Violin Forum/Message Board

Michael Darnton · Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:11 pm Post subject:

It would be nice to see the real thing. I've seen quite a few "bench copies", and most of them have a common problem: even though the new maker copies every stroke of the gouge in the original, doing that stiffens up the result, so that it looks superficially good, but in the end misses in a way that makes it a much lesser production.

I have a hobby reading about art fraud. It isn't the big stuff like using the wrong colors that tips people off--it's the lack of the same type of casual competency that the original artist brought to the project. Fakes get caught because some expert gets a bad feeling about the overall product, that it doesn't have the same kind of easy flow of the original.

I don't like Picasso, myself, but this kind of thing proves how incredibly competent he was. It's just what he did on paper, but in light. Do you think a really good copyist would ever be able to achieve this level of "being" Picasso, because that's what you need if you're going to try to be someone else in a way that respects it properly: https://www.google.com/search?q=picasso+light+paintings
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kjb · Super Member Joined: 06 Feb 2013 Posts: 385

in my ignorance I thought picasso was a joke till I saw his early stuff, then it kind of dawned on me that he had been through the realist thing.

Michael Darnton · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 9:15 am Post subject:

kjb · Super Member Joined: 06 Feb 2013 Posts: 385

quite impressive stuff!

R Mac · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 12:11 pm Post subject:

Thank you, guys!

I guess the reason that I find close copies a bit creepy is because of my background. In the field of historical armor, fakes are a very big problem. Probably 50% of what comes up at auction is not what it appears to be. A tremendous amount of innocent 19thC "historisimus" stuff is now extremely hard to tell form the real thing. In addition, there were and still are people who make outright and intentional fakes.

As an armorer, I have been asked more than a few times to make fakes. Not in those words, mind you. They say "I don't want it to look new. Can you make it look old...really old", and "can you leave off your maker's mark" and "if I give you this 17th C backplate , can you turn it into 15thC one?"

I have always resisted these offers, and declined further work from those guys, but there are others......

But, perhaps the two fields, (armor and fiddles) do not bear comparison. Perhaps I am worried about a thing that is just not a problem here. I hope that folks who know about fiddle will inform me.

Mac

Michael Darnton · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 12:14 pm Post subject:

I think you have it just about exactly right.
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MANFIO · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:16 pm Post subject:

Very nice work R Mac!
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/7875988@N02/with/464604020/

R Mac · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:32 pm Post subject:

Thank you, Manfio!

Mac

R Mac · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 2:35 pm Post subject:

Michael Darnton · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:45 pm Post subject:

Traditionally the violin fringes are filled with people who prefer to get money the easy way, at the expense of others, by, uh, "upgrading" things. It sounds like the armor world has some of the same infestation.
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R Mac · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 5:31 pm Post subject:

Thank you for clarifying that, Michael. That's what I thought you meant, but I wasn't sure.

Mac