Ethics and the Arts

An Anthology

David E. W. Fenner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780815318477
• eBook ISBN: 9781317842866
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The aim of this series is to make available texts and collections of essays on major moral issues. The present volume is a collection that focuses exclusively on diverse moral issues connected with the arts: censorship and subsidy, authenticity and ownership, and the connections between moral and aesthetic values and evaluative judgments. The collection is not only unique, but timely. It appears in a period when the National Endowment for the Arts is under fire and the government's role in the arts is a hotly debated political issue, when the connection between moral or political content in art and its aesthetic value remains at the forefront of debate in aesthetics, and when ownership and commercialization of artworks continue to exercise the sociology of art.

II

Creations and Re-Creations

Art and Inauthenticity

W.E. Kennick

W.E. Kennick’s article first appeared in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44 (1), Fall 1985, pp. 3–12. It is reprinted here by permission of the publisher, the American Society for Aesthetics, and the author.

Eine der schwersten Aufgabe des Philosophen ist
es zu finden, wo ihn der Schuh druckt.

— Wittgenstein

Is there an aesthetic difference between a deceptive fake and a genuine, authentic, or original work of art?

This question cannot be given a univocal answer as it stands, for the simple reason that as it stands it is highly ambiguous. It involves three problematic concepts: those of an aesthetic difference (and, pari passu, of an aesthetic similarity or identity), of a fake, and of a genuine, authentic, or original work of art. Instead, therefore, of attempting to answer it, I shall here be concerned with an endeavor logically anterior to that of answering it, namely, some clarification of two of the problematic concepts cited: those of a fake and of a genuine, authentic, or original work of art. (The concept of an aesthetic difference is an intellectual Augean stable, and I lack the Herculean powers to clean it up.)

Others, of course, have tried to answer the question, but, as I see it, the best answers offered to date¹ are compromised by a failure not only to make clear just what constitutes an aesthetic difference between, say two or more paintings² (for which they can understandably be forgiven) but also to draw appropriate distinctions between various ways in which something may appear but fail to be a genuine, authentic, or original work of art, which is the chief topic of this paper. Let two examples of what I have in mind suffice.

(1) Although Sagoff recognizes, quite correctly, that “not every copy of a painting is a forgery,”³ he holds, quite incorrectly, that “every forgery is simply a copy of a painting.”⁴ The notorious van Meegeren, whom he mentions, produced, as I understand it, only one forgery that was a copy—of Baburen.⁵ His criminal masterpiece, The Supper at Emmaus, was not a copy of a Vermeer and can now be seen to imitate certain stylistic features of Vermeer only superficially at best. (2) In posing the problem addressed by the opening sentence of this paper, Goodman writes:

The question is most strikingly illustrated by the case of a given work and a forgery or copy or reproduction of it. Suppose we have before us, on the left, Rembrandt’s original painting Lucretia and, on the right, a superlative imitation of it. We know from a fully documented history that the painting on the left is the original; and we know from X-ray photographs and microscopic examination and chemical analysis that the painting on the right is a recent fake.⁶

What Goodman obviously has in mind is a true or exact copy of Rembrandt’s Lucretia, and yet he uses five different words—“forgery,” “copy,” “reproduction,” “imitation,” and “fake”—as if it made little or no difference which he used; as if they were all, at least approximately, synonymous. This is especially surprising in Goodman’s case, since he holds that “the aesthetic properties of a picture include not only those found by looking at it but also those that determine how it is to be looked at.”⁷ From the context I gather that a painting’s being a forgery is a property that determines how it is to be looked at, and is thereby an aesthetic property of it; in which case a picture’s being an innocent copy is also a property that determines how it is to be looked at, and is thereby an aesthetic property of it; in which case, since a forgery and an innocent copy are worlds apart, they are not to be looked at in the same way (which, I believe, is unmistakably the case) and are hence aesthetically quite different.

There is a set of expressions we use to indicate that a painting is not an original N; where, to keep matters simple, “N” stands for the name of a painter but does not stand for some such description as “fifteenth century Siennese painting.” Any one of these expressions, on a suitable occasion, might be used to complete the following schema:

That is not an original N; it is a _____. Among these expressions are the following: “a forged N,” “a fake N,” “a copy of an N,” “a reproduction of an N,” “a picture in imitation of N (or of an N),” “a picture after N (or an N),” “a painting by a follower of N,” “a picture belonging to the school of N,” “a painting from the studio or workshop of N,” “a painting wrongly attributed (or misattributed) to N.” The only one of these terms that comes readily to mind as a generic term covering all the cases signified by the others in the use indicated for them is the term “fake” which, in one of its uses, as in “fake diamond,” means simply not real, not genuine. A fake N, then, is a painting which is not an original N but which, in a given context, purports—innocently or fraudulently—to be an original N.

But this sounds odd. ‘Fake’ in the sense specified does not normally contrast with “original” but with “real,” “authentic,” or “genuine.” Why, then, make it contrast unnaturally with “original”? Because, although an original N is a real, authentic, or genuine N, it would appear to be possible for a painting to be a real, authentic, or genuine N without being an original N; if by “a real, authentic, or genuine N” we mean simply a painting that has been executed by N. Because N might, for example, slavishly copy one of his own paintings. In this case the result would be a real, authentic, or genuine N, but it would not be an original N (the original N being the painting that was copied), anymore than a copy by someone other than N would be an original N. Sagoff apparently disagrees:

Two paintings which look alike, even if they were created by the same artist, are not instances of the same work. No matter how many times Cezanne painted The Card Players and no matter how well the resulting paintings resemble one another, practice establishes each as an original work of art. Since these paintings have the same author, of course, they will belong, presumably, to all the same conventional reference classes…. Incidentally, the fact that an artist cannot forge his own work but creates an original with every copy suggests the truth that paintings are not classified as forgeries or as fakes if they can plausibly be counted in some other way.⁸

Reason will be given below for doubting the first sentence of this passage, but for the moment we can let it and the next two sentences stand, if by “created” Sagoff really means created and not simply made or fabricated.⁹ His example of The Card Players, however, suggests that what Sagoff has in mind are two or more versions of the same subject, like Chardin’s three (at least) versions of Still Life with a Loin of Meat.¹⁰ But a second, or third, version of the same subject, even if it is superficially indistinguishable from the first, is not the same as a copy of an original. Hence it is not the case that an artist “creates an original with every copy.” A copy of an N belongs to a different reference class from an original N, no matter by whom it may be produced. A skillful painter may or may not be a skillful copyist. If N creates a painting exhibiting a skillful handling of light emanating from three sources and then paints a skillful copy of that painting, it does not follow, for persuasive reasons offered by Sagoff himself, that the copy is a painting exhibiting a skillful handling of light emanating from three sources; although ex hypothesi it is a skillful copy of such a painting.

We might note further that there is a subtle ambiguity in the notion of an N, or even of a real, authentic, or genuine N. According to Alfred Moir,¹¹ the so-called St. John the Baptist in the Doria Gallery, Rome, is not an original Caravaggio (the original being in the office of the Mayor of Rome) but was probably “painted by a contemporary occasional imitator of Caravaggio named Angelo Caroselli who is recorded in seventeenth century literature as a very skillful faker of the master.” Well, suppose that the Doria St. John was actually painted by Caroselli.¹² Clearly it is not an original—and a fortiori not a real, authentic, or genuine—Caravaggio. But is it a (real, authentic, or genuine) Caroselli? Now Caroselli was a painter in his own right, not merely a copyist, and it is certain that his original paintings are (real, authentic, genuine) Carosellis. But what, again, of his copies? By “an N” or “a real, authentic, or genuine N” one may, as we have noted, mean simply a painting that was painted, made, or executed, but not necessarily created, by N—although even this is treacherous, as we shall see shortly. In that case the Doria St. John is a Caroselli, even a real, authentic, or genuine Caroselli. Or by “an N” or “a real, authentic, or genuine N” one may mean a painting that was created by N, that is, an original N; in which case, although the Doria St. John was, ex hypothesi, painted by Caroselli, it is not a (real, authentic, genuine) Caroselli. It is simply a copy of a Caravaggio by Caroselli. To resolve this ambiguity if only for my own purposes, I shall mean by “an N” an original N, a painting created by N; in which case a real, authentic, or genuine N is always an original N. This will make the generic use of ‘fake’ more plausible.

But this matter is still further complicated by the fact that the creator or author of a painting need not be identical with the maker or fabricator of the painting, i.e., the person who actually painted it. For example, Moholy-Nagy tells us:

In 1922 I ordered by telephone from a sign factory five paintings in porcelain enamel. I had the factory’s color chart before me and I sketched my paintings on graph paper. At the other end of the telephone the factory supervisor had the same kind of paper, divided into squares. He took down the dictated shapes in the correct position. (It was like playing chess by correspondence.)¹³

Here we have five paintings by Moholy-Nagy. Each is an original, real, authentic, genuine Moholy-Nagy, of which there could be copies or forgeries. But, although Moholy-Nagy was the creator or author of the paintings, he was not the maker (the actual painter) of any of them.¹⁴

We may now turn to exploring some conceptual relations between some of the terms listed above, and we shall begin with the notion of forgery.

Unlike the other terms with which we have associated it, “forgery” belongs to what might be called the language of the morality of art. Forgery is something of which a person is guilty, whereas simply copying or painting in the manner of someone is not. The term is, I take it, borrowed from the law, so we may get clearer about what forgery in art is if we note how the term is used by lawyers. Turning to Black’s Law Dictionary we find “to forge” defined as follows:

To fabricate, construct, or prepare one thing in imitation of another, with the intention of substituting the false for the genuine, or otherwise deceiving and defrauding by the use of the spurious article. To counterfeit or make falsely. Especially, to make a spurious written instrument with the intention of fraudulently substituting it for another, or passing it off as genuine; or to fraudulently alter a genuine instrument to another’s prejudice; or to sign another person’s name to a document, with a deceitful and fraudulent intent.¹⁵

Taking cues from this legal definition of “to forge,” I would list at least the following conditions as requisite to forgery in art:

(1) A forged N cannot be an N (in the sense of being an N I committed myself to above). Does this mean that a painter cannot forge his own work? Sagoff to the contrary, no. If N makes a slavish copy (as opposed to another version) of one of his own pictures and passes it off, e.g., sells it, as the original, as Rubens is said to have done on at least one occasion, he is as guilty of forgery as someone other than N would be were he to copy a work of N’s and pass it off as an original N. The copy is, to be sure, the work of N, but it is not the work of N it purports to be. Indeed, it is not an (original) N at all—except in replica.

(2) Someone must pass off, or attempt to pass off, as an N what is not an N, or is not the N it purports to be. Must the someone in question be the fabricator of the inauthentic N? Yes. Suppose that a copyist, C, like Angelo Caroselli with the copies he made and signed with an AC cypher, copies an N with no intent to pass it off as a genuine N, but subsequently, and unbeknown to C, an art dealer or museum director, D, passes off C’s copy as a genuine N, but does so with deceitful or fraudulent intent. Is C guilty of forgery? Clearly not. Well, is D? I think not. Consider a parallel legal possibility. I am teaching a child how to write checks. I tell her to fill in the date and to make the check out to me. “For how much?” she asks. “Oh, let’s say $150,000.” “But who has that kind of money?” “David Rockefeller,” I say. So, she writes “David Rockefeller” where one’s signature normally goes. Being thoroughly unscrupulous and seeing a golden opportunity to make a fast buck, I take the check to the bank and cash it. I am later found out. Am I guilty of forgery? I am not sure just what the law would say, but I should be inclined in this case to say that although I am not guilty of forgery because I have not forged anything—and ex hypothesi neither has anyone else—I am guilty of fraud. The check in question is clearly a bogus or fraudulent check, and in the parallel case in art the picture in question should, I think, be properly described as a bogus or fraudulent N.¹⁶

(3) Whoever passes off, or attempts to pass off, as an N what is not an N, or is not the N it purports to be, must do so with deceitful or fraudulent intent. Again, a copyist who sells or exhibits his copy of an N as a copy is not guilty of forgery or of fraud, and his picture is neither a forged N nor a fraudulent N. Nor is an art dealer or museum director who sells or exhibits as an N what is not an N, honestly believing it to be an N, guilty of forgery or fraud. In the case of the copyist we are not dealing with a fake N at all, but in the case of the art dealer or museum director we are.¹⁷

In addition to these four requisites of forgery in art must there be at least a fifth, viz., that the inauthentic N be in the manner or style of N? I think not. It has...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Preface
• Contents
• Introduction
• I Censorship
• II Creations and Re-Creations
• III Artistic Property
• IV The Sponsorship of Art
• V Aesthetic Values and Moral Values
• Contributors