netherlands has been pretty positive. It got a very nice review in the NRC Handelsblad, which is kind of like the Dutch equivalent of the NYTimes or Wall Street Journal. A Dutch travel site posted an English translation of the article. Here's the link:

http://rotterdaminfo.wordpress.com/2009/...

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Mary Ellen wrote: "And I'm curious: how long a gap is there in Vermeer's known career? And are there any theories as to what he was doing in that time?"

I'm delighted that you persevered through to the end, Mary Ellen!

With regard to "gaps" or "blind spots" in Vermeer's career, because so little documentary evidence exists regarding Vermeer's life, determining the sequence of his paintings involves a good deal of guess work. He dated very few of his pictures. Offhand, the only one that I can think of is "The Procuress" (1656).

Art historians have therefore been left to piece together the chronology of the authentic works based mostly on stylistic evidence. A good account of this can be found at a website that I recommend very highly, called TheEssentialVermeer.com, which is run by my friend Jonathan Janson: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/dating_v...

As you'll see at the Essential Vermeer, there isn't any specific, lengthy gap in Vermeer's output. It's just that there are remarkably few paintings, and people have always wondered what else Vermeer might have painted: Did he ever do portraits? Did he do more religious scenes? Landscapes? And so on.

The idea that there was a specific "twelve-year gap" in Vermeer's body of work was invented by journalists at the time of the Van Meegeren case (such as in the NYTimes article of 1947 that I cite on page 221 of "The Man Who Made Vermeers"). Actually, any "gaps" that may exist are, in the minds of most people who study Vermeer, only sporadic.

There are, by the way, old auction records and inventories that mention lost works by Vermeer. Wouldn't it be nice to find one of those in grandmother's attic?

Jonathan Janson provides a good account of the possible lost works too: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/how_many...

Again, glad you enjoyed the book!

Bill wrote: "I really enjoyed the book and have been looking forward to asking Jonathan about his research. Could you talk a little about the museums that you visited to look at all these forgeries. How did they receive you? Were they embarrassed?"

For the most part, the museum visits went very smoothly. These particular fakes were exposed so long ago that no one is embarrassed by them anymore. Amused would be more like it.

Curators always seem to find fakes pretty interesting, although in general fakes are not kept on display because they don't fit in with the real mission of most museums, which is to tell the story of art history as a progression of styles and movements, etc.

To see most of the forgeries, I ended up visiting not just museums but also off-site storage facilities, which are generally located away from the city center, often in industrial parks. I can remember visiting one warehouse in Sibyl's city of Groningen that was quite some distance outside town, situated next to a potato-processing plant with big smokestacks and heavy machinery--not the sort of place that you would normally imagine going to look at pictures but actually a lot of fun.

The big exception is "The Supper at Emmaus," which is still on view at the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam--displayed as a fake, of course, not as a Vermeer. It's great that the Boijmans does this, because "Emmaus" really is the most important forgery in art history and actually says a lot about the period in which it was made--artistically, intellectually, and politically. So, I guess I would say that it's a significant artwork despite being both fake and unbelievably ugly...

Sibyl wrote: "hottentottententententoonstelling(skaartjesverkopersvakbondsbijeenkomst etc.) is always a good one, but I'll try to think of a word that's actually being used. "

Now, if people will forgive this continuing digression into Dutch language, hottentottententententoonstelling is a famously long Dutch joke word, a made-up tongue-twister that combines the word tentoonstelling -- or "exhibition" -- with Hottentot, which is the name of a group of indigenous people in Africa, and tenten, meaning "tents," to come up with "an exhibition of Hottentot tents." I've heard people use this word in conversation to mean something like "the whole lot" or "kit and caboodle"--both of which seem to play on the very silly sound of hottentottententententoonstelling.

In the second part of your example, Sibyl -- and please tell me that you just made this up -- you pile on the compounds: bijeenkomst = a conference; vakbond = trade union; and kaartjeverkopers = ticket sellers. So we end up with hottentottententententoonstellingskaartjesverkopersvakbondsbijeenkomst, or, roughly "the Hottentot tent exhibition's ticket-sellers' union conference." (I think.) What a great language!

Jane wrote: "Jonathan,

It sounds like Dutch grammar is similar to German grammar. Germans also like to put words together to make them very long!"

Dutch grammar is much easier than German, in that it's more like English. There are very few nominal declensions in modern Dutch, so the nouns don't have to change their form depending upon whether they are used as the subject or object in a sentence, for instance.

That said, the Dutch, like the Germans, do have some awfully long compound words. For example, multiple personality disorder is meervoudigepersoonlijkheidsstoornis.

Maybe Sibyl, who I see is writing from the Dutch city of Groningen, can think of some longer examples...

Jane wrote: "Jonathan...How did you happen to learn Dutch and did you do so just for this book?"

Yes, I had to learn Dutch for the research on the book, but I found that I really fell in love with the language, so I got good at it. It's actually a lot like English, just spelled funny. The Dutch word for sea is zee; year is jaar; the term vriendelijke groet means friendly (or kind) greetings. The grammar is a little tricky, in that the word order is slightly different from ours. It helps to imagine that you are Yoda from the Star Wars movies and start putting verbs at the end of your sentences just because it cool sounds...

Sherry wrote: "This really isn't talking about VM or the book, but about a quotation from Goering that I found absolutely amazing (and disturbing) in the epilogue: "The people can always be brought to the biddin..."

That quote comes from a fascinating book called "Nuremberg Diary" by a psychologist named Gustave Gilbert, who interviewed all of the major Nazis before and during the trials. It gives a great portrait of the various personalities and of the period. A very worthwhile read...and it's still in print after all these years!

Mary Ellen--Your point about my presentation of Van Meegeren is well taken, and I think it's a very fair criticism.

It's quite difficult to calibrate the tone of the prose when dealing with someone like Van Meegeren. He did have some good qualities: he was extremely intelligent, clever, sometimes also humorous. Likewise, given the time and milieu that he inhabited, he certainly wasn't the worst person around. Goering, of course, was truly monstrous, but even some of the lesser Nazis with whom Van Meegeren was associated--Martien Beversluis, the Nazi poet, for instance--were much dirtier than HvM.

That said, I think I tried to find the positive elements of the story in other characters, like Joseph Piller, who was a remarkable, amazing person...although he also had a couple (quite forgivable) flaws, as you'll see towards the end of the book.

Anyway, I appreciate the constructive criticism, and I'll keep it in mind for the future. Today, however, I'm off to Philadelphia, giving a talk for undergrads at UPenn. Should be fun...

Jean wrote: "Speaking of chutzpah -- I got the sense that even VM didn't have enough of it to intentionally cheat Goering. You read the police interview where he tried to blame it on the other guy. How much of ..."

I think that Van Meegeren had to have known that Goering was going to be interested in buying "Christ and the Adulteress" since Goering had already expressed an interest in buying one of the previous pseudo-Vermeers, "The Footwashing." But my sense is that this again was simply part of Van Meegeren's marketing plan: in the earlier instance, the threat of Goering acquiring such a seemingly important picture was what prompted the Dutch to come up with the money to buy "The Footwashing" for the Rijksmuseum. Van Meegeren was, I think, probably banking on something similar happening again. That said, he must have been aware that he was playing with fire, and this time he got burned.

Sherry wrote: "Jonathan...Did you do any research into the psychological aspects of his personality?"

Van Meegeren never tried to make people think that he was a particularly honest person. Basically, everyone who knew him was aware that he was a fibber, told tall tales, etc. But often he made claims that were so plainly outrageous that it lulled people into a false sense of security, thinking that they could judge when he was lying and when he was telling the truth--because he seemed, on the face of it, to be such a bad liar. Ingenious strategy for a con man...and really twisted.

Hi Ruth, Glad you liked the You Tube video. I've had a couple inquiries from places on the west coast, but so far nothing has panned out. Maybe for the next book...

Molly--Your comment about the dramatic possibilities of paralleling Van Meegeren's life with Piller's are spot on--and I think that if anyone were ever to do a movie based on Van Meegeren's life, that would be a good way to go. It would make the whole moral backdrop of the story personal while also condensing the storyline, which is key for a screenplay. Also, in a bio-pic, a certain amount of fictionalization (inventing dialogue, etc.) is totally acceptable and even expected. More difficult to pull off in a book without taking liberties, of course... BTW, I agree with you: Doug Preston really knows how to spin a yarn! "The Monster of Florence" was a great read.

Al--I uploaded those two images of the genuine 17th-century paintings that Van Meegeren scraped down in order to re-use the canvas for his forgeries:

Flinck:
http://www.themanwhomadevermeers.com/Fli...

Hondius:
http://www.themanwhomadevermeers.com/hon...

They're old black-and-white photos, but since the paintings no longer exist, there's no way to get color ones...

Suzanne--I think you're right about the way forgers, swindlers, and con-artists in general prey upon wishful thinking. Van Meegeren was a master at finding just the right balance between what people wanted to hear and what he wanted them to believe. As his career wore on this became an increasingly sinister process as he distorted--to some degree consciously, I think--the history of art in a way that favored his very unsavory political views...

Al--I finally located the images of the Hondius and the Flinck that Van Meegeren destroyed. As soon as I upload them to my website, I'll post a link.

Meanwhile... I was in Cleveland last week giving a talk on Van Meegeren at the Cleveland Museum of Art. There's a brief (4 minute) clip on You Tube for anyone who's interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOGQp9VQS...

Al wrote: "Did Van Meegeren himself purchase the Flinck or did he use some of his fellow co-conspirators to come by it? Are there any photos/pictures of the painting he destroyed"

Van Meegeren purchased the Flinck himself from a completely reputable art dealer. There were other paintings he destroyed, including a hunting scene by Hondius, a very good (although, today, not so famous) 17th-century artist.

I have photos of the Flinck and the Hondius. I'll scan them, and post them, either here--if I can figure out how to do it--or else on my website, in which case I'll provide a link.

carol (akittykat) wrote: "By the way, where did he get all those 17th century canvases? "

Hi Carol, Glad you enjoyed the book. Van Meegeren paid good money for those 17th-century canvases, which he then scraped down and used for his fakes. Probably one of the worst crimes Van Meegeren committed against art was to destroy some genuinely fine pictures in this "recycling" process, including a large painting by Govaert Flinck, an important follower of Rembrandt. Money was no object: the Flinck cost Van Meegeren about 5000 Dutch guilders (a nice sum of money in the 1930s) but the fake Vermeers sold for anywhere from half a million to 1.5 million guilders. The amounts of money involved were just crazy...

Sibyl wrote: "Jonathan, thank you for that link. I will try to read it as soon as possible, I'm not a subscriber so I'll have to read it in the library or at the university."

Actually, it seems that someone posted an English version on Scribd where it can be accessed for free: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20604632/The-M...

Sibyl wrote: "Jonathan wrote: "Sibyl wrote: "I was looking forward to this discussion after reading all the great reviews, but life has got in the way (my research into the history of bookclubs in the Netherland..."

How interesting. I guess I didn't realize that book clubs dated back to the 18th century. Is that when they began? Did they start in the Netherlands earlier than elsewhere? Later?

I also didn't realize that book clubs kept archives! Where were they held?

This link should bring you to the issue of De Groene that featured one of my Van Meegeren articles as the cover story: http://www.groene.nl/2006/39

I'm going to be out of town for a few days starting tomorrow, so please forgive my silence in advance. But I would love to hear more.

All best,
Jonathan

Hi Everyone,

I, too, am looking forward to the conversation!

I also wanted to ask if anyone from the group is in the Cleveland area? I'm going to be speaking about the book at the Cleveland Museum of Art this Wednesday evening. It would be fun to have some of this discussion in person. I've just updated my events listing on Goodreads, so all of the details of Wednesday's talk are there.

Thank you again for picking the book!
Jonathan

Sibyl wrote: "I was looking forward to this discussion after reading all the great reviews, but life has got in the way (my research into the history of bookclubs in the Netherlands amongst other things). I hope..."

This sounds like such an interesting topic, Sibyl. I'd love to hear more when you have a chance.

I'll be going back to the Netherlands for the first week in December. I very much look forward to it!

Thanks Sherry!