Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece | Hacker News Reader

Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece

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43 pointsVigier29 comments

Once upon a time, I worked on behalf of a few luxury goods makers, tracking down counterfeit versions of their items, and getting the obvious and less obvious fakes removed before anyone could waste money (and their perception of the brand) on them.

A few times, I would be invited to company HQ and introduced to the product, have the stitching and design details explained to me, a lay humble scruffy programmer. I can still spot a quality handbag from miles away because of it.

The work itself was _fascinating_ to me, and spotting fakes was... obvious but only once you knew _why_ it was obvious. A couple of examples:

* (easiest) Does brand X make phone covers? Well, probably not because that would make them look cheap and accessible to all, and that's _very much not_ the point of being a luxury goods house.

* (... tricker) Are there _any_ loose stitches visible, or imperfections of any kind? If I had been thinking logically, this wouldn't be an issue. But, like the buyers, I hadn't been, and I hadn't realised that -of course- luxury goods are hand checked by many people, many times over, because... again, that's the whole point of being a luxury goods house.

While there was plenty to learn about mismatched parts - plus the joy of independent designers creating new and sometimes quite brilliantly designed new items (always a shame, some of them knew the brand styles staggeringly well) - looking at the zips that match a leather which match so-and-so design element, the examples above covered the majority of counterfeit items by far. Can't imagine it's changed that much in the meantime.

I’m not an expert but it’s incredible with guitars as well - the craftsmanship when comparing something off an assembly line versus a true luthier crafted instrument. There are visual clues easy to spot like the tuning pegs, but upon closer inspection of the fretboards the material used for inlays is an indication, and then the intricacy of fitment. With something like an acoustic guitar - Pimentel versus an off the rack Breedlove, the sound will be staggeringly different and you’ll understand where the extra $9,000 came from.

There are of course forgeries in music instruments of high value - violins - and the ugly reality that Chibsons exist and are pieces of shit because they’re produced by a culture with serious fucking problems relating to creativity and freedom of expression and individuality.

There is a market for Chibsons—not everyone is willing to spend on expensive instruments.

As a beginner, I’m too much of a cheapskate to drop $9,000 on a musical instrument. I can’t even play properly or distinguish the right tones yet.

I agree with you that, at my current skill level, my ability to express creativity and individuality is limited. But I’m okay with that. For now, I just want to enjoy learning to play the music I love. I’ll consider upgrading once my skills improve.

I am not learning guitar.

> As a beginner, I’m too much of a cheapskate to drop $9,000 on a musical instrument.

There is a wide range of choices before you reach $9K. If I'm being honest, $9K for an electric is absurd.

For beginners at guitar, this is a great time. Thanks to CNC machines, guitars at low price points are ridiculously consistent. Yes, they're cheap, but they are precisely cheap. You pretty much get exactly the same level of guitar at the price point no matter whether it was manufactured 6 months ago, today, or 6 months from now.

The downside is that you don't find the bargain "stage queen" where all the stars lined up that day to make a much better guitar than it should have been. The upside is that you get way, way, way fewer absolute dogs that are unsalvageable.

Your logic is terrible and Chibsons are terrible instruments - usually they are unplayable. They are SHIT simply built for making a cheap revenue through infringement.

A Korean made Agile for $300 is an actually playable instrument and not garbage. You don’t play so I don’t expect you to understand. Let’s just put it in a method you can understand - Chibson is the equivalent of somebody using your picture and LinkedIn profile to apply and get hired for a job. Do you extend your excuses to that scenario?

> Pimentel versus an off the rack Breedlove, the sound will be staggeringly

Not sure about acoustic guitars specifically but for electrics there's plenty of evidence that the magic is mostly in the hands (and the brains) of the player.

Plenty of yt videos on that subject blind trials and stuff as well as stars playing regular or cheap kits.

For a nylon string classical, the sound must come from the wood and the construction--there is nothing else to generate the sound. There is a balance between tone, volume, and tension that different guitar makers choose (for example, flamenco guitar builders generally choose to make the attack and decay quick relative to a "standard" classical guitar--you can see this in the waveforms on an oscilloscope if you so choose) .

And, sure, a master player can make any guitar sound good, but it's a lot easier for an amateur to make a nice guitar sound good.

Electrics are a totally different story. It's pretty much all about pickups, strings, and the distance between the two. Wood is almost completely irrelevant.

I am sure about acoustic guitars and that’s why I specifically made that reference. There are situations with electrics as well - a standard Stratocaster versus a John Mayer PRS actually is noticeable to people who are at a level to understand these things.

Basically a lot of critique on my post boils down to “well I think and feel this” with no grounding whatsoever. I’ve seen those YouTube videos and they are entertaining but substantively shit from a professional musician standpoint.

I don’t wander into Ruby threads telling people JavaScript or Python is better.

Satch playing Surfing with the Alien on a cheap strat (with a cheapo effect processor):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D9v5e1TTwts

Audio's not ideal, but it's still him with his tone and recognizably so!

Sure Strats and, sayy, Les Pauls are noticeably different but you can still play heavy stuff on a strat with minimal adjustments (Yngwie Malmsteen for one).

I believe it was Rick Beato interviewing Nuno B: Nuno once tried Eddie VH's rig, and guitar. Nuno said he sounded like himself, and definitely did not sound like Eddie.

>because they’re produced by a culture with serious fucking problems relating to creativity and freedom of expression and individuality.

Somebody's buying them, though.

The most difficult fakes are those illicitly made by the same factory that makes the genuine product (under license). In that sense, they are not even fakes but the license holder doesn’t see any of the profit.

Yeah that’s a fun one to solve.

On the plus side, the factory faces a problem as the consequences of being caught are severe. They’ll often take mitigating action to try and obfuscate the source, such as using slightly different materials so eg leather stock can’t be traced. When I was in the industry, it’d be unusual for a factory to produce the exact same thing without _any_ attempt to hide.

If you’ve ever seen a dvd with the various identifiers sanded off, now you know why :)

If anyone wants to watch one of me and my teens' favorite documentaries ever, check out the story of art forger Mark Landis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Landis), named "Art and Craft" (https://artandcraftfilm.com/).

It's very strange and a bit sad but gripping.

"I'm addicted to philanthropy." --Mark Landis

Wow, fascinating!

It's kinda funny in a way. If you believe it is real, does it matter if it is a fake? If the only difference is titanium in the paint, does that make the actual painting better or worse?

Art is like cryptocurrency. It's valuable because it's scarce, not because it has intrinsic worth or beauty.

If that were the case, why do museums exist, according to you?

As an opportunity to look at scarce things, that we are told are beautiful or interesting?

If the only reason you enjoy art is because someone else tells you it's beautiful, then sure, maybe it's not for you.

I agree to a great extent, especially regarding copies. Why don't people just have top-notch copies of masterpieces made for their walls? Status? You look cheap? (Possibly, the undistinguishable works in the article are of rare quality, and others are missing what makes the masterpieces special.)

But to the degree art is an individual's self-expression, then the fake is what you want. It's not giving you insight into and empathy with a person. You might as well be in love with an AI.

> It's not giving you insight into and empathy with a person

I'm interested in the beauty of the painting.

Right, that was one of the possibilities I intended in the GP. So why not get good copies made of masterworks? I've thought seriously about it. I sort of tried one. One challenge is that what makes great art exceptionally beautiful is in the 0.0..01% - it's the 99.99/0.01 rule of art. Can an artist making copies reproduce that, even following the genius's completed idea? (Also, they probably won't be working from the original.)

I am also going to present an idea for something in addition:

The beauty of almost anything is mostly emotional appeal. That song I love, the person I'm attracted to, the architecturally amazing building I see on my commute every day - they have an emotional effect. Arguably, what else is 'beauty' in our minds? What else is the effect of the harmony of certain sets of colors or shapes or representations of life, or the disharmony of others?

In much artwork, we can find a deeper emotional connection when we choose to, seeing as a product of the creator's mind and soul, one work a result of a lifetime of being human, maybe decades of exploration as an artist as well as expert skill and knowledge development, and the weeks / months / or more put into that particular vision. And we get to stand there and stare at it, at them, delving into their mind and soul. When else can we do that; when else does someone express something so deep so openly - and with such expertise - and we can examine it?

There are two ways to look at art. First is for you personally to have something you enjoy to look at. Second is to have sonething that impresses others (perhaps a buyer.)

Owning a beautiful Van Gough is a pleasure to look at. Frankly if it visually fools an expert then it completely fulfill goal 1.

But if you're trying to impress others, or a buyer, then the point is not the painting itself, but rather the status it imbues. To those that value status, faked status is the worst offense.

Of course if the point is to show "I can afford to spend x million on a painting ", and you did, then forgery or not presumably you've achieved the goal.

Once you get beyond "pretty picture" the art world is completely arbitrary.

I've hung prints on the walls, but they aren't as nice as an actual painting, as the paint gives it a glow and 3D look that a flat print cannot match.

I'd be happy hanging up worthless fakes that it takes an expert to discern from original great art.

My computer "wallpaper" throws up scans of great works of art. Unfortunately, it is bafflingly hard to find good scans of that stuff. It's all public domain, what's the problem?

Indeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_for_Fake

I agree that it doesn't matter to many people. If the image is great, then it's great art. End of story.

But when it comes to history, fake art can pollute our knowledge of the painter and the history. While many fakes use the same typical subjects, imagine that a faker created a canvas with a different story. If this story gets injected into the history, everyone's knowledge of the painter is corrupted.

True story. When I was a kid I worked in an auction house that sold many paintings. Painting of ships flying the American flag were very highly sought after. It was an open secret that paintings flying any other flag would be bought and the flag replaced by an American one by an ‘art restorer’. These were then sold at great profit.

If the fake has been a great art effort… wouldn’t that be an art piece by itself? What I mean by this is that the Roman copies of Greek statues are seen as “art” today. Is just a matter of perspective or legality?

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