"I am Vasari, I lie for the art.
I lie for the art for the arts have no tongues.
And I'm asking you all at the top of my lungs!
What is this field, this field that I see?
This field they call art history?
You seem to be chopping as fast as you please!
See what you've done to my Florentine hierarchy?"
(unpublished preface to "The Li[v]es of Artists").
Vasari's eerily Seussian epigraph raises a question for our generation of art owners/viewers/lovers: how much can you trust art experts?
Before reading my cheesy blog post, you should get a hold of "The Mark of the Master," a recent article published by the New Yorker in which the Biro family business of 'forensic' art authentication, that is, searching for fingerprints on paintings to secure the identities of their artists, is exposed as a fraud (the article convinced me anyway).
Searching for fingerprints (Biro), invoking a sixth sense (Berenson), and just plain lying (Vasari) are now incorporated under the umbrella of the 'art expertise racket.' In good classic style prose, an argument is constructed on truths that the writer and the audience can both fully grasp. Art history, on the other hand, is dotted with writers who called upon information that alienated the audience. It is embarrassing that this keeps happening, and it has brought the topic of trust between the people and art history again to the fore.
Say you can't trust art historians or art experts anymore. Does that mean you can't trust art? Naw - it just means you need to plug your ears and block out all the noise (including wall-texts, magazine articles, cheesy blog posts, etc.) while looking at art. Art doesn't lie (per se) and architecture doesn't lie (period). Art has the capability of lying to its contemporary audience, and super-smart art can lie to future audiences, but even when it does, at least it allows itself to be taken with a grain of salt. Art experts who tell you that they would have cried had your painting really been painted by Duccio (Berenson) do not react with NaCl. Run it back through the filter and you just get a puddle of treacherous tears and a pile of salt.
So put up the blinders and look at your art with fresh eyes. Then, if you feel like reading the opinion of an expert, don't believe anything unless you see it for yourself. Don't be convinced by forensic evidence that you cannot understand, observations that you can't agree with. Don't let anyone tell you where your eye traveled or what jumped out at you. You can't trust everyone, but this way you will be able to distill the things you can.
You may find that in the contemporary world of art experts, there's a lot of us you can trust: art history is increasingly about show-and-tell. You wouldn't show up to class in first grade with a model submarine and tell everyone that it's state of the art and worth 10,000 dollars - or an abstract painting with smudged fingerprints and tell them that it's a Pollock - or a Duccio's Rucellai Madonna and tell them it's by Cimabue - someone would want to see some evidence. I think that more and more these days, art history essays provide proof rather than conjecture. But don't believe me! Take a look for yourself first.
Now I'm going to get cheesy. The true artist or date of this or that painting is not the only thing at stake here. At stake here is the legitimacy of art history as a discipline. Part of the art historian's claim is that art is a viable piece of evidence for the study of history. A lot of people care about the story of art and the story of history and would love to unlock both of them. But for some reason, we've done nothing short of installing more locks. This ranges from using Latinate terms ("in situ") which make an essay needlessly impenetrable, to using condescendingly basic wall texts ("The Christ-child reaches out and touches the Virgin's face with a lifelike sensitivity.")
Here's the secret: an art historian will often find that his argument is more flawed than he thought when he tries to explain it to a non-art historian. For example, say you are arguing that the architects of Chartres did not place their flying buttresses in the most effective position. If someone asks, 'So where IS the correct place to put the flying buttresses?' and you are not sure, the correct response is not, "It's difficult to explain - statics in cathedrals are always in flux" ; nor is it, "Okay, imagine it's like a house of cards and a wind comes along..." ; but rather, "I don't know; what's your guess?" Having researched the statics of Chartres, you may be more informed than your audience. This means your job is to bring them up to speed and then play with an open hand.
Art historians and non-art historians alike have the full capacity to understand art history's great body of treasures and artifacts, just as they are capable of telling when they are being lied to. It is not up to non-art historians to be more trusting - it is up to art historians to be more trustworthy. But with today's art history market's tougher standards, I hope we're getting there!
