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Nuclear Explosions Key To Spotting Fake Art
Socguy writes "A Russian art curator, Elena Basner, is claiming to have a foolproof method for determining whether or not particular paintings have been created since 1945. She claims that isotopes released into the environment by man-made nuclear explosions have found their way into types of the natural oils used to make paints."
Not true! He's not a Muslim! Learn to read and research instead of spouting off what you heard Rush Limbaugh spewing on the radio. And even if he was, why would that be a problem? Muslims are not the enemy. It's unthinking people like yourselves who pose the greatest threat to the United States(whether they be Al-Qaeda or American citizens). Sorry about the OT post.
You got it backwards. The fraudsters have to use paint that is *less* radioactive than everyday paint. Try to understand the idea before you try to be funny.
Not to diminish the idea, but this is already done with wine. I suspect it is much EASIER to do it with wine rather than with paintings, as you are relying on deposition rather than absorption through soil, but the technique has been around for a bit.
The problem with growing your own flax in a fashion as you have suggested is that the radio-isotopic proportions for the elements have changed over the years, and it is nearly impossible to create such a pure laboratory environment as you are suggesting here.
I supposed if you are filthy rich and have a great pile of money to burn, that you could build isotopic centrifuges and extract out the basic isotopes of the essential elements necessary to grow plants... but I can't begin to express how expensive of a process that would be. Going through normal chemical processes, you simply can't isolate isotopes on the scale that you are suggesting.
I suppose that if you wanted to try something really unique and interesting, you could try to head to an asteroid and extract materials and components necessary to grow plants in an environment that avoids contamination from Earth-based sources like atomic weapons. Still, I think even with that sort of expense (IMHO a similar scale to the isotopic separation suggested above) you would be able to identify that the material was created in an extra-terrestrial environment through other measures.
Simply put, growing your own flax isn't going to work on a practical basis.
Something I have heard of is where an art forger would take a painting from a lesser-known artist of the same era and literally scrape the old pigments from the fabric or even "wash" it through some sort of chemical process to remove the paint. Subsequently you need to dig up the paint that comes from roughly the era when the painting supposedly came from. While not quite "your dad's garage", you can obtain paint samples that do date back hundreds of years... provided you have the money.
Even so, most forgery is caught because the forger makes some silly mistake along the way that betrays the origin of the item, such as using paint that is actually older by a century than the fabric that is used, or something else that is a dead giveaway. Making a "good" forgery is something that is quite difficult to accomplish.
All this article suggests is that the isotopic proportions in fabric and pigments is but one more tool to use to help identify fakes from the genuine article.
BTW, your "false positive" notion is also going to be way off. I have no idea what sort of material you are suggesting to "tag" art works in museums that would impact carbon atoms (or other elements) that are bound to the physical structure of the work of art. This isn't like you would have a bottle of Strontium (one of the elements released by the nuclear bomb tests) that could be applied on the surface of the object and not be identified for exactly what it is: Some idiot who is vandalizing art works in some weird fashion.
Why would it be destructive?
Strontium 90 decays by beta emission, Cesium 137 by beta and gamma. Both will go right through the paint to the detector you're holding near the painting.
The Wikipedia distorts the colors and shrinks a 4x8 foot painting to postage stamp size and this is how you make a judgment?
A Pollock Is Sold, Possibly for a Record Price [2006]
For a better example: Lavender Mist No. 1 1950 Oil on canvas, Oil, enamel, and aluminum on canvas. 7x10 feet. National Gallery of Art. Washington, DC.
The depth of a Pollack is not easily captured on screen. You need to visit a gallery.
The element of chance in Pollack's "drip paintings" is no less an illusion than the effects of a representational artist. The colors and materials used in Lavender Mist were consciously chosen and layered to achieve a particular effect.
You don't have to be an art critic to know that Jackson Pollock's true art form was not painting, but rather convincing people that he was an artist. Polock's "art" was typical of the stupid abstract expressionist movement--- intentionally devoid of representational content.
Of course Pollack's drip paintings are devoid of representational content.
There are entire cultures whose art is a mastery of abstraction. There are also perfectly intelligible reasons why a Titian can set a modern audience off into gales of laughter.