I just liked the aphorism from Satprem. So the Portland Vase mystery. I have abandoned sneaking thoughts past the moderated comment two by two. All very great escape and probably good for me but it's a very simple plot here. And I have a short addendum so you get the whole thing here.
In April Flavia Gemina, who is a classical version of Nancy Drew, announces on her website the delightful mystery of the Portland Vase. It's attractive enough. What a Ming vase should look like (which apparently is a T'ang Vase but once you have gotten the Western Consciousness to say and understand Ming the subtleties, but I digress). I'm not a great fan of vases, always good for a long rant because they give minimal information and therefore never really contradict anything you might say. So first mystery is perhaps why we want to talk about a Vase.
But then Mistress Flavia mentions in passing that a friend of a friend a very trustworthy southern businessman glass maker the old fashioned way who has a lifelong interest in the Portland Vase has commissioned 10 modern artists to try their hand at the complicated vase making procedure utilized by the Romans. It's gonna cost him 100 gees. And he is a businessman.
That was April. In October a surprise discovery by an anonymous collector exhibits at Bonhams outwith sale a Vase very similar to the Portland and this one comes with the approval of a bod from the Ashmolean, probably the drinker with the gambling debts but I am not judging.
So Mistress Flavia encourages her young class (she has a smidgeon of Miss Jean Brodie but many influences and is into Star Trek, now you might think the poifect woman but on reflection she is a bit too valley of the dolls married (works for James Bond) classical buff, sexy, intelligent nerd, appeared by chance in an early episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer having studied at USC Berkeley, keeps bumping into interesting auteurs, there is something just too damn disney about her, where is her darkness, where is that soul searing agony the torment that spreads out like poison from her soul and draws me like the gentle butterfly soul to be broken upon the Wheel, too damn nice if you ask me, though the lashings of custard is still tempting, and the midnight feasts where we could discuss together in fevered hushed tones the exciting trail, where was I back to the plot) to consider reasons for and against a forgery, kids who read her books and make it past the moderated comment thing and todate I can verify at least three possibly a few more but the ones that make it past the comment thing seem to read all her books.
Apart from the obvious, which she mentions, it has the false bottom of the Portland, same top but false bottoms. If it had the pointy bottom, then it would need that Katie Price to hold it up in an ultra short designer toga, the worse the economic conditions in the country the higher the hemline of the toga. Now say she drops the vase, accidentally bumps offev her new supplements. That my friends would be a perfect ending, it's a forgery, we claim on the insurance badebing badebang. At which point the Swedish French emigree Madame Non, gets up and says Non Non Non. Ok fine, put the flat bottom on it then. But think of the publicity, and there would have been time before she heads off back into the jungle. So much for the artistic integrity of Madame Non, if you want the pointy bottom, you have to go with sexy togaed enhanced breasts, if you follow the logic on then a crash is inevitable.
Spotting Art Forgery isn't hard. The more you know about the subject the easier it becomes. I don't know that much it is surprisingly easy to become acquainted, even rocket science isn't rocket science. It doesn't make sense to exhibit at an auction house if you really wanted it peer evaluated and the drunk gambler at the Ashmolean are you sure he will hold up, fine if we don't let him talk to anyone just don't let him drink anything you haven't prepared yourselves and the usual.
The second vase as Mistress Flavia puts it needs a bit of a clean up. To put it mildly. Ugly dirty thing. Clean-up in the Art History world covers a multitude of forging techniques. Which is my point aren't we getting a little precious about terming things forgeries and originals. We live in a world of impermanence. I does not exist, continually forming dissipating and reforming. A river in continual flow. When you turn on a light. If it were just one light why do you get a bill at the end of the month. We know that different photons arise and dissipate continually. We call it one light but we know it is not so. Of course the thing will get dirty if we don't repair and provide simple maintenance. Whaddya think happens to anything in your house after say twenty years, well exactly this is two thousand so we will have to be a little more proactive and assertive then shan't we.
The other obvious flaw, the setting is too busy. An anonymous poster assured Mistress Flavia of its genuiness and does not fear the glass comparison test she had suggested. Why do people trust to magic still. The composition of the Portland is restrained, there may be a mystery about the protagonists but has a classical form. In simple words not too many things in there and the ones there are clearly and simply expressed. The second vase, similar handle and design jam packed with figures. Someone got carried away. There is no real composition. The battle scene as Mistress Flavia tells the kids, tends to be Amazons and Greeks or Centaurs and Lapiths, the classical battle betweeen civilization and barbarism. You can't just take a still from the film the 300 and that does the same. Unless of course you really didn't understand the genre. Bit like cricket if you examined Wisden you could work out a pattern. You might guess correctly the rules. But you might be mistaken. More than zero and less than 100 usually but not always. Two last order batsmen with a high partnership not out is possible. Rule is if you assume the person knows about cricket and he gives you a 350 9 and 10 batsmen not out partnership you assume it's genuine difficilior lectio because a knowledgeable person would not make up something so unlikely. But it is also the error an amateur might make. That's why they call it an art form.
Vases don't just suddenly appear from nowhere and present themselves coquettishly like 2000 yr old slutty debutantes at Bonham's so as not to go for auction. It's an easy one really.
Although I like the whole new twist on time travel. In the past the sci-fi bods had been worrying about paradox. Can you kill your ancestor. And they solve that partially by parallel worlds. Now they are moving to the circularity hypothesis. The future creates the past. So the time machine must exist in order to prevent the untimely death of an ancestor of the time machine. Ask different questions I like it and it's very eastern in its underpinning. Mistress Flavia does quite a good skit explaining how Star Trek the new film is really good but would have been a whole lot better if they had let her write the script. A bit too painting by numbers though, but she is american and they do some fine work, all very seductive, the mcdonaldisation of all creativity. Schubert comes to mind. O level music theory is my limit but I have come to an age where I sort of understand the O level theory. He always break the rules when modulating. You modulate from the Dominant to the sub-dominant then back again. It's mathematical based on the respective lengths of strings and vibratory waves. It also sounds nice and neat and clean when you do it that way. Schuberts cheats. He modulates just off the sub-dominant, it sounds like a tease, it's not in itself discordant more, that sort of tingling feeling you get when you are really close you can taste it almost and he maintains the feeling for long enough so you don't get frustrated then he remodulates to the sub-dominant and you relax and enjoy the relief. But you can't do it by working out the numbers. Or if you can I should be very sad. Unless you were a mathematical genius and couldn't explain how you did it to any lesser being.
That's the problem with Flavia Gemina Metella Livia oh don't you think we haven't met before young lady. I have absolutely no interest in an illicit paramour relationship that exists only in the fevered imaginings of my own psychotic phantasies with anyone who actually makes money out of art, if they aren't poor and starving in some garret or perhaps a government security ward in the north eastern territories, well then you have no interest for me, not saying I'd refuse the custard so what would come with that, I am thinking something with a biscuit based but I don't want it to get too soggy it must have some crunch left else it will taste stale and maybe something tangy too because my tastes are getting a little grown-up. Who am I trying to kid I am gonna have to get some more pure ghee sweets after lunch. If losing weight is gonna cost this much I'm sticking with my buddha belly.
I am assuming the other nine vases are of better quality otherwise the businessman may start asking aggressive questions through his associate Mr Dominic about where all his investment has gone.
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