About twenty years ago, I wrote an undergrad essay on the great Dutch artist Jan Vermeer. During my research, I stumbled across a man named Han Van Meegeren, a somewhat talented but unoriginal painter who has the dubious reputation of fooling both the art world and Nazi leaders during the Second World War. After being ridiculed and dismissed by leading art critics, Van Meegeren became obsessed with showing them for the 'fools' they were by 'creating' a masterpiece by Vermeer, then announcing that it was in fact his own creation.
Since I first saw these works, my thoughts were "how could anyone with eyes, nevermind the most respected art historians in the world, have fallen for this tripe?" Well, author Edward Dolnick succeeds in telling readers just how. The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century" in part explains the collection of events that turned Van Meegeren's The Supper at Emmaus from overly-sentimental, insipid rubbish to a Masterpiece. While Dolnick's research is detail oriented, it is not bogged down with too much information, never to the point of inducing boredom. The author presents his information in short, catchy chapters, each a story in themselves. These include the politics of the era, input from past and contemporary art and forgery experts, mini-biographies of the persons involved, Van Meegeren's insightful forging techniques, his success and his fallout.
The Forger's Spell often feels more like fiction than fact, which makes it appealing to art- and history-lovers, as well as readers of fast-paced, psychological thrillers.
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