Two Artists Vermeer's Forger

Two Artists Vermeer's Forger

Great Masters When Han Van Meegeren was a young child in Holland, he loved to draw. He enjoyed visiting museums and gazing at pictures by Dutch artists. The great painters Rembrandt and Vermeer had died more than 200 years earlier, but their paintings lived in Han's mind. Han longed to spend his life as an artist. If only he could paint like those great Dutch masters. If only he could spend his life mixing colors and creating beautiful pictures. If only. . .

Van Meegeren’s First Paintings In 1908, when he was nineteen, Han began studying architecture. He designed a few buildings, but he still loved art, painting, and the great Dutch masters. So he quit architecture and began to study art.

At first he did very well. He graduated from art school and was hired to teach other students. He even won some awards for his painting skill. As time went by, Han did not work as hard, and many critics did not like his work. They said his work followed the old masters too closely. They said he had no talent. The bad reviews that these critics wrote about Han made him sad and very angry.

Han could not stop thinking about the critics. He wrote angry letters, but that was not enough. There had to be some way to get back at them. He wanted to fool and embarrass them the way they had embarrassed him. An idea formed in Han's mind. What if he were to paint a picture and say the great artist Johannes Vermeer had painted it? Could he fool the critics into thinking his forgery was a genuine Vermeer painting? Would they praise it as they did Vermeer's other work? Han imagined what the critics would say when they found out he had painted it.

Copying a Master Han knew a great deal about art and life during the years that Vermeer was painting. He was a smart man, and he knew that a convincing art forgery required many things. The subjects of the painting had to look as if they were from the time period when Vermeer lived. The paint and canvas also had to appear old. But most of all, his painting technique had to reflect Vermeer's style.