Tracey’s Reviews > Breaking van Gogh: Saint-Rémy, Forgery, and the $95 Million Fake at the Met > Status Update

"Van No"

no

The Van Gogh Museum should do a lot more

You gonna pay for that, boo?

"the artist must be dead"

I know. You've said this half a dozen times.

Yes, I know about the FOIA request. This was all covered early on in the book.

What on EARTH does Titanic have too do with anything??

A landscape painting of such size and majesty

Wait - isn't is just a forgery by "a third-rate artist"? But it's still majestic?

In 1901, the year when Emile Schuffenecker would have forged Vincent’s work, the forger no longer could have had access to Tanguy’s paints and the special, custom-made ground pigments he had created for van Gogh, since Tanguy died in 1894.

Well, artisans have such things as apprentices, or journals - is it not possible that, especially given VVG's new fame, Tanguy might have taught the making, or left recipes?

If Schuff had been an artist of great stature, he would have pushed on, just like van Gogh had pushed against his mental and physical ailments and lack of money, and produced a massive oeuvre.

I'm sorry, have you MET artists? Or even just ... people? Van Gogh used painting as therapy, and produced a lot. Some can't create when they're in certain states of mind or heart. Can't. People. Are. Different. Weird, huh?

Schuffenecker became so enthusiastic about his work that he decided to ‘improve’ on several other van Goghs that he felt were unfinished

*feels faint again*

the stunning works that he sent to Postmaster Roulin, who then rolled the still-damp canvases with the paint facing out, stacked four or five on top
of each other, inserted the rolls into shipping tubes, like architectural drawings...

I feel faint