Many people know the famous paintings by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. In the past decade, the images that come to mind upon hearing Vermeer's name have been made more lucid by the novel Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, and later the movie staring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. However, because of reading The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez, I am unable to distinguish mentally the stories of Vermeer and van Meegeren. When I think of Vermeer's name, I now also recall van Meegeren's artistic contributions and devious story. As Lopez points out, van Meegeren not only forged artwork, but he forged an identity. van Meegeren's pseudo-Vermeers added a dynamic edge to the way art critiques thought about Vermeer's style, and left a lasting impact on Vermeer's name.
After many failed attempts to become a successful artist, van Meegeren turned to the world of forgery and cheated his way to a prosperous life. While he may not have been an honest man, van Meegeren was undeniably bright. Little is known about Vermeer's past, and in the absence of knowledge, van Meegeren saw an opportunity. There is a time period where no one knows where Vermeer was, or what he was doing. Seeing that there were already speculations that Vermeer spent this time in Italy, studying the works of Caravaggio, van Meegeren chose to paint pieces that would bring that myth to life. However, although he succeeded in fooling the art world for quite some time, van Meegeren ended up doing business with the "wrong people"--the Nazis--and got caught, plummeting his career and tainting his name eternally.
I read The Man Who Made Vermeers as research for my first paper--an analysis of the pseudoscience of art forgery and Han van Meegeren in particular. However, out of the half dozen sources I used, Lopez's account stood out to me as being different. Lopez's attention to historical details and creative use of imagery makes this nonfiction account of van Meegeren's life seem like a history textbook in the form of a fictitious, and riveting, story. It appears that Lopez not only aspires to tell the dramatic story of a notorious forger, but he also wants to depict van Meegeren as a real person--analyzing his character for both strengths and weaknesses.
While many other authors made it evident that they were well versed in the actions of van Meegeren, Lopez's book is saturated with impeccable historical research and flowery language to accompany the scientific facts about van Meegeren's fraud. One of van Meegeren's forgeries was a painting called the Lace Maker, a pseudo-Vermeer bought by a man named Joseph Duveen. Along with the Lace Maker, Duveen also bought another Vermeer forgery by van Meegeren--The Smiling Girl. While many biographies on van Meegeren would be content telling the reader only about these two purchases, Lopez delves into the inner psyche of Duveen and explores how he made his purchasing decisions. Apparently, Duveen not only bought these two "Vermeers" but he also purchased two other pseudo-Vermeers, The Girl with a Kitten and "another sauced-up seventeenth-century picture of a very French-looking boy" (54). Finally, to elaborate further on the historical detail, Lopez includes the fact that--although Duveen believed the four previously mentioned paintings were authentic works by Vermeer--Duveen passed up the chance to buy The Girl with the Red Hat, "the only real Vermeer he was offered during this period" (55). Duveen passed on this opportunity not because he thought it was fake, but because he thought it was too small--and Duveen was weary of small paintings (a fear that did save him later from buying another Vermeer forgery called The Young Woman Reading) (54). Lopez does not talk only about Duveen's dealings with van Meegeren, but also includes details about all his other exchanges around the same time period. This attention to historical detail, although it may initially appear frivolous, allows the reader to understand better the characters--and see them as real people with thoughts and emotions. In a successful attempt not to have the book be considered dry, Lopez includes phrases like "van Meegeren's career during the Roaring Twenties had an undesirable charm: the haut monde atmosphere, the conspiratorial strategizing, the blithe spirit of prosperous times," which paint a more vivid image in the reader's mind, while still including all the historical facts (5).
I admire Jonathan Lopez's commitment to depicting van Meegeren as a well-rounded and dynamic person, and not just a one-sided character. Details Lopez includes about van Meegeren's alcoholism make him seem like a real person. Of this Lopez says that in the 1920's van Meegeren's "alcoholism was still under control: the truly destructive binges, the incoherent, gin-fueled tirades that would eventually frighten off many of his friends, had not yet begun" help the reader to understand van Meegeren as a real man (6). This seemingly does not have anything to do with van Meegeren the art forger, but it does have everything to do with van Meegeren the person. Accordingly, Lopez gives the impression that he knows van Meegeren, at least well enough to comment on his character flaws. For example, on the subject of van Meegeren's decision to forge art--rather than invent it--Lopez says, "rather than soldier on, throwing his full energy into painting his own pictures in his own name, he allowed an essential part of who he was, the genuine artist, to wither on the vine" (7). When dealing with the subject of recounting the story of an art fraud, it is simple just to tell the facts. Lopez however goes above and beyond what is easy and tells the reader not only what van Meegeren did, but also who van Meegeren was. Thus, the reader gets on know van Meegeren on a deeper, more intimate level than he might get in an average book.
Lopez does not try to glorify van Meegeren's name, nor does he tiptoe around the rumors of van Meegeren's ties to fascism--he confronts the flaws face on. While many other historians romanticize the story and the tricks of van Meegeren, Lopez digs into the unpleasant truth and connects van Meegeren's work with fascism. Lopez tells his reader about van Meegeren "parroting Mein Kampf"(8) in 1928, how van Meegeren drew morbid illustrations to accompany the poems in the Nazi coffee table book Teekeningen 1, and how Hitler had a copy of Teekeningen 1 signed by van Meegeren in his possession. However, after analyzing all the facts, Lopez comes to the conclusion that van Meegeren was never committed to the Nazi party, but instead he was dedicated to "the possibility of having a successful public art career" even if it was under a different name (148). Although van Meegeren supported Hitler in his earlier years, produced art for the Nazi campaign, and ended his career after selling a pseudo-Vermeer to a Nazi general, van Meegeren did it all for the hope of artistic fame. If he had been an avid supporter of the Nazi mission, he would have formally joined the party--but "a conventional job, much less a bureaucratic one, had never been high on van Meegeren's list of desires" (148). Despite that it was all for greed, and although Lopez admires van Meegeren's artistic talent and manipulation skills, he sees "van Meegeren's affection for the Nazis [as] the biographical roadblock that makes it virtually impossible to conceive of the forger as a hero in any conventional sense" (8).
In conclusion, The Man Who Made Vermeers is an elite portrayal of the scams, lies, and masterpieces of van Meegeren. Lopez seems to respect van Meegeren for what he accomplished--fooling some of the best art critics--but he also sheds light on van Meegeren's flaws. No person is perfect, and Lopez shows that with the way he depicts van Meegeren. Using historical data, artistic understanding, and by applying psychological assumptions, Lopez tells the story of the real Han van Meegeren.Get more detail about
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren.
