Thanks for that response, David.
Yes, ideally I should watch this film, but I doubt that I'll find it in the local video stores --- however, I'll try.
The idea of forgeries drawing favourable critical comment certainly does give some indication of the way in which the human mind works in its relationship to art. I referred to this in my Han van Meegeren comment. The van Meegeren case is possibly the best documented of this type of case, and I personally find it very edifying.
This sort of thing, whether de Hory or van Meegeren, is I feel a good example of the "story" in action:-
our experience has told us that a Rembrandt, Matisse, Modigliani or whatever is great art, so of course, when we are in the presence of such great art, we would need to place ourselves outside the herd to look critically at that great art and decide for ourselves that it was not quite as great as the "big men" had declared it to be.
it is human nature to follow the opinions of the mob, and mob opinion is formed by mob leaders.
As I have already said:- we cannot escape the story; we always carry it with us.
This theme is certainly a part of this discussion, however, my original idea --- which I seem not to have been able to convey very clearly --- was more directed at the effect of things on our feelings.
A "thing" might be a work of art, but it might also be a shell, a pebble, a pair of sunglasses, in fact almost anything that functions as a key to unlock a part of our subconscious and generate an emotion.
This is perhaps where our appreciation of an object enters consideration. We might return again and again to appreciate that object because of its effect upon our emotions. To facilitate easy return to the object, we try to provide easy access to the object, so we collect it.
Possibly. Well, in any case this is about where my thoughts on the matter are at the moment.
To diverge a little from this central theme.
Not so long ago a book was published that uses as the major part of its content the keris in a collection that is generally acknowledged as being an important collection, and the proprietors of that collection as being knowledgeable in the field of keris. A large number of the keris pictured in that book are not correctly represented, in the case of one particular current era keris, authorship is absolutely incorrect. But 99.9% of the people who look at those images of keris do not know this, indeed, cannot possibly know it. So the deception stands. This same scenario occurs again and again in books published on keris, and only a very, very few people are able to detect the inaccuracies. Thus keris knowledge is irreparably corrupted. This is what happens in our own little field of interest. How much greater is the corruption in the broader field?
I have made this comment to try to illustrate that we are all subject to the opinions of others, and those opinions form a part of our individual stories, ie, experience.
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