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."

Comments

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[Speare]

As far as I'm concerned, if the copy is good enough that it can't be told from the original without doing a detailed analysis with fancy equipment, it's just as good as the real thing. Maybe even better if it's in a better shape.

Heh, I have a lot of Ikea furniture I would sell as antiques, then.

For no-name talent, perhaps that's true. What you're suggesting is a bit like visiting the television studio mockup of a well-known landmark, vs visiting the actual landmark. The intangible connection comes from knowing that it WAS Davinci or Picasso or Monet who applied their skills personally, it WAS on this hallowed ground that a truce was signed, it WAS this flag that stood upon the hill, it WAS this laboratory in which the first light bulb burned brightly through nothing more than harnessed lightning. The image itself is only half the appeal, and for the other half, they accept the degradation of the media. Today, if we saw the Mona Lisa with all her eyebrows and eye lashes that have faded to obscurity in the intervening centuries, it would just seem wrong and out of place.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[entrigant]

It's the difference between owning a piece of history or just wanting something to look at. If you do not understand why someone may want to own a piece of history; why it matters so much that the one you have is the one the artist himself made with his own hands, then there's probably not much point trying to explain it.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[Timothy Brownawell]

As far as I'm concerned, if the copy is good enough that it can't be told from the original without doing a detailed analysis with fancy equipment, it's just as good as the real thing. Maybe even better if it's in a better shape.

The only exception I can see is for the people actually interested in doing chemical analysis of the painting. But that shouldn't really be a concern for people looking for something to hang in their room/mansion/compound.

I think a lot of the "value" of these art pieces is in their scarcity; people don't want them because they're nice to look at, people want them because nobody else has them. Or in other cases, people (most likely, people with an interest in history) want them because of the "story" that comes with them, and of course the story is only any good if the item that it came with really was a witness to the events it tells about.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[stormguard2099]

ok, so if I built a scale model of the Egyptian pyramids in Kansas you would find it more valuable than the existing ruins of the originals in Egypt? All this regardless of the feat of engineering it took for them to accomplish all of this without cad programs, lasers(they had to use just sharks) etc?

... couldn't be disputed?

[martyb]

These isotopes, Caesium-137 and Strontium-90, permeated the earth's oil and plant life and ended up in works of art made in the post-war era because natural oils, usually flax/linseed, were used as binding agents for paints.

"I wanted to find something ironclad - that couldn't be disputed, and this led me to approach scientists for ideas," said Basner.

Off the top of my head, here are some ideas:

1. Use paints made before atomic testing began (if you'd ever seen my dad's garage, you'd KNOW there's old stuff out there)
2. Grow your own flax in a controlled environment (i.e. hydroponics; filled with pure Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. in proper proportions; start with a vacuum if necessary) extract your oils from that.
3. Create false positives by "tagging" genuine works in museums with controlled radiation sources.
4. Other? Please reply with your ideas.

Yes, these are not terribly practical, but if someone could get millions of dollars for a few high-quality fakes, this would just be the cost of doing business.

So, in summary, her assertion "ironclad - that couldn't be disputed" seems overstated. I'll grant that it IS an additional hurdle to overcome, but sufficiently motivated people WILL find a way.

Re:... couldn't be disputed?

[Teancum]

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.

Re:Oh, THANKS, Elena Basner....

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[Firethorn]

I'm somewhat the same as you, it seems. I can appreciate looking at the weapons that are hundreds of years old - such as revolutionary war muskets, swords from the medieval period, and such.

In most cases they're heavily used, but still intact, examples of the time. They're in museums, and available if anybody wants to do a meteorological analysis. Same with the Constitution of the USA, articles of confederation, declaration of independence, magna carta, etc...

Still, I personally don't feel the need to own an original. Personally, I'd rather own a copy of the revolutionary war musket - in all it's operational, get it out and play with it(because it's replaceable), glory.

To be honest - when I visited Venice, I was disappointed. I saw a city past it's time, degrading. Most of the first floors are unusable any more, you travel by footpath rather than boat. Much of the amazing architecture is under water, a lot of it destroyed.

I'd advocate a massive restoration project - the lifting of Venice, and the restoration of it's former glory.

Maybe we shouldn't rebuild the Colosseum at this point - but build a new one next to it.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[aussie_a]

How much of history would be lost because we tore down and incorrectly rebuilt some of it?

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[Peganthyrus]

The surface of the painting can tell you a lot about how a piece was made: you can look at the shapes of the strokes, the trails left by the brush's bristles, and tell something about how the artist's hand moved. You can learn technique from this. I have looked at original art and been able to see things i could never see in a reproduction, and taken something back to my own artwork.

Would you rather pick up technique from Michaelangelo's marks - or from someone who did a copy of them? The copyist may be miming the original's technique, but he's not going to show the same thought processes on the canvas, as he has a finished piece to work from. You'll never be able to look at layered paint and get an idea of where the original artist had to struggle.

Looking at a copy, even a good one, is like looking at source code with all the comments stripped out and all the variable names obscured.

Plus, of course, issues of scarcity: there is only one of these. It is thus very rare, and potentially worth a hell of a lot if it's been deemed Fine Art.

Re:Great Works Are A Fraud

[Teancum]

I think you miss what makes great art something of note and substance.

In a way, art does work like science. Philosophies and concepts have an origin and place to start from, and from there survive in the most Darwinian fashion against competing concepts.

What makes something "classical" such as van Gogh or Shakespeare is that their works have been shamelessly copied and improved upon by succeeding generations. Current artists... if they are deserving of the term... have studied the older masters and have come to understand the principles of their craft to know what can be improved upon and enhanced.

BTW, I'd say the same thing about scientists, where in fact they do study the works of the older philosophers. In fact, if you have an original edition of Principia Mathematica I'm sure you would have several physicists drooling in terms of wanting to have that book in their private collection... and certainly would treasure it as a gift.

In addition, to use your example of Newton, it is far more than a mere historical purpose that you have to go back and study what he wrote. The historical context of where we've been is important to understand in order to advance knowledge in any direction. I will guarantee that any reasonable physicist worthy of that title has read and applied Newton's ideas into their work at some level nearly every day. Ditto for Einstein and others.

Going back to the artifact that is the 1st edition of Principia Mathematica, even that has use in terms of providing a scientific baseline to note what has changed and what hasn't over the years. It is for this reason that the original U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence are so heavily guarded and protected in spite of being in public display. What was written and has it been altered over the years? Are you certain?

Furthermore, sometimes people apply the conclusions to the theories and don't understand the thinking that went into forming the theories in the first place. Again, this is the same in art as it is in science where going back to the "source" you can find out what was done, how it was done, and then do a "what if" to try and take things in a different direction.

This isn't ancestor worship as you are implying, but avoiding the need to "reinvent the wheel". As such, these artifacts that are called classical paintings and other such things have value because it provides that important context to fall back upon and not rely upon subsequent interpretation.

I will admit there is a certain amount of ancestor worship going on as well, which is why there is a kernel of truth to what you are saying here. But I think you are also missing out on other aspects of what is going on well beyond just the pure idolizing of things that are old just because they are old.

What made John Lennon and Paul McCartney so incredible wasn't just that they made great music.... it was because they studied the classical masters like Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart and were able to put some of that music into a much more modern context. You may love or hate their music, but it certainly will have an impact on you. __**THAT**__ is what defines great art, and not somebody who copies the work of somebody else and not understanding the context, like the host of Elvis impersonators.

Re:I don't understand "fake art"

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Once you tear something down and replace it with a copy, you've permanently lost all information about the original that you didn't manage to get in the copy.