http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=15097&date=2016-12-25&pageid=1
The Artist & the Forger
‘Egon
Schiele: Death and the Maiden’, the most haunting painting of the 20th
century, hangs in the Baroque Belvedere Palace in Vienna. The same title film by
Austrian director Dieter Berner was one of the art films at IFFI this year. The
other art film ‘A Real Vermeer’ directed by the Dutch filmmaker Rudolf van den
Berg was a biographical film of art forger Han van Meegeren.
The former depicts the life of avant
garde Viennese artist Egon Schiele who proclaims, “I shall endure for art.” And
endure he does, in dark times through the love and staunch support of his
sister Gerti and lover Wally. His bohemian lifestyle and relationship with muse
Wally in provincial Austria get him in trouble with the authorities. Being the
most provocative artist of his times, he steadfastly stands by his art in
court, declaring that his paintings of female child artists are highbrow art-“This
is art and not pornography!”
The painting from which the film derives
its title depicts two lovers clinging to each other seemingly on the edge of an
abyss. It is moving, disturbing and disruptive beyond belief. It hints at the
end of a relationship and also the end of the world. “Clasp me as if it is the
last time you will do so,” says Egon to Wally before painting the piece. He
personifies himself in the painting as Death/Dracula holding his love in a vice-like
grip– an antithesis to love. One of the
most self-obsessed artists, he painted this work at a turning point of his
life, when he was abandoning his first great love and was about to be swept
away by the First World War.
“It’s no coincidence that ‘Ego’ is the
beginning of Egon Schiele’s name. He was a narcissist, who was very interested
in the visceral experiences of his life. He was obsessed by sex and death in
equal measure,” say art critics.
His self-portraits exude a wild energy. ‘Self-portrait
with Physalis’ from 1912 is his best known one. Dutch genius Rembrandt executed
40 self-portraits during his artistic career and he was obsessed with the aging
image of himself. Van Gogh, one of the greatest self-portraitist of the 19th
century in his ‘Self-portrait with the Bandaged Ear’ is depicting his emotional
and physical decline. But Schiele’s works are imbued with an incessant
rebellious strain, a brutal honesty about human body and sexuality. He seems to
have internalized Freud and his ‘Theory of Sexuality.’
Studies on Egon Schiele state,
“His work is often described as pornographic, grotesque, even disturbing and
too explicit, and today it simply represents one of the finest examples of modern
art, created by a remarkable artist who was able to capture the
essence of the human existence in an unprecedented and inimitable manner.”
On the other hand, in the second art
film ‘The Real Vermeer’, the story of Meegeren, the master forger, is played
out in Netherlands during the Second World War.
Mysteriously, unknown biblical paintings of the 17th century
Dutch artist Vermeer start reappearing in the late 1930s in Amsterdam. They
cause quite a sensation and are hailed by the art world. The famous art historian
Dr. Abraham Bredius examines the
forgery ‘The Supper at Emmaus’
in September, 1937 and says, “This
is a genuine Vermeer masterpiece, using the ultramarine blues and yellows preferred
by Johannes Vermeer and other Dutch Golden Age painters.” The confirmation
precipitates in the forged paintings being sold at very high prices.
Meergen
makes a fortune and buys a lot of property, jewellery and works of art to augment
his luxurious lifestyle. He tells the interviewer, Marie Louise Doudart de la
Grée, “I own 52 houses,15 country houses around Laren, among them ‘grachtenhuizen’, beautiful mansions along the famous Amsterdam
canals.”
One of
Meergen’s Vermeer forgery ‘Christ with the Adulteress’ is discovered by
the Allies in an Austrian salt mine after the end of the war, along with 6,750 other pieces of artwork looted
by the Nazis. The painting is traced back to Meergen. Now, he has to choose
between being sentenced to death for being a Nazi collaborator or exposing
himself as a forger.
Rudolf
van den Berg, the director of the film made the original story his own and then
retold it in the film by digressing from it, bringing in a romantic angle. In
real life, Meergen never parted from his wife and children. His siblings too
regarded him as an affectionate and warm person. But his art at counterfeiting
had excelled to a point where he was able to turn the court proceedings in his
favor. He came out a Dutch hero who had fooled the Nazis by selling them
forgeries, accruing great wealth in return.
Van Meegeren remains one of the most ingenious art
counterfeiters of the 20th century. After his trial, however, he
declared, "My triumph as a counterfeiter was my defeat as a creative
artist.”
.
A
cocktail of suspense, art, history and theft makes the viewing highly
entertaining!
No comments:
Post a Comment