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The Eye: An Insider's Memoir of Masterpieces, Money, and the Magnetism of Art
It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master art works. This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose métier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It’s also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance and surprising candor.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 20, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 1, 2020
My last review for the year. I really liked this intriguing book about the art connoisseurs called "Eyes." It was elegant and challenging. It was an adventure. What a fine last book of 2019!
Back to fixing New Year plates...
Happy 2020!
4 stars
Back to fixing New Year plates...
Happy 2020!
4 stars
August 27, 2018
‘An insider’s memoir of masterpieces, money, and the magnetism of Art’
Author Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting and director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Ajaccio, Corsica. He is the author of a book on the Florentine Renaissance painter Jacopo da Pontormo. This autobiography flavored historical treatise on how to approach and identify original art is translated into English by Frank Wynne.
The magic of Costamagna’s writing is present form his first pages of defining the Eye – ‘We talk about a person having an eye for something. I would like to talk about the fascinating and little-known profession of being an “Eye.” The term might sound curious and surprising, but it would be impossible to explain in other terms what certain art historians do on a daily basis. If what we might call the “traditional” art historian—like the musicologist or the literary historian—is content to draw on a rich library and a vast image bank, the task of what I call the “Eye” is to establish the authorship of paintings by sight alone. His task is to see. To do so, it is crucial that he have direct contact with each work of art. Traditional art historians, musicologists, and literary historians construct complex hypotheses and conduct extensive research in order to expound their theories in books. The Eye, on the other hand, relies on dramatic coups de théâtre. His task, in short, consists of proposing a name. Every day, he is presented with unknown works of art. All too often, they are disappointing. But sometimes he is struck by something extraordinary, something as clear and irrefutable as it is unexpected. He is an “Eye” in the same way that someone might be a “Nose” in the perfume industry. Noses identify scents and formulate perfumes. Eyes in the art world discover paintings and establish authorship at a glance. But there the comparison ends. If the great Noses are creators, artists sometimes capable of moments of genius, neither Eyes nor art historians generally can be considered to be creators. Eyes observe, and this observation triggers a process of memory that allows them to see. The process is not a form of genius but an acutely refined sense of analysis, an ability to break down the painting one is looking at into a collection of distinctive traits found in the diverse works of an artist. It is this skill that enables the Eye to make discoveries. Unlike discoveries in mathematics, chemistry, or physics—those of Newton or Einstein for example, which are the product of the genius of an individual—the discoveries made by the Eye have more in common with that of Christopher Columbus. No genius was required. Merely a spirit of adventure and a happy accident, the result of a wager that he could find a new shipping route between Europe and India. The Eye is a miniature Christopher Columbus who roves the world of art, alert to any surprises. But whereas Christopher Columbus did not know what he had stumbled upon, the Eye on the other hand knows immediately. Like an explorer rediscovering Atlantis and knowing it can be nothing else. When an Eye is confronted with a work whose authorship he alone can identify, we say he has made a discovery. The more important the artist, the more important the discovery; and should the work in question be a masterpiece, executed by one of the greatest painters in history yet overlooked for centuries, we might even say a “great discovery.” For an Eye, discoveries of this kind are very rare. He may search tenaciously for something, often without success, and then, without intending to, make unexpected discoveries. I confess that I have made at least one such discovery, completely by chance. It happened in October 2005, in the company of an Italian friend, Carlo Falciani, a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting like myself. We had been invited to Provence by an art collector in order to consider a painting that, though interesting, did not turn out to be the work we had hoped, and as so often is the case, the collector was left disappointed; in return, however, we made a discovery that would prove crucial to the history of art.’
As Wynee has summarized the author’s book, ‘It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master art works. This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose métier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It’s also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance and surprising candor.’
Rich in humor, intensely interesting, and educational, THE EYE places looking at art in focus, lampooning the many fakes in all manner of the art world ‘business’ and instead bring a fresh vantage to the meaning of fine art. Highly Recommended.
Author Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting and director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Ajaccio, Corsica. He is the author of a book on the Florentine Renaissance painter Jacopo da Pontormo. This autobiography flavored historical treatise on how to approach and identify original art is translated into English by Frank Wynne.
The magic of Costamagna’s writing is present form his first pages of defining the Eye – ‘We talk about a person having an eye for something. I would like to talk about the fascinating and little-known profession of being an “Eye.” The term might sound curious and surprising, but it would be impossible to explain in other terms what certain art historians do on a daily basis. If what we might call the “traditional” art historian—like the musicologist or the literary historian—is content to draw on a rich library and a vast image bank, the task of what I call the “Eye” is to establish the authorship of paintings by sight alone. His task is to see. To do so, it is crucial that he have direct contact with each work of art. Traditional art historians, musicologists, and literary historians construct complex hypotheses and conduct extensive research in order to expound their theories in books. The Eye, on the other hand, relies on dramatic coups de théâtre. His task, in short, consists of proposing a name. Every day, he is presented with unknown works of art. All too often, they are disappointing. But sometimes he is struck by something extraordinary, something as clear and irrefutable as it is unexpected. He is an “Eye” in the same way that someone might be a “Nose” in the perfume industry. Noses identify scents and formulate perfumes. Eyes in the art world discover paintings and establish authorship at a glance. But there the comparison ends. If the great Noses are creators, artists sometimes capable of moments of genius, neither Eyes nor art historians generally can be considered to be creators. Eyes observe, and this observation triggers a process of memory that allows them to see. The process is not a form of genius but an acutely refined sense of analysis, an ability to break down the painting one is looking at into a collection of distinctive traits found in the diverse works of an artist. It is this skill that enables the Eye to make discoveries. Unlike discoveries in mathematics, chemistry, or physics—those of Newton or Einstein for example, which are the product of the genius of an individual—the discoveries made by the Eye have more in common with that of Christopher Columbus. No genius was required. Merely a spirit of adventure and a happy accident, the result of a wager that he could find a new shipping route between Europe and India. The Eye is a miniature Christopher Columbus who roves the world of art, alert to any surprises. But whereas Christopher Columbus did not know what he had stumbled upon, the Eye on the other hand knows immediately. Like an explorer rediscovering Atlantis and knowing it can be nothing else. When an Eye is confronted with a work whose authorship he alone can identify, we say he has made a discovery. The more important the artist, the more important the discovery; and should the work in question be a masterpiece, executed by one of the greatest painters in history yet overlooked for centuries, we might even say a “great discovery.” For an Eye, discoveries of this kind are very rare. He may search tenaciously for something, often without success, and then, without intending to, make unexpected discoveries. I confess that I have made at least one such discovery, completely by chance. It happened in October 2005, in the company of an Italian friend, Carlo Falciani, a specialist in sixteenth-century Italian painting like myself. We had been invited to Provence by an art collector in order to consider a painting that, though interesting, did not turn out to be the work we had hoped, and as so often is the case, the collector was left disappointed; in return, however, we made a discovery that would prove crucial to the history of art.’
As Wynee has summarized the author’s book, ‘It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye lifts the veil on the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master art works. This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose métier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It’s also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance and surprising candor.’
Rich in humor, intensely interesting, and educational, THE EYE places looking at art in focus, lampooning the many fakes in all manner of the art world ‘business’ and instead bring a fresh vantage to the meaning of fine art. Highly Recommended.
January 28, 2019
"Like a good diagnostician, knowing by touch, experience, and instinct, more than by technology, whether there’s a disease, what it might be, and how it can be treated, an Eye—as such an investigator is known in the field—brings patience, experience, and intuitive skills to detection." -- Barbara A. MacAdam at ArtNews.
From his charmed childhood in the South of France (including weekly visits with the nanny to local museums and once being escorted off a first-class flight to Italy by Maria Callas who took a liking to the young Costamagna and his sister), to his friendship with some of the world’s great and quirky connoisseurs in Italy, this book is a delightful time-slip. And I agree with Ken Perenyi on the back of the book, that it is also a must-read for any lover of the Old Masters. Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in 16th century Italian painting and a museum director in Corsica. He is also a proud proponent of good old-fashioned connoisseurship. Perhaps this is an almost dirty word in today’s American art world, which is turning art history into a social science with a strong distrust of aesthetic intuitions and body know-how. Of course, the idea of a specialist gaining expertise by bodily looking at every picture he or she can manage to see in her area of specialization and creating a memory palace in the mind—which is a catalog of all that was seen so as to be able to just “know” if something is authentic or not seems less scientific than the technical, analytical and textual training that is received today.
And yet, this is a kind of “know-how” that has always been a part of the art world. In fact, you could even argue that it gets to the very point of looking at art in the first place-- of seeing.
Having a good eye is what they call it. And, this detached, de-contextualized objective seeing is straight out of Kant. To really see means to really look. And connoisseurs train their eyes for decades, focusing on one particulate period they would endeavor to see every example of the artist or genre as possible in order that their eyes would gain an expertise allowing them to recognize the hand, style palette of any given artist. To be trained as an “eye” was one of the hallmarks of an advanced degree in art history in days past.
I loved the book and thought it was a wonderful tribute to the aesthetic experience.
“We stand in front of a work. Boom, we suddenly, instinctively know the artist who painted it” (226).
I recommend reading this with the American Leonardo, by John Brewer, about a disputed Leonardo painting which led to a protracted court battle during America's Gilded Age. This was a time before scientific evidence was used since the technologies had not been developed yet. Identification and authentication depended on experts who could just know if a work was genuine or not and they did this by immersing themselves in the artists’ lives and seeing and really looking at everything they could. But by conflating art history and appraisal for money the field became deeply suspect. And indeed, like Martin Kemp, Costamagna explains at great length why it is crucial to differentiate between these two occupations and why money must not be involved in art history. (Art historians can accept work to write catalogues for example but not provide appraisals on university letter head or take money even to view work.)
Costamagna compares the eye to “a nose" in the perfume world. There are musical people who can “know” they are listening to Mozart with just the first note or can hum the entire ring cycle because the music is deeply inscribed in their minds. I think it is very sad the way we have turned away from memorizing poetry by art and cut arts and music in elementary schools. Children are being forced into so much hoop jumping but we really are losing our cultural sensitivity.
From his charmed childhood in the South of France (including weekly visits with the nanny to local museums and once being escorted off a first-class flight to Italy by Maria Callas who took a liking to the young Costamagna and his sister), to his friendship with some of the world’s great and quirky connoisseurs in Italy, this book is a delightful time-slip. And I agree with Ken Perenyi on the back of the book, that it is also a must-read for any lover of the Old Masters. Philippe Costamagna is a specialist in 16th century Italian painting and a museum director in Corsica. He is also a proud proponent of good old-fashioned connoisseurship. Perhaps this is an almost dirty word in today’s American art world, which is turning art history into a social science with a strong distrust of aesthetic intuitions and body know-how. Of course, the idea of a specialist gaining expertise by bodily looking at every picture he or she can manage to see in her area of specialization and creating a memory palace in the mind—which is a catalog of all that was seen so as to be able to just “know” if something is authentic or not seems less scientific than the technical, analytical and textual training that is received today.
And yet, this is a kind of “know-how” that has always been a part of the art world. In fact, you could even argue that it gets to the very point of looking at art in the first place-- of seeing.
Having a good eye is what they call it. And, this detached, de-contextualized objective seeing is straight out of Kant. To really see means to really look. And connoisseurs train their eyes for decades, focusing on one particulate period they would endeavor to see every example of the artist or genre as possible in order that their eyes would gain an expertise allowing them to recognize the hand, style palette of any given artist. To be trained as an “eye” was one of the hallmarks of an advanced degree in art history in days past.
I loved the book and thought it was a wonderful tribute to the aesthetic experience.
“We stand in front of a work. Boom, we suddenly, instinctively know the artist who painted it” (226).
I recommend reading this with the American Leonardo, by John Brewer, about a disputed Leonardo painting which led to a protracted court battle during America's Gilded Age. This was a time before scientific evidence was used since the technologies had not been developed yet. Identification and authentication depended on experts who could just know if a work was genuine or not and they did this by immersing themselves in the artists’ lives and seeing and really looking at everything they could. But by conflating art history and appraisal for money the field became deeply suspect. And indeed, like Martin Kemp, Costamagna explains at great length why it is crucial to differentiate between these two occupations and why money must not be involved in art history. (Art historians can accept work to write catalogues for example but not provide appraisals on university letter head or take money even to view work.)
Costamagna compares the eye to “a nose" in the perfume world. There are musical people who can “know” they are listening to Mozart with just the first note or can hum the entire ring cycle because the music is deeply inscribed in their minds. I think it is very sad the way we have turned away from memorizing poetry by art and cut arts and music in elementary schools. Children are being forced into so much hoop jumping but we really are losing our cultural sensitivity.
March 27, 2020
Se in profumeria ci sono i nasi, come ricorda lo storico dell’arte Philippe Costamagna in questo saggio autobiografico, in materia di arti figurative, soprattutto di pittura, ci sono gli occhi, con funzioni però diverse: non creative, bensì storico-stilistiche, finalizzate, in primo luogo, all’attribuzione delle opere non autografe a un autore o almeno a una scuola. Io, nella mia ingenuità di letterato quasi digiuno di studî artistici, credevo che l’attribuzionismo fosse una pratica insegnata e comune anche nel resto del mondo; invece Costamagna, ch’è francese, spiega qui che si tratta d’una gloria tutta italiana, tant’è che gli stranieri desiderosi di apprendere quest’arte si devono specializzare nel nostro paese, benché uno degli antesignani più celebri sia Bernard Berenson, che italiano non era, pur avendo passato quasi l’intera vita qui da noi. Ad ogni modo, l’occhio deve possedere doti naturali di sensibilità e d’osservazione, tipiche anche di fotografi o addetti a varî aspetti della moda, che la cultura e l’esercizio vengono ad affinare oltremodo, ma con ogni probabilità non possono formare in chi non le possieda già in potenza: infatti esistono molti storici dell’arte perfettamente incapaci di dar prova di sé in questo campo. Il libro è molto piacevole, ricco di aneddoti ricavati dall’esperienza di Costamagna o riguardanti personaggi famosi, come Berenson e Longhi, da lui conosciuti solo attraverso i resoconti di studiosi più anziani, o, come Federico Zeri, conosciuti direttamente. Leggere queste pagine farebbe molto bene a tante persone fuorviate da certo giornalismo ebete, avvezzo ad occuparsi dell’argomento esclusivamente quando si tratti di notizie dirompenti, come le scoperte del crocifisso “di Michelangelo” (molto probabilmente non suo), dei disegni “di Caravaggio” (certamente non suoi, ma, come quasi subito emerse, almeno in parte di mano del suo maestro Simone Peterzano) e, in un campo parzialmente diverso, del cosiddetto papiro di Artemidoro: d’altronde le patacche d’ogni genere attraggono la stampa cialtrona (o semplicemente ignorante) a guisa di carta moschicida. Quasi tutto il lavoro in questo settore, tuttavia, avviene in fogge molto più serie, e soprattutto silenziose: in effetti non si presterebbe punto ai titoli cubitali la scoperta fatta dall’autore di questo libro, e raccontata in esordio, d’un dipinto del Bronzino che si riteneva perduto; e meno ancora vi si presterebbero l’attribuzione d’un muscoloso quadro mitologico a Baccio Bandinelli, d’una piccola scena di martirio annuvolata e selvosa al Mastelletta o d’una natura morta con una spinetta, violini e tiorbe a Evaristo Baschenis: ma l’opera fruttuosa e duratura di questo tipo di storico dell’arte sta proprio in tale lavorio incomprensibile ai profani, oscuro ma prezioso per il progresso conoscitivo. Costamagna peraltro non nasconde il rischio evidente che comporta l’esperienza in questa materia: la contiguità quasi necessaria e inevitabile coi mercanti d’arte, e gli effetti che sul mercato d’un certo autore o d’una certa opera possono esercitare attribuzioni a questo o quel maestro; anche su ciò esiste un’istruttiva e abbondante aneddotica. Costamagna è bravissimo nel dar conto del suo lavoro, e l’unico difetto del libro, a conti fatti, è che sia troppo corto: ciò che n’emerge ad ogni modo è che anche in questa materia, come in molte altre, quello ch’è stato fatto nell’ultimo secolo e mezzo circa è una minima quota di ciò che ancora resta da fare, setacciando fondi di musei, collezioni private, chiese di provincia: i giovani studiosi e quelli del futuro ne avranno di che riempire un’intera vita per chi sa quanti secoli.
October 30, 2024
on one hand, sure, im an art historian, im quite good at attribution and i think i have what mr philippe calls "the eye". my ego got sufficiently patted on the back as he was talking about art history as a calling and how you need to start training your attribution skills as a child, otherwise you'll never reach an actually good level (and i agree). at the same time, attribution just based on "eye" is a fickle thing, and he seems to not trust scientific evidence whatsoever. as a person who had a strong obsession with the carbon dating method as a kid (ugh i love it to this day) i cannot disagree more. also, he's so annoying about other professions within art history and how they're all inferior to his. idk dude perhaps some of us 1. need money 2. like museums 3. want our life's work to be than just scratching your chin and being like hmmmmmm yeah thats rembrandt. i mean thats cool as well. but it would not be enough for me
also even though i am an art historian and i really am into all this stuff it was a slog to get through even for me. so i cannot imagine the torture mr philippe would inflict on someone who is not intimately acquianted with pontormo. also (last also) this is not a fucking memoir! it was just 3h of philippe masturbating about his profession and how good he is at. and like who amongst us doesnt like to this sometime. but why did i have to be an intellectually cuckolded witness of this debauchery, you know?
also even though i am an art historian and i really am into all this stuff it was a slog to get through even for me. so i cannot imagine the torture mr philippe would inflict on someone who is not intimately acquianted with pontormo. also (last also) this is not a fucking memoir! it was just 3h of philippe masturbating about his profession and how good he is at. and like who amongst us doesnt like to this sometime. but why did i have to be an intellectually cuckolded witness of this debauchery, you know?
October 14, 2025
2 stars for the book plus one star for the anecdotes about paintings' attributions.
The book itself would have been better were it a more conventional memoir, I thought. The way it is written, trying to show what an eye is, there happened to be a bit too much self-aggrandisement. And there is so much name dropping, I was lucky to have read The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr before this one which helped to not get lost among all the people mentioned.
The book itself would have been better were it a more conventional memoir, I thought. The way it is written, trying to show what an eye is, there happened to be a bit too much self-aggrandisement. And there is so much name dropping, I was lucky to have read The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr before this one which helped to not get lost among all the people mentioned.
April 28, 2020
Gorgeous
What a great understanding of how to appreciate art this book gives, I doubt most understand that those who understand works are students of multiple disciplines. I love this book
What a great understanding of how to appreciate art this book gives, I doubt most understand that those who understand works are students of multiple disciplines. I love this book
September 1, 2019
Definitely for art history geeks only.
Philippe Costamagna was raised in a cultured household, steeped in art from childhood. It is his passion, his "bliss," and he follows that road - lucky Philippe. This is the most enjoyable part of his memoir: he wades into the art history profession, finding mentors and projects that lead him through hallowed halls of collections and museums across Europe: studying, looking, examining, analyzing, grouping, categorizing, and - above all - seeing. (An education I dreamed of as a callow youth...) He comes to champion the supremacy of the "Eye": the connoisseur who can identify and authenticate a painting's creator simply by what he sees as he stands before it. He is not exactly dismissive of modern techniques like x-rays and spectrography, but feels they serve only to support what the Eye sees; similarly, though he has paid his dues in archives tracing dusty receipts and logs to document an object's life from creation through sales, storage, and ownership, that too is always subservient to the Eye's conclusion. I suspect he would subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" theory: a snap judgement produced in a moment without conscious thought, but actually based on years of learning that coalesce to cry "Bronzino!" based on how a toenail is painted. Costamagna explicitly counts himself among the Eyes, and given the stature of those who have worked with him, he must be pretty damn good. But... there are many examples of those Eyes who have been outrageously wrong, often for pecuniary reasons. He is rather protective of the legendary art historian Bernard Berenson, whose Eye has since been undermined by his eager grasp of the dollars waved by ambitious collectors frantic for his seal of approval. Modris Ekstein's fascinating Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age is a terrific tale of Eyes battling it out in a courtroom, and making fools of themselves.
It's all a bit too much ego, confidence tipping into arrogance. My usual complaint about the lack of illustrations applies here: almost the only picture in a book about looking at paintings is a poor black and white photo of the Bronzino Crucifixion - this from a man who refuses to authenticate any picture from a photograph. Fire up the iPad, reader, so you can see what he's talking about. The lengthy section on historical Eyes tried my patience. If I ever find myself in Corsica, I would absolutely visit the museum in Ajaccio that Costamagna currently directs. But this sort-of memoir doesn't quite fill the plate, and you have to be pretty hungry to sit down to it.
Philippe Costamagna was raised in a cultured household, steeped in art from childhood. It is his passion, his "bliss," and he follows that road - lucky Philippe. This is the most enjoyable part of his memoir: he wades into the art history profession, finding mentors and projects that lead him through hallowed halls of collections and museums across Europe: studying, looking, examining, analyzing, grouping, categorizing, and - above all - seeing. (An education I dreamed of as a callow youth...) He comes to champion the supremacy of the "Eye": the connoisseur who can identify and authenticate a painting's creator simply by what he sees as he stands before it. He is not exactly dismissive of modern techniques like x-rays and spectrography, but feels they serve only to support what the Eye sees; similarly, though he has paid his dues in archives tracing dusty receipts and logs to document an object's life from creation through sales, storage, and ownership, that too is always subservient to the Eye's conclusion. I suspect he would subscribe to Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink" theory: a snap judgement produced in a moment without conscious thought, but actually based on years of learning that coalesce to cry "Bronzino!" based on how a toenail is painted. Costamagna explicitly counts himself among the Eyes, and given the stature of those who have worked with him, he must be pretty damn good. But... there are many examples of those Eyes who have been outrageously wrong, often for pecuniary reasons. He is rather protective of the legendary art historian Bernard Berenson, whose Eye has since been undermined by his eager grasp of the dollars waved by ambitious collectors frantic for his seal of approval. Modris Ekstein's fascinating Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age is a terrific tale of Eyes battling it out in a courtroom, and making fools of themselves.
It's all a bit too much ego, confidence tipping into arrogance. My usual complaint about the lack of illustrations applies here: almost the only picture in a book about looking at paintings is a poor black and white photo of the Bronzino Crucifixion - this from a man who refuses to authenticate any picture from a photograph. Fire up the iPad, reader, so you can see what he's talking about. The lengthy section on historical Eyes tried my patience. If I ever find myself in Corsica, I would absolutely visit the museum in Ajaccio that Costamagna currently directs. But this sort-of memoir doesn't quite fill the plate, and you have to be pretty hungry to sit down to it.
August 17, 2023
Fascinating!
"The Eye, by going to where the art is, increases his knowledge daily."
"An Eye must discover pictures that others don’t know about; that is what establishes their reputation."
"My compulsive travels to roam museums were a mark of my vocation."
"It must be understood that the effects of the passage of time on a painting are not a scandal but a part of its life."
"A fake always leaves an unpleasant impression, a feeling of discomfort."
"Eyes have had a choppy ride through history, faced with political or commercial compromises, some more problematic than others, each one making his own mark on the history of the discipline. Every aspiring Eye must deal with them and their legacy in some way."
"The element that must be obtained artificially is the aging of the paint layer. In order to give the illusion of age, they cook their pieces in ovens, and the resulting pattern of cracks is strangely uniform, compared to the one that would be produced over time. The impression that the craquelure is too regular often follows the feeling of discomfort from the first look at the painting and tends to confirm the suspicion of forgery. Another recurring error in fakes is the color."
I started this book then I got distracted by others and life so it stayed on my table for some time as a decoration but then, because I'm a mood reader, I had this need for something about art, so I restarted this book and I took my time in reading it for I learnt so many things about being an EYE and an art's historians/experts.
"The Eye, by going to where the art is, increases his knowledge daily."
"An Eye must discover pictures that others don’t know about; that is what establishes their reputation."
"My compulsive travels to roam museums were a mark of my vocation."
"It must be understood that the effects of the passage of time on a painting are not a scandal but a part of its life."
"A fake always leaves an unpleasant impression, a feeling of discomfort."
"Eyes have had a choppy ride through history, faced with political or commercial compromises, some more problematic than others, each one making his own mark on the history of the discipline. Every aspiring Eye must deal with them and their legacy in some way."
"The element that must be obtained artificially is the aging of the paint layer. In order to give the illusion of age, they cook their pieces in ovens, and the resulting pattern of cracks is strangely uniform, compared to the one that would be produced over time. The impression that the craquelure is too regular often follows the feeling of discomfort from the first look at the painting and tends to confirm the suspicion of forgery. Another recurring error in fakes is the color."
I started this book then I got distracted by others and life so it stayed on my table for some time as a decoration but then, because I'm a mood reader, I had this need for something about art, so I restarted this book and I took my time in reading it for I learnt so many things about being an EYE and an art's historians/experts.
January 15, 2021
The author has defined a skill whose qualities he feels he is alone in having, and then spends a good amount of the book describing how this skill is indescribably important. Nontheless and interesting insight into a fascinating world.
June 4, 2020
Read on audio by Robertson Dean, interesting book on evaluating art.
February 7, 2021
Fascinating.
June 9, 2021
Very interesting book about an Art Historian who is an "eye".
If this topic interests you, it's a must read!
If this topic interests you, it's a must read!
November 22, 2024
Very personal yet insightful perspective on the world of art and connoisseurship.
Want to read
November 2, 2025New York Public Library
July 2, 2016
Ouvrage passionnant qui trace les éléments fondateurs d'un métier peu connu (ou mal connu), celui d'œil. Au-delà de cette curieuse et incroyable profession, l'auteur nous initie à l'étude de l'art, en particulier à travers les grands (et petits) peintres italiens du XVe et XVIe siècles, mais aussi ceux qui l'ont théorisé (Berenson, Longhi ou Zeri, pour ne citer que les principaux). Une lecture agréable grâce à une écriture accessible à tous. Merci monsieur Costamagna !
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