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The Value of Forgery

Art historians usually present theoretical ideas through the concrete analysis of specific artworks; in some circumstances, though, theoretical abstraction can provide an alternative and more effective approach to a problem. Forgery, the subject of this essay, raises issues of art historical significance so remote from art history's normal concerns that the analysis of specific artworks would necessitate theoretical discussion at almost every point. Faced with the choice between narrowing the focus of the essay to accommodate concrete analyses or abandoning the discussion of specific forgeries in order to explore the full implications of the overall argument, I have opted for abstraction. With this decision have come both benefits and challenges. A plus, from my point of view, is that theoretical abstraction permits some procedures that art history hates; above all, it allows one to make axiomatic assumptions and to invent concepts. A challenge, however, is that the absence of concrete analysis raises the bar in terms of the internal coherence of the argument (which is presented naked, so to speak). More importantly, one is also making a bet that the argument will be sufficiently compelling in terms of its conceptual pertinence to inspire readers to test it out against their own experience of forgeries. If this essay leads the reader to see forgeries differently, then it will have succeeded.