The Last Vermeer — Deception is a fine art

When a STARZ free trial offer popped up when browsing Amazon Prime, I immediately signed up even though I watched almost all of the good movies in their collection. On further digging, I stumbled upon 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘳 and since the film featured Guy Pearce I became interested and started watching it. The film is loosely based on Jonathan Lopez’s book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘯 𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘴 and follows the story of Han van Meegeren who at one time was considered to be the most popular man in Holland behind the Prime Minister. As a student of art history, I did know about Han van Meegeren and his escapades though I haven’t read this particular book. The movie mostly received positive reviews but didn’t make a dent at the box office. It is a fascinating story set in 1945’s post WWII Holland and the elements of art, nazis and court drama make it a potent cocktail.

Han van Meegeren was a dutch art dealer and a minor artist. When he was arrested and charged with treason, he was accused of selling a Johannes Vermeer’s painting titled 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 to the #2 Nazi himself, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. Since it was a Vermeer, it was considered a dutch national treasure. During his trial when he revealed that he didn’t exactly sell a Vermeer to Göring but an expert forgery, his trial became an evocative divining rod for the entire nation. He became a folk hero to the Dutch, never mind that he swindled millions from the art world by producing a panoply of forgeries. His masterful fakes adorned the walls of many a stately manor and prestigious museums around the world including the National Gallery in Washington, DC. The movie covers the travails of the Allied efforts in post war Europe to recover and redistribute stolen art, and how their investigations lead them to the doorstep of Han van Meegeren. If you want to know more about these commendable efforts of these Allied soldiers and their work on art preservation, you can read the excellent book 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘔𝘦𝘯 or watch the George Clooney film that was based on the same.

Right from his introduction shot, we surmise that Han is a preening hedonist whose expansive behavior and ​​convivial attitude towards the authorities leaves you with no doubt that he has some aces up his sleeve. When dealing with the cops, you can see him being in complete control of his emotions and the narrative itself. You see Han living large, his household brimming with food, wine, whiskey, cigars while the rest of the city and country are starving for basic rations where some even resorted to finding sustenance from tulip bulbs. In flashbacks, we see Han partying with the Nazi elite, maintaining a coven of well-paid prostitutes, living the bohemian dream while quietly accumulating an astonishing amount of real estate and wealth worth hundreds of millions all over Europe. Soon after his arrest, a courtroom drama ensues where theatrics and national pride prevail while actual law and culpability are brushed aside. Though the prosecution and judges want to nail Han’s head on their trophy wall, their treason case capitulates to Han’s hero-who-fooled-the-Nazis narrative. I will let you watch the film or read the book to understand the details of all the saber rattling and enjoy the show put on by Han, the charmer. Throughout the trial, Han maintains blithe self-confidence even when the case is not going his way, but his machinations win the day. The crux of the story is how Han bamboozled an entire generation of art critics, collectors and museum directors to produce a veritable buffet of renaissance masters’ forged paintings with an admirable bag of tricks and stratagems that fooled the most ardent art experts of the day. I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you if you want to watch the movie, but suffice it to say that the technical prowess of van Meegeren would’ve impressed a modern forensic expert. This part of the story reminded me of the excellent novel 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘝𝘦𝘯𝘶𝘴 by Michael Gruber, one of my all time favorite art mysteries.

Whenever we hear of artworks that were sold for millions of dollars (in today’s terms), we always wonder who determines the value of art? Who gets to define which artist is a master? These questions always roil in the minds of the general public. Let’s take the example of Jackson Pollock, whose painting titled №5 was last sold for $140 million. The reason I picked Pollock is because his artistic style of abstract expressionism is most difficult to comprehend to the art-industry outsiders. When looking at Pollock’s work (you can see some of them at the MoMA and The Met in New York), it will be utterly incomprehensible for some why anyone would pay that kind of money for these paintings. Pollock is one of those rare artists who became rich and famous in his own lifetime, and he has art critic Clement Greenberg to thank for that. Before Clement Greenberg took an interest in Pollock’s work and declared it to be “most original”, Pollock was a nobody, such is the power of an art critic. Some say Clement Greenberg single-handedly championed Abstract Expressionism and by extension Pollock. We can understand how critical approval and praise plays an important role in how an artwork is valued. Nowadays, the art auctions, galleries are also responsible for how art is valued, it is a highly manipulated market to say the least.

Going back to the film, it misses out a very important character in the story, that of Abraham Bredius, who was considered the foremost expert on renaissance masters in his day and his canon includes definite books and papers on Rembrandt, Vermeer, et al. His word was so revered that he was nicknamed ‘The Pope’. His stamp of approval on the “previously unknown” Vermeer painting of 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘶𝘴 enabled its sale to the Boymans museum in Rotterdam for around $4 million in today’s dollars. This attribution paved the way for more Vermeers that miraculously surfaced in Europe during WWII including the aforementioned 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 that was sold to Göring. Bredius was one of those art connoisseurs who spent their lifetime in the pursuit of understanding the renaissance masters and their techniques. How did a pundit like that get taken by a fake? To understand what happened with Bredius, we need to understand what psychologists call 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. Motivated reasoning is a phenomenon that leads us to use emotion based reasoning to produce justifications and outcomes that we most desire rather than the actual evidence and it seems to affect experts more than others. If you see any of Vermeer’s art including 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 or 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘬𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘥 or even the 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘵 and compare them to 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘶𝘴, even an untrained eye will notice the latter is of significantly lower quality and what’s more it’s missing Vermeer’s most famous light composition that is identifiable to even a novice. In fact it doesn’t look like any of the known Vermeers of that time. So, what really happened? Abraham Bredius, being the art historian/critic he was, nursed a pet theory that when Vermeer visited Italy (although there’s no historical account of that), he must’ve seen the paintings of Caravaggio (one of my favorite artists) and was influenced to paint a series of biblical themed paintings though not one has been found. Bredius spent his lifetime researching this topic, hoping to be the first one to discover the alleged biblical paintings of Vermeer. It is a secret fantasy of any art historian to discover a previously unknown work of a master hidden away in a basement or attic. I must confess that I nursed this pipe dream when I studied art history and used to scour antique stores and art auctions hoping for a miracle. Lots and lots of people ransacked old houses and mansions to chase this so-called “Rembrandts in the Attic” fairytale. When Bredius certified the 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘶𝘴 painting, he said though it doesn’t look anything like any other known Vermeer it most definitely the work of the master from Delft and every inch of it implores us to do so. To thoroughly deceive someone like Bredius, van Meegeren expertly created a biblical themed painting that has touches of Caravaggio and subtle hints at objects and elements from other Vermeer paintings, to put it another way, it was an accretion of all of Bredius’s suppositions. Bredius ate up the entire pot of lies because it deftly conforms to all his personal theories, and he succumbed to motivated reasoning and arrived at the erroneous conclusion.

There’s another psychological principle at play here called 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲. When the failed artist van Meegeren decided to stick it to the art world, he picked Bredius as his pawn. He not only appealed to Bredius’s ego by baiting with a discovery of the missing biblical series of Vermeer, he also picked a broker who would take the painting to Bredius claiming it to be a Vermeer and wanted further authentication. The broker also told Bredius that it belonged to a jewish family trying to flee from the fascist regime. Han even etched the painting with one of Vermeer’s famous hidden signatures. The choice for Bredius was either a Yes or No, and he found all the reasons to say Yes, in other words he was led down the treacherous path carefully laid down by Clever Han (pun intended). Although the concept of Choice Architecture (how choices are presented to you influences your decision) is as old as humanity, it was (re)introduced and defined by Richard Thaler in his book The Nudge. Choice Architecture also played a role by subtly influencing Bredius with the shape of a face here, texture of the bread there, thus priming the choice even before the decision was ever pronounced. Han, if not anything proves to be a charlatan whose insights into the human mind certainly impresses you. This particular ruse that it was a previously unattributed Vermeer (because no such art ever existed) was discovered made the art dealers, brokers look past the most sacrosanct of all art, “provenance”. Provenance is the documentation that authenticates a particular art piece. These documents outline details like the work’s creator, history, and appraisal value. Anyone who knows about art can tell you provenance is everything in art, without provenance, you got nothing.

The film does a great job of capturing all the drama surrounding the discovery of the painting, arrest, trial and aftermath. Co-written by 𝘐𝘳𝘰𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘯 writers Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby and John Orloff, the film does take some cinematic liberties regarding the actual characters, adding some subplots, one of them being how the dutch resistance had to sacrifice their personal lives to spy on Nazis and fight them. The film also artfully portrays the trials and tribulations of not just jews but dutch gentiles who had to deal with a nation raging for blood of traitors and public firing squads executing any suspected nazi sympathizers was a daily occurance at every decrepit street corner. The mirthless context and the mood of the zeitgeist is perfectly reflected in the film and it tells us why a charming crook like van Meegeren became the national story and a hero of the people. Amid the troubling waters of self suspicion and guilt, there emerged a hero, a pirate, a buccaneer who swindled the most hated nazi and became rich in the process. An oft-told and amusing anecdote is recounted in the film’s end credits, when Göring (who was waiting for his trial at the Nuremberg) was told that his beloved Vermeer was a forgery, the jail authorities said that “he looked as if for the first time he had discovered there was evil in the world”.

The editing could’ve been crisper, maybe because I know the premise and most of the postwar Europe stories, I noticed unnecessary details, but for someone who has never seen movies like 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘳’𝘴 𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵 or 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘔𝘦𝘯, it might not appear that way. That said, Guy Pearce with his over-the-top antics nails Han van Meegeren’s character and Claes Bang as Pillar shines. The rest of the cast look like they were minted straight out of central casting so their performance is adequate. The women play very little role in the proceedings, while van Meegeren’s wife makes an appearance in the court, other than her statuesque beauty, her testimony hardly leaves an impression. Pillar’s own subplot involving his wife, family and his secretary don’t really do much to the main plot, so the writing fails to make us care for these people.

The film is interestingly directed by Dan Friedkin who is a billionaire in his own right (look him up), so I won’t be surprised if he owned a Vermeer or two ;) This is Friedkin’s first directorial venture though he produced multiple films before. The color palette and the camera work are very predictable, resorting to a gray/yellowish tint to show us WWII Europe, while the background score tries to elevate the mood, mostly it falls flat. The production design is a silver lining in this otherwise dull-looking film. In some scenes, when van Meegeren paints, the camera never leaves his hands and face, capturing Guy Pearce producing masterful brush strokes so effortlessly. You would be interested to know that the production designers actually had the canvas pre-painted and covered it with a thin layer of coating, so when Guy Pearce appears to be painting, he is simply rubbing away the coating with alcohol laced brush. This fascinating technique left me in awe and a new respect for filmmaking. Leaving the technical details aside, the story of Han van Meegeren has enough peaks and valleys to satiate any drama/art lover, I don’t want to give away the twist but suffice it to say that Motivated Reasoning not only fooled the art expert Bredius, but the entire nation of Holland by the end. I will let you watch the film to enjoy the spectacle.

Written in January 2022