Nazis, Art, and Forgery - Philosophy Tube

[@fl00fydragon]

I'd argue that it gave them value.
Having a piece of art that trolled the nazis and scammed them out of millions is poetic by nature.

[@Brian0033]

Lets say that a lost play is legitimately discovered, and all the experts read it and say that based on the language and the structure this is definitely a play done by Shakesphere. And its a wonderful play, at the level of Hamlet, and it gets preformed and studied and accepted into the literary canon. Later on, historical evidence is discovered that this was written by a guy named Bob. Bob was not trying to pass his work off as Shakesphere, it was just taken that way by accident. Does this play lose value in Dutton's eyes?
Taking it one step forward, lets say that Bob wrote his play first, and it turns out that Shakesphere stole his style and is only now getting caught hundreds of years latter. Is the work of Shakesphere that has held this cultural position for centuries now lessened somehow?

[@Zennistrad1]

I think one thing that you have to consider is the fact that, several centuries down the line, we might not even know who created any individual work of art. If a work of art outlasts all memory and record of its creator, would it really matter at all if it turned out to be a forgery? _Could_ it even be considered a forgery?

[@stitchedwithcolor]

Certainly it has been noted that the concept of forgery itself encompasses several levels of authenticity. A painting might be created by a student under the supervision of a well known artist, particularly with renaissance artists, but not personally painted by the artist xyrself; is that still something the artist can claim? Then you've got works that were created during the artist's lifetime but without any direct influence of the artist; is that forgery or just mis-attributed art?
I recall some questions coming up, years ago, about the relative value of some of DeKooning's later works, since it's known that he suffered from Alzheimer's when he painted them and that his artistic style changed significantly in that period. It's not the same issue, but it feels related.

[@georgeparkins777]

@@stitchedwithcolor I always found the debate over, for instance, whether certain paintings were Pietr Bruegel the Elder's or copies of his lost originals by his son, Pietr the Younger, to be rather dry and pointless. I can stand a work of art being a collaboration, if it is good, and a well-made copy is just another kind of collaboration.
As a sidebar, I think good translation of a foreign work into the local language is art on the part of the author and on the part of the translator also. But I don't think it is merely one person's artistry *plus* another person's artistry. One is transformative of the other; something has been created that neither can individually claim.
Now, is an imperfect copy transformative? Is a forgery that is a composite of multiple works transformative?

[@rowanwaller5563]

I am a visual artist and often write essays surrounding art and visual culture, and a few years ago I wrote a small essay concerning this topic (and also whether conceptual art has an economic value). My stance is that when purchasing a work of art, you are not just paying for the value of its raw components and the value of the labour taken to create the artwork (such as time spent painting, time spent assembling etc) but in making art there is labour required before its conception, usually some form of lived experience. This applies more to modern artwork than, say, renaissance works, as modernist and post-modernist works usually concern ideas of self and socio-political concepts. Anselm Kiefer's work contains themes concerning Nazi rule, so when valuing his paintings, not only would you consider the raw materials cost and the labour taken to paint it, his lived experiences also contribute to the labour in making the painting. If someone created an exact replica of his work, because they wouldn't have his lived experiences in creating the work or have taken the labour and time to conceptualise the work, it shouldn't and doesn't have the same value. Assuming that a forgery and an original have the same value does imply an erasure of the value of the labour the original artist has taken pre-construction. It cheapens the conceptualising and planning processes and the work they require.

[@BethDiane]

We have this originality fetish. You not only have to meet the old techniques but discard them and create new ones. As a composer, I often try to work within be a pre-existing tradition, and it can be strange.

[@manifold.curiosity]

This is a fascinating video. I haven't come across these ideas before but it seems I'm with Lessing. Aesthetic value exists completely independent of any context, or historical properties. I mean, one can stumble across a painting they cannot identify and be just as moved as if they were supplied with all the particulars of the artist and his work. Context may enhance aesthetic value for some, but it is not latent within the artwork and is therefore not a necessary element of aesthetic response. Forgery or not, it don't matter one bit.

[@Phlabberghost]

The Manifold Curiosity Doesn't what you're saying imply that, for example, the development of perspective in art can be divorced from the context in which that development took place? What about Brunelleschi? Wouldn't it change the aesthetic value of his work if he had been a contemporary of Euclid, or living in 15th century South America? Don't get me wrong, I agree with your preference for Lessing, but it seems to me that your argument depends upon assuming beforehand that he is correct. This, I think, is at least in part due to the way that the video implies he must be right by using suggestive language (like Olli saying that Lessing is opposed to snobbishness). But again, I agree, I prefer Lessing here, but not on the basis that context is separable from the work of art, as, to me, seems clear from my example. A more elegant example would be the problem of translation, or of foreignness. If I attempt to read The Tale of Genji in the original Chinese, of course the aesthetic value will be lost on me. This is a direct result of the context in which I am encountering the text, and the context in which the work was created.

[@manifold.curiosity]

matthew bowie But as one can appreciate the work of Brunelleschi without having any knowledge of him or architecture generally, it follows that context is separate from the aesthetic value of the art itself. Like I said, it might enhance the art for some but it is not necessary for a response.

[@Phlabberghost]

I suppose I have to agree. However, your original point was that aesthetic value is independent of context. If it is really wholly separate, then how can you claim that the addition of context increases the aesthetic value? The problem seems analogous to the mind/body problem: if there is a substantial difference between the two, how can one cause effects in the other? As I say, yes, you don't need context as a necessary and sufficient cause for aesthetic judgment, insofar as the aesthetic object in itself is considered, but aren't you always necessarily bringing a context with you? This is a second problem, I would argue. You are correct in saying that one can appreciate a work of art absent the context of its creation, but it does not follow that you do so in the absence of all contexts. Similarly, though it is true that a work of art can be appreciated without knowing the context of its creation, it does not follow that that object is actually independent from that context, as, if it were, you would be left without a satisfactory explanation of how know that context could "enhance" its aesthetic value. Again, I agree with your conclusions, but I am unsure of your method of approach.

[@zerseon]

In that exact way, we could say that covers or remixes of songs or fan-fiction have lesser value than the original works, but they don't. Copies (if they're done for a good purpose and have given credit to the original creator), should be considered valuable. It takes at least some effort and talent to copy someone else's creations, although due to the ease of copy-pasting nowadays, that effort is not considered as much.
I think one fact which contributes to people's hatred towards forgeries is that we, as humans, don't like it when people copy us and get rewarded, we innately feel that there is some sort of injustice in it (like those times when you whisper a joke to your friend and he says it out loud and more people laugh). No one would want someone else to be rewarded for copying their work, that's why we have copyrights and patents.
Most creative arts were probably forgeries in the past, we don't have any way of finding out if they're original, but we consider them original nonetheless due to the lack of information about them, but they probably had lesser value during contemporary times when people knew it was a forgery. So basically, it's not a matter of loss of value, it's just that the word "copying" induces the word "injustice" in people's minds, which is why we can't appreciate a copy as much as the original work (which is irrelevant if we never knew it was a copy in the first place).

[@calebharmon7404]

In this specific case, doesn't the story of the paintings forgeries and the critics unbelief act as an artistic historical relational property?

[@PhilosophyTube]

Caleb Harmon Oooh, interesting, maybe it would, I think paintings that have beeb identified as van Meegerens are far from worthless now.

[@LeftyConspirator]

I saw the old classic _'When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning'_ circulating recently, and started thinking about the language and rationales of fascism. More specifically, how they justify violent anti-intellectualism and turning this violence and brutality, against all out groups, into something ennobling. It would be very interesting to hear any thoughts you might have on this.

[@trobot22]

I do year 12 (australia) Visual Arts, we are taught that aesthetic value is only part of art. It breaks down into Conceptual, Practice and Frames. Conceptual is the relationship between artist, artwork, audience and world. Practice is Feelings and emotions, Ideas and concepts, Representation of thought, Stylistic innovation, Treatment of materials, Intention and philosophy, Personal signs and symbols, Emerging technologies. Frames are the cultural, structural, subjective and post-modern aspects of an artwork.

[@PhilosophyTube]

trobot22 Huh, cool!

[@thebatmanover9000]

I think the forgeries should add to the value his own original pieces.

[@SuperMegaPeanut]

Have you seen Orson Welles' F for Fake? It's a really cool documentary about forgery and "fake art".

[@josephwritessongs]

*4 years later* I was waiting for a reference to that the whole way through! I feel like Olly would looooove that work

[@viennaorange4122]

Regarding Dutton's argument on the aesthetic value of forgeries: The point of a convincing forgery is that you wouldn't know that the artist was using those advanced 20th century techniques. When you look at a painting, you're not seeing the history that was made, you infer that from your own knowledge and that could possibly enhance your overall aesthetic enjoyment of the painting. If a forgery is convincing enough, just at the superficial level that most viewers look at it from, then there is no difference.

[@viennaorange4122]

It may even bring in another level of aesthetic enjoyment to learn later that the painting you had just enjoyed was a forgery. You'd have already gotten the enjoyment of pondering the historical influences of the real McCoy, and to now be thinking about deception in art and what an artist's style really is, and even deeper philosophical ideas would add another layer of aesthetic value. If anything, a *convincing* forgery would be a more enjoyable work of art.

[@cjermevpg6372]

Just out of curiosity, how do you think that would work with a contemporary forgery?

[@nellgwyn2723]

Though i agree mostly with Lessings position there are so many questions asked in this context that are incredibly hard to answer. Art and value are generally a difficult subject that can never fully be taken out of the various contexts it has been used in for so long and once you speak of aesthetic value one has to adress the question of objective beauty or cultural, contextual beauty - but within all that mess that does not lend itself to simple answers there is at least one i can address. If all this makes one of them the better artist. At least on a technical level anyone who has traded the modern comforts of painting for even just some historical techniques or made paint after historical recipes can appreciate the difficulty and struggle that went into producing these works of art. It is impossible outside of a well stocked university atelier to even try and even then some methods still remain a mystery. But all the philosophical questions are very interesting, especially when dismissing artistic value and focussing purely on the aesthetic.

[@tylerlambert8835]

Great episode and congrats on graduating!
I'd say,a forgery is artistically worth less. Art is something very personal. It comes from the heart and soul. So if you're just coping someone's style in this case. It lacks that personal feel that I think that makes art; art. Take a cover song as an example. When I hear "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan I'm moved I can feel the passion in his art. I can tell the words he put to music mean something to him. But say I hear one of the many cover versions. Sure they can be great even beautiful. But they'll always be worth less to me because the the song didn't come from them. So they'll never match Dylan's passion.
But should I judge something like art that can only really be judged by sights&sounds by a factor that can't be seen/heard such as passion?

[@AlanKlughammer]

I am an artistic photographer, and this comes up quite often.
One of the manifestations concerns captions. Is a photograph "better" or "worse" if you know the story behind it?
Personally I think there are layers of value. There is an aesthetic value, a contextual/artistic value, and a financial value, among possible others. These layers may be complementary or not.
There are many examples where these layers can effect the others, both positively and negatively.

[@PhilosophyTube]

Alan Klughammer Oh cool, that's great to have your insight!!

[@Acquavallo]

It's not the aesthetic value that goes down in forgeries, it's the originality value. You look for an 'essence' in the work of art, and it is considered that only the artist can give a work that special 'essence'. So the forger must be missing this 'essence', that is the Vermeer 'essence', although it would have say a Van Migerin 'essence'.
The anger really comes from the view that aesthetics and 'essence' are closely tied. So the forgery occupies a grey zone where the aesthetics give the 'essence' but we feel that more is needed for 'essence', yet we've been fooled, and in a sense proven wrong.

[@aislingoda6026]

van Meegeren, by the way

[@brendanmccabe8373]

Acquavallo but what about when people didn’t know it was a forgery it was even said that his best work was actually fake and it would take a massive philosophical undertaking to prove the existence of the 'essence'

[@lexnight]

I'd love to open a museum of some of the greatest original forgeries - to save them from the haters for posterity. For anyone interested in an insider's view of the technical difficulty of forgery, Eric Hebborn's The Art Forger's Handbook is very funny and teaches quite a lot about doing art generally.)

[@Galbex21]

I just bumped with your channel, I think is very good, extremely good. I like how you present ideas, pros and cons. I always try to do thay with my friends and family but they have most of their ideas so profoundly embeded in their minds that they think I am imposing ideas in them when I just say new things. They do not understand that I am just exposing new and diffrent ideas to them just to reflect, to have options. Thats why I like your channel, you dont impose anything, I belive you give the liberty to decide in what to belive, I like that. Continue the good work.

[@txikitofandango]

In "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote", Jorge Luis Borges challenges the distinction between esthetic and artistic value. When you read Menard's Quixote, you can't help but "experience" the work differently even though it is identical to the 17th century work.

[@franstef]

Initially, I'd like to say that this is definitely my cup of tea! I hope I can contribute to the discussion with my opinion. In the merit of discussing if a Forged painting (an exact copy), has less value than the original, I have to agree with Dutton's view due to the merit that the pioneers have for advancing art by creating new techniques, equipment, tools etc. They gave blood and tears for it and they deserve the recognition they get. Their paintings are proof of this. As an amateur Photographer who sees Photography as art, I consider the "achievement" of being able to make certain kinds of photos a very important and valuable factor to appreciate one's work, but only regarding the development and execution. Because, according to Dutton's view (if I understood it correctly), only the works made by the ones who developed the techniques (which I am considering to be what defines one's style, to be their "mark") to be appreciated or have any value in the first place. Moreover, applying their techniques (their style) wouldn't confer any new value, so anything that derives from it would be meaningless. Of course, now I'm looking at a greater picture than just "forging paintings" and, in general, I agree with Lessing's view, which is more appealing to me for this: the appreciation of art. This way is possible to democratize art, which is something that was always a rich people's thing. For example, in Photography the techniques, equipment and settings used may be similar sometimes (most of the time, actually; what only differs really is the portrayed objects and settings, especially if you're like me and still didn't learn how to use Manual mode well), but what really makes a difference is the view of the person who is behind the camera lens. It also the same for someone who makes a cover of a famous artist's song, for example. To forge something means to invent and devise (metal), this is the primary meaning. You can add value, artistic and aesthetic, by being you and let your art unfold when trying to express yourself, either by doing paintings or other kinds of art.

[@DistractionDonkey]

Franklin Stefano good points. photography is a good example because you'll never make a photo that doesn't show influences from all the different photos you've seen your entire life. no photographer can rid himself of these influences, but that does not diminuish the value of his photos to the audience. finding your motif, considering the composition etc. still requires creative effort, thus the product will be "YOUR" pieve of art, even though you may have "copied" someone's style (intentionally or not).
the same, I believe, goes for any other artist, it just seems more apparent with photos to me for some reason.

[@franstef]

DistractionDonkey Thanks, I'm glad I actually made some sense! Also, thank you for complementing my comment. I agree with everything you said. I often seek to learn from observing other photographer's work and technique, so your words rang true to me. :)

[@PhilosophyTube]

Franklin Stefano This reminded me that I have an awesome collab planned on the philosophy of photography with a certain channel, right *****?

[@franstef]

Philosophy Tube Awesome! I remember that you asked for Instagram feeds in your Facebook fan page once, to talk about the aesthetic of filters. Is this the one? I'd love to watch it! (and, maybe, take part with some of my own photos ;))

[@PlatinumPoint]

I agree with Lessing's defense, because sometimes there are instances in which people wanted to praise other people's techniques. What is more important in my opinion, is the intent of the forger. Van Megeren wanted to prove his own skill, and he even stated that he did not care about the money. I honestly feel that he just wanted to be recognized as an artist just as skilled Vermeer. And even in modern day media, artists often train people to mimic their own art in order to speed up production and keep up with demand. I think what is most important is when you do art like such, you follow the standard procedure(like citing whose the original creator, or stating you are using the same technique). And honestly I see this man as an artist rather than a forger.

[@Shakespeare563]

It strikes me that this question becomes extremely complicated in the digital age where most of use experience the vast majority of art as a copy. For example, maybe a hundred people have seen "the Godfather" on the original film strip that came out of the editing room, and probably only the editor and director ever saw the original film strip that was in the camera that filmed Marlon Brando. The rest of us have only ever seen copies of that film strip. Similarly, while all of us know what "starry night" looks like, and could identify on sight, very very few of us have actually seen the real thing.
so in that sense, the majority of art most of us have seen has been forgeries (either digital or print). So if you say your favorite painting is "Luncheon of the Boating Party" and you mean it in the sense that "I really enjoy the look of that painting, and the way it makes me feel" what you actually mean is "I enjoy the look of the FORGERY of that painting and the way the FORGERY makes me feel, so I think I would also like the real thing were I to see it." In that way, most of us would have to lend at least some aesthetic value to the copies and forgeries, since that's all most of us will ever see.
Then there's your comment about differentiating aesthetic and historical/social importance, which seems like a sort of self constructed importance. For example, everyone says that seeing photocopies of the Mona Lisa is no substitute for the real thing. But if I watch a photocopy of "Citizen Kane" no one would say "oh, you just saw a cellophane copy, the original that Wells brought out of the editing room, that's stored in some WB warehouse is the only real way to see it" or if they did, we'd think it was silly.
and what about art that straddles the line between original and copy, like Andy Warhol's work? Surely Marilyn Diptych has as much societal value as the original photo.
while I do think the distinction between aesthetic values and cultural values is important, I think we're going to see that importance fade as digital media becomes ever more prevalent

[@ziliath5237]

1) a Forgery is IMO not Aesthetically less than an original, because i agree that "Aesthetic value" should be based on the experience of the thing itself.
2) "historical-relational properties" do not count IMO; because it is just an arbitrary "extra value to snob forgeries" done in spite or elitism.
i think people are so upset that their "forgery" is not an original that they had to make up extra constraints on what is "aesthetically valuable" simply because they wanted it to be a "Special little snowflake"
and to me thats something i look down upon. its a form of "aesthetic elitism" and i gained a dislike for elitism from playing MMORPGs
its essentially the same thing
3) yes i think he was if not better then van-meir if he could of pulled this off.

[@thatoneguyinthecomments2633]

Personally I think the historical relavence alone would make many of his painting more valuable than the artist he copied

[@alexkidd3d]

Cheap wine in an expensive bottle actually physically tastes better than the same wine in a cheap bottle. Your brain responds to the historical and relational aspects of the expensive context and it adds to the subjective experience of tasting, your pleasure centers light up more. Art forgery is similar in that you are 'stealing' the context and attaching it to your work. The metaphor isn't direct because the art you discuss is of equal quality you could argue. My point though is just that you cannot divorce the context from the work, we don't experience the world that objectively, brains just can't do that consciously. The only way they could possibly have the same subjective 'value' is if there is no context at all. Even then the context of who was 'first' would be ever present regardless of the pieces' history, making the original always more valuable.

[@unicorn_jazz]

Congratulations to your graduation! :) I sincerely feel happy for you!
Oh, and I just wanted to mention that I very much enjoy your videos :)
I appreciate the content you put out there and I am excited for the next video ^-^

[@PhilosophyTube]

***** You're very welcome!

[@MegaBanne]

Art has two different definitions that we often conflate. The painter may create something that in his/her eyes is not art. But the painting can still be art in the eyes of the viewer. This is since there is a difference between perceived art and creative art as concepts.

[@eville_banker8903]

Congratulations on finishing your degree! I've been watching your videos for almost a year, and I absolutely love them. I never got the time to study philosophy thoroughly, while attending university. I really appreciate all the hard work that you've put into the videos and look forward to seeing more.

[@PhilosophyTube]

Taylor Droste Awww, thanks!

[@GellyGelbertson]

The point of art is that you should be able to glean some meaning or emotion that the artist felt during the creation of it without having anything but the art piece, in my opinion. For example, in Number 1 (Lavender Mist) by Jackson Pollock, you should get the feel of explosive action without having to know that he danced aroudn the canvas while splattering the paint on it. Or in Still Life with Chair-Caning by Picasso, though various clues, you should understand that the picture is meant to be a representation of many angles of a coffee table without knowing that he split his canvas in lines and then drew different points of view.
Otherwise, it cheapens the meaning that art is meant to have.

[@egarulastinn7438]

That's something I thought about a lot a few years ago. I think the best way to look at it is this:
The paintings have the same aesthetic value, regardless of whether they're real vermeers, fakes, or copies. The difference is not in paintings, but in the artist - the act of copying a masterpiece doesn't require the genius that inventing it does. So van Meegeren is not as good of an artist as Vermeer is, but his paintings are just as good as Vermeer's are.
That's the gist. Dutton is right that painting a copy is less of an achievement than painting an original. But I don't see why that takes away from the painting, instead of from the artist. Of course van Meegeren wasn't nearly copying Vermeer, he was creating new paintings that we could say were heavily inspired by Vermeer. Whether his input was big enough to rival that of Vermeer is debatable, but not really connected to the whole forgery discussion.

[@tordjarv3802]

Art is more about conveying ideas, feelings and making people think than the actual handiwork of the artist. Sure an artist that have fully mastered the techniques involved in painting, playing an instrument or what ever field the artist is in to are more likely to succeed in delivering the message to their audience. Obviously van Meegeren and Vermeer are at similar level of mastery of the handiwork of painting, they have similar techniques and eye for similar level of details in their compositions. However the question comes down to what messages they try to convey. From a very brief study of the work of Vermeer it seams to me that he made allot of portraits, which is probably to earn a living, and realistic scenes from the every day life in the 17th century Netherlands. Van Meegeren on the other hand wanted to prove himself as a painter after rejection by the critics and chose to do so by forgery. In a way it could be argued that Van Meegeren is the better artist since we are still arguing on whether his forgeries is to be considered art or not over 60 years after his death, and by so he has successfully made us think. But I'm just speculating.

[@DistractionDonkey]

Another interesting topic related to this arouses when considering the value of very modern avantgarde pieces of art. when people see a painting by Vermeer or van Gogh, they'll most often and immediately be impressed by the "technical" aspects, I mean the mastery of the technique of painting. They are appreciating the art because they can clearly see that it required a set of "actual" skills that took a long time and talent to perfect. In other words, they realize they themselves couldn't do it, and thus admire the artist who could and did.
When these same people see Duchamps chair or some even "more modern" work of art that required hardly any practical work, skill or talent (e. g. a painting that is just a white square), they will be appalled. The most common accusation is: "I could have done that myself!" And simply because of that, they consider it inferior to Vermeer or van Gogh.
The question is: Does the craftsmanship define the value of a given piece of art, and if it turned out all Vermeers were forgeries, somehow created by a machine with no craftmanship or talent at all - would they be less valuable somehow?
I believe the answer has to be no. The consequence of that answer is to move away from considering the technical, practical aspects of how a painting was made. In fact I believe a critic should try to forget these technicalities and see the artwork merely as an act of inspired creativity in order to judge it, asking only: "What does it tell me, and how valuable is the message to me?" But then - is art even per se obliged to have any kind of message or meaning? The questions don't end D:

[@DistractionDonkey]

DistractionDonkey also, thanks for responding to me!! that is such a cool idea, turning your channel into this interactive, dynamic philosophical forum. Very admirable.
even when in this case, the discussion didn't much go anywhere (we were all insisting on objective intrinsic values, which you/Taurek didn't acknowledge :D). believe me, I understand Taureks viewpoint and appreciate it's validity. I just don't think objective values can be pushed aside that easily. Or maybe, I just hope that.

[@FromRussiaWithLuv007]

To the "saving the many" episode. I don't think I was confused. What I was talking about was that taking the decision out of the person's control that needs all the medicine, is taking away their autonomy. (according to Kant)

[@RayyM2]

Kind of reminds me of the videos where they ask "experts" to rate fine wines, but are instead given cheap wines which the experts then declare as fine wines. It calls into question whether or not there's something actually being measured vs just a perception of measurement. Is something actually great, or only great because that message has been repeated to the point of unquestioned acceptance?

[@vynne3888]

I recently finished reading “The man in the High Castle”
In it, a character shows a woman two lighters. One has belonged to, if I remember correctly, Lincoln, the other is a forgery if the original. The character knows which is which, but the woman doesn’t, and when asked to identify Lincoln’s lighter, she fails. The character then says that the value of an object is its historical value : one lighter is more valuable than the other because he has a certificate that proves it has a history, which makes it more valuable.
Maybe when we consider the value of an object, we mix together aesthetic value and historical value, which explains why a forgery has less value than an original : it doesn’t have its historical value.

[@ennisskalski719]

Saying that forgery is separate from art doesn't make sense, if anything it's a subset. I think there's also considerable difference between what Van Migerin (spelling?) did in creating new pieces, and forgers who copy existing pieces wholesale. The latter could (theoretically) be done by a machine, so you could say it might be bereft of artistic but not aesthetic value, although I guess it could be a kind of post-modernist "is it art if made by a machine?" which would give it some artistic value, I suppose. The former I see as requiring basically the same amount of creativity as the original artist, except perhaps in the area of "style", but then style itself is pretty much always derived from existing influences, so who is to say that aping one particular style is "less creative" than taking in bits and pieces of many others?

[@FromRussiaWithLuv007]

About Aesthetic: I could see some form of "originality" being apart of value. It can be pleasing to the eye, but because it is not original/new, it has a slightly less value. Let's picture that 1000 Mona Lisas were painted. Those Mona Lisas are worth less than if there are only 1 or 2. If we discover a cave painting that looks like the Mona Lisa existing 2000 years before Da Vinci, it has greater value because it is more original. It has implications for cloning as well. Let's have 5000 sheep clones. Because they are all alike, their individual value is diminished aesthetically. But if there is only 1 sheep, the individual value is enormous.
Because the painting was a forgery, it was not original and had less value.

[@0hate9]

The bit at the end of this video is a little disturbing with the hindsight of your most recent video.
Is this connected to that, or am I just seeing a connection where there isn't one?

[@JamaalLV]

I'm with Lessing on this one. For arguments sake - I propose the idea that a forgery is only a forgery until after it's found out to be one. You have two paintings, songs, sculptures, or photographs wherein one is just a copy of the original but, if I saw the copy first and then later found out about its faux status, I'd assume I'd be angry at the work of art and artist for making me feel the way I did based on a lie. But that'll just take this discussion down a deep and dark rabbit hole about whether or not lying/keeping a secret is a good thing or not. Plus - As an artist I know that when you make a work of art it's your idea, your time, your skill, your effort, your money, and your experience that made that particular work of art and when someone else copies it, even perfectly, It's not the same. That's someone else's time, skill and effort that created that particular work. And I'm sure we both had very different aims in our works; I wanted to make something original, they wanted to see if they could copy someone else's original work perfectly, for whatever reason they chose. This sounds like I'm on both sides, forgive me for that but, I just feel as though the argument is only for esthetics and not for the art itself. Or even for peoples feelings about art they deem good or bad. I mean, any item is just another item until it holds sentimental value but, that could be skewing the argument, slightly. Thanks Olly, for this awesome question and video!

[@Blabla130]

I don't think you can disentangle perceptions from historical and cultural context. A quick Google Scholar search for "expectations effecting perception" show the numerous studies that have been done on the subject.
One famous example is the study done regarding the relationship of the price of wine and it's taste. When people were given administered blind taste tests of wine, they tended to say the "higher" priced wine tasted better. Effects of expectations on the other senses have also been replicated.
So, I don't think it's possible to perceive a work of art without going through the lens of context.

[@Kumaryoku]

Blabla130 But if you don't know the context, you can still appreciate the work of art. At least it's possible to imagine it, right? Why should the history of that piece of art have an influece on its artistic value? There is certainly also historical value in the piece of art and both values usually only come together, but the artistic value is in question and in what way, if at all, it is being diminished by being a forgery.

[@morgengabe1]

Blabla130 I think your search might have been better if you'd used "affect" instead of "effect". I've also heard of studies which produced the inverse result.
In your case study, there is no context, or at least no standard theirin. Because it's a blind test, everyone has their own context and the criteria it's based on vary from person to person.
I think the main thing with context is that a given observer is going to observe a work of art with their own context, which depends on things such as their personal experience with art, the objects/motifs contained within the work of art, and the situation in which the art is first introduced to them. Furthermore, I'd go as far as to say that not observing a work of art with respect to your own context is a violation of your own personhood; your free agency and imputability to your own actions and preferences. Doing otherwise would be like sitting in an art class and lapping up everything your art teacher says about a work you've done, even if their statements are in conflict with your own ideas of the work you've done.

[@Blabla130]

morgengabe1 I don't think it's possible to separate the "Observer" from the process of observation - as I understand it, the process of observing *is* putting the work through your lens.
"everyone has their own context and the criteria it's based on vary from person to person."
Exactly - but there is no person without context and previously learned criteria, making them an integral part of the process of evaluating Art, regardless of the the exact context the particular person has.
Also, another example of previous context affecting perception of Art are music appreciation classes (usually about classical music). People go to "train their ear" to hear the music and what the composer is doing, better. More importantly, composers intentionally put references to previous works (their own and others) for their audiences to hear - which effects the way a person who knows the references would perceive the piece compared to a person who does not know the piece.

[@morgengabe1]

Blabla130 But based on the fact that everyone is subject to context, you cannot then argue that it is absolutely paramount here. The variations in context permit that some people value it more than others. Furthermore, even the definition of context you're using here is rather vague for what you seem to be trying to achieve.
In that last example, the effects don't necessarily promote value, many people hear predecessant works and repudiate artists and their works' references, because of the way in which they relate to the referenced works, and whether or not they allow that to affect their observation of a new work of art. This is why I'm saying the idea of context isn't particularly meaningful to the discussion of a work of art's value.

[@salomonflamenco7162]

Another great video man. Have you thought about during a video on Nietzsche? Or any eastern philosophers?

[@deankuyser947]

Say that the 5 people and the 1 person were all friends, of equal value to each other, then the 1 person would be affected by 5 deaths and the 5 people would be affected by 1 death. Is it fair to say that those are hence both of equal value, as there will be a total of 5 'effects' of each death, or would it be better to save the majority, because the 1 person would experience more trauma from those 5 deaths as any singular one of the other 5?

[@danatronics9039]

I think the value of forgeries are a personal opinion. I think Van Migeren's paintings could be considered *more* valuable as objects than Vermeer's necessarily are, because of the story behind them. They may not have the story of Vermeer's artistic innovation, but they have the story of Van Migeren's scheme to prove himself.

[@TXWatson]

If aesthetic value is limited to your experience of the work, then the *whole* experience should count -- so, an experience of a Vermeer painting that's a forgery, if you don't know it's a forgery, is similar to an experience of a legitimate Vermeer painting. BUT, if it's about the experience, then X years later when you find out it was a forgery, you're still having that aesthetic experience, and the fact that it *is* a forgery and was *always* a forgery becomes part of your experience of the art as soon as you discover it.
This suggests that the art-object is never the entire work of art, which, as a fan of artist statements, I have no problem with.

[@theriffwriter2194]

As a paid professional artist and student of art history: six years is a really, really fucking short time to learn to paint like Vermeer. Vermeer's own apprenticeship was over triple the time. Van Meegeren must've been some kind of savant.

[@TheSamzidat]

I like the artistic / aesthetic distinction -- at least on its face. But it seems like the distinction becomes a bit fuzzy when you analyze what actually gives something aesthetic value. It seems difficult to me to talk about specific qualities of the work "in and of itself" without also talking about some kind of cultural context which grants those "in and of itself" qualities value… or maybe I'm not understanding the distinction.
Also, it becomes difficult to talk about because all art involves some level of appropriation (whether the artist consciously intends it or not).

[@IliyanBobev]

There are definitely two sets of values. If someone insists of having the historical/relational properties counted towards the aesthetic value, then there is another kind of value that excludes them. Imagine you need to evaluate two paintings, but their origin/history etc are not disclosed. You'd still be able to evaluate them based on other qualities. Forgery can only affect the historical/relational properties; ruclips.net/video/3l5Cxv-boPc/видео.html

[@Ganondorf525]

Lets look at this from the perspective of digital art. A friend of mine gave me some of his work on a flash drive one of which is currently my desktop background. To get from from his computer to mine it had to to be copied several time as that is how file transfer works. Some of these like transferring from the flash drive to my computer were made by me with permission. They are for all intents and purposes the same artistically as the original on my friends computer despite not being the same collection of electrons it contains same information. If it contains the exact same information in the same configuration as the original how can we say it has a different value. If there is no change in value for a digital image how can we say it changes in something like a painting?

[@bruno37a]

What about the Marina Abramovic's re-performances of her work at MoMA in 2010? The actuality of the artist, that is to say their ontic reality, in this case makes the aesthetic 'value' or indeed aestheticism of a piece irreducible from it's ontological reality - that is the totality of 'presence', of Abramovic.
Can we extend this further to all art? That is to say, art's aestheticism comes from it's ontological nature - being-in-itself a product of a particular creation, history and construction ontologically, rather than its creation, history and construction being attributes of the art. If we grant this to art then the artistic value of art, is not something which the art produces, affects or signifies in the viewer or in the response of the artist, but rather what the art *is* within the bounds of its own being. If this is granted, then forgery becomes a moot point, because art can only be what that particular piece is, in-itself. A forgery is just another in-itself, and the question is shifted to signification of the viewer.
But, just a thought.

[@badasunicorn6870]

Here is my opinion. A work of art's valliue is determined exclusivly by how it looks, meaning copies and forgeries that are identical have the same vallue. That dosent mean an original painting and a copy should sell for the same, Because the originality has vallue. It symbolizes the moment of creation, which reflects the artists abilities. In a way it's like a relic.

[@TheAyeAye12]

Whole subsets of art, like pop art, and the majority of Warhol's work, are based on duplication and forgery. So I'd say that forgery's damage to artistic value is relative to the situation (although I agree with Lessing in that aesthetic value is not changed if a piece of art is a forgery or not).

[@DistractionDonkey]

TheAyeAye12 yes. when Warhol duplicated something over and over, that was a point he was making in and of himself. Munch actually did something similar, I think he painted like 10 only slightly altered versions of The Scream?
Anyway, it is evident by the popularity and influence of Warhols and Munchs work that duplication and reproduction (forgery, if you will) does not necessarily reduce the valueof a piece of art.
It's not like we only hold the very first of thsoe pictures of Monroe in high regard, condemning all the others as less valuable. That would be rather absurd.

[@KristofskiKabuki]

I'd be interested in how these issues fit in with Duchamp's ready mades, if he can take an industrially made urinal and make it art just by putting it in a gallery then why can't people redo an already existing work and do the same?

[@sethjacobson211]

Holy shit. I'm here a week after watching "Murder Among the Mormons" on Netflix. As a former member of that church, THIS VIDEO IS INSANE.

[@ecp26ful]

Wishing you the best on you're graduation. Hoping to tackle on love topics :)

[@TheSpeep]

I'd say it depends on the kind of forgery, and the ideas behind the work.
If you make a (near exact) copy of an existing work, then its aesthetic value may be the same, but the ideas behind it are not, so it shouldnt have the same value as the original, unless the act of copying it serves as some kind of critique in and of itself.
If the forgery is basically an original work simply mimicking another artists style and falsely presented as theirs, then its value should be judged regardles of its creator.

[@thegnat2955]

If I've already seen Walker Evans' photographs, why would I need to see Levine's? There are copies of some famous paintings in my house, and they're nice to look at and have, but not only do they not have the historical context, they don't have the originality anymore. I think originality should be included in artistic value, even if aesthetic value is equal. Note that this is not to say that Levine's photographs are worthless; they have their own historical context and allow more people to experience what is still essentially Walker Evans' work.

[@isaacmcmanus3666]

IMO one of the main factors for aesthetic value is something's social context. IMO Matisse didn't have the best skill as an artist and a few of his works weren't as polished as say a Dutch Master's. The same goes for abstract art such as "Black Square". The context in which a piece is made gives a piece it's value.

[@DarthAlphaTheGreat]

Aethetic value is not cheaper, but should be priced cheaper because copying is easier to produce than original contents. How much cheaper is decided by the market.
You see the "value" doesn't matter in the end (sadly), only the "price" matters.

[@13Rats]

In my mind art's value is based on its meaningfulness. You can have technical skill but there's only so much value that a meaningless piece of art can hold. Aesthetics themselves are often a form of visual shorthand. Different aesthetics communicate different emotions and ideas things to an audience depending on what kind of aesthetic it is.
If a thousand robots were to paint every color on some canvases at random it would eventually create a beautiful portrait, but that robot doesn't think or feel anything so how much meaning could it have. It could have some meaning to the individual if we used it as a chance for self-discovery, but that is us giving the art meaning that otherwise wouldn't exist.
So whilst forgeries in general I don't enjoy as it usually means that the creator is greedy or attention-seeking, I think trolling Nazis is kind of poetic in its own way.

[@kylepooley6355]

I think the idea of forgery should be defined further in order to asses the aesthetic value. You mentioned appropriation art and copying, there is also art in which another artists work is stolen and shown as someone else's and making sure the audience knows.
What if the forgery happened to be the expansion of an original idea or copying that persons techniques, style or subject and producing work from that?
It's not too uncommon for artists to create very similar works around the same time, both trying to claim the title of original. Which brings me to the intentional and unintentional use of forgery.
Slightly off topic but with the discovery/invention of calculus by Newton and Leibniz could relate.

[@enta_nae_mere7590]

Since an original forgery is an original work, surely that gives it the same value as an original. If we today learnt that Da Vinci was creating original forgeries then we would still value them as much because they are original. Whereas a forgery is decreasing the value of the original as it doubles the number of the painting that exist.
With the historical value, then maybe an original forgery has less value than an original but the hype around the original forgery would add new historical value to it.

[@Hecatonicosachoron]

van Meegeren was a great artist and the success of his forgeries at convincing the Vermeer experts testifies to that fact!
I simply cannot buy the idea that the most important aspect of 'artistic value' is 'originality'. In fact there is much more to be said on a work of art as a form of craftsmanship than how original its main concept may be. Such a view would have been broadly accepted in classical times (and roman times). Take for example latin comedians such as Terence or Plautus - they produced very few original works - in fact most of their plays are re-writings of originals from Athenian new comedy, in particular Menander. However I doubt that without the latin comedians there would have been a French farce, a Racine, or even the character types from the commedia dell'arte. Even tragic writers, such as Seneca, followed classical athenian playwrights faithfully (in fact details of lost works by e.g. Euripides are known from Seneca's versions, e.g. Thyestes). Even the great athenian tragics drew most of their themes from a limited number of mythological cycles, which at the time were believed to be exposed in a superior manner in epic poetry. Talking about verse, all latin epopoieia used a rigid dactylic hexametre, imitating Homer, however does this fact rob latin literature from some of its artistic value?
The same was true in sculpture, many sculptures in roman times were created after a few greek originals. The influence of such work persisted well into the Renaissance, as painters would train by painting classical models. An even more pronounced penchant for formulaism can be seen in Byzantine iconography. But it is never as clear as it is in ancient Egyptian art. However, do individual works in these long traditions lack artistic value simply because they are formulaic? The argument is not simply if these works in question are historically imprortant or if they were fit for purpose in their own time, but whether they lack value simply because they are not stylistically innovative.
Extensive borrowing can also be found in music. Bach often re-used sections in different works (just by transposing them to the right tonality); furthermore, some of his output consisted of keyboard transcriptions of earlier Italian concerti grossi (incidentally this practice contributed to the development of the piano concerto). There are also specific passages in Mozart (e.g. the famous 'dies irae' double fugue from the requiem) that were sourced directly from Handel's oratorios, who probably drew his material from Buxtehude who in turn was (most likely) inspired by Frescobaldi. Not to mention the earlier tradition of elaborating on a cantus firmus, or the subsequent Lutheran chorales. There exist simply too many examples of art works that are effective, impactful and yet not particularly innovative. In fact one should consider the insistence that a work contain a radically new idea at its core for it to have value to be an extremely reactionary view for ascribing value to works of art.
Happy graduation and I hope you have a smooth transition to your post-undergrad era.

[@BarnibusMaximusMusic]

I would simply state that the terminology needs further division (caution: probably mostly semantics). Aesthetics is about beauty. Visual aesthetics are clearly more objective because we can have perfect copies. But is beauty really a visual thing? Mathematics and physics can be beautiful rather than just interesting or thought provoking. There is also the difference between if something is visually pleasing or not. I struggle to find pleasure in many things I find beautiful. Considering that aesthetics is the notion of beauty; does that mean it is still completely subjective? If we suddenly culturally shift our ideas of beauty does that allow us to change our consideration of if it is art? Antoni Gaudi's work was considered to have poor aesthetic value when it was made and now it is held as high aesthetic value. I think throughout that time it was always considered art it just moved from bad art to good art. At the end of it all though I do think that prior knowledge of the Arts history always changes not only how you see it but what you see within it. I would put the work of van Meegeren higher on the art scale personally because of the story behind it. Forgery itself is an art-form and this guy is a legend in that field.

[@BarnibusMaximusMusic]

p.s. Not that it's a real problem but the mispronunciation of the names of dutch artists is so often. It's funny seeing americans and english people argue over how van Gogh is pronounced and they are both totally wrong xD. Dutch vowels have a different set of rules of pronunciation and the letter 'G' is not pronounceable without a bit of practice.

[@Pfhorrest]

If you view an original work of art through sufficiently high-resolution immersive video that it looks to you like you are physically present with the work of art, do you get the same aesthetic experience? I think so, pretty much by definition. But aren't you, in that case, actually experiencing a high-quality replica, and not actually the original? I think so as well. So wouldn't a high-quality physical replica, viewed in person, also be the same aesthetic experience?

[@izhan6991]

I wish you used Bach's aria da capo in your vlog or a new video

[@DampeS8N]

Can we extend this to bad restorations that are themselves more iconic than the original? Like Ecce Homo.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_(El%C3%ADas_Garc%C3%ADa_Mart%C3%ADnez)

[@SB-ki3jw]

Though one. Part of me wants to simply say its all about appearance and that's it. But then I think about plants, when I see a beautiful plant and then find out its a fake it immediately loses most of its beauty to me.

[@islaneilson1340]

I personally believe a forgery is significantly less in value than an original due to the lack of personal value, if I inherited a ring from my mother and one day I lost it even if I bought a new, identical ring it would not be the same as it does not have the personal history which gave the ring value to me. Similarly, without the meaning, context and creativity surrounding an original painting there is no artistic value.

[@soor1290]

Maybe we can just say that something can have artistic value but no aesthetic value and vice versa. On the Euler's diagram artistic and aesthetic values would be partially intersecting and one wouldn't be only part of another.

[@DistractionDonkey]

soor1290 yep. that makes sense to me.
the remaining question is: which do we value more than the other when they come into conflict? If you were an artist: Should you sacrifice asthetics for artistic meaning? What about vice versa?

[@soor1290]

DistractionDonkey It looks to me that most of the modern art is all about artistic over aesthetic. Malevich's Blach Square for example.

[@NikkiTrudelle]

I would have to point out that while no one suffers five deaths , there are the suffering of the loss of that person by his or her family and friends , if one person know 100 people close on average isn't it better to have 100 people suffer loss than 500 people ?

[@krisnaisley]

I think in a philosophical debate about aesthetics in art you really need to refer to Kant. He spoke at great length about the perceived universalism of aesthetics which occurs as the viewer engages the work of art. I take that to mean that the judgment of whether a work of art is good or bad lies within the beholder. I may be mistaken I found Kant to be the most difficult of the philosophers I had to study. However if have understood Kant correctly then Dutton is wrong.
This is only one of several reasons why I disagree with Dutton's argument. He hinges his argument on forgery. Was this really forgery though ? These were paintings that were suposably lost, meaning he was creating an original work from at best a description. He never actually saw these paintings.They were then technically originals. If his argument is to be believed it was about proving himself as an artist in an increasingly superficial echelon of elite prestige that had rejected his value as an artist. It is this pretension that strips art of any consideration of aesthetic worth and only sees value. Patrons of the arts buy and sell without any real love of the art itself . It is only a symbol of their privilege. . much like Eliot's love songs where" the women come and go speaking of michelangelo". Van Meegeren points out that the critics and patrons only like what they have been taught to like. They recite pedagogy in a dull and vapid parroting of those who came before them. In many ways they possess a forgery in thought. He as you say trolled the art world .I wonder if David Bowie was inspired by Van Meegeren when he and a friend created the Nat Tate hoax. Lessing seems to be aware of this hypocrisy in the art world and calls it out. yes Vermeer was using revolutionary media and concepts ,I agree that the social atmosphere in which art is created is also important but it is this very belief that proves Dutton wrong . Van Meegeren's paintings were a product of the time period . A period in which his artistic vision was not appreciated. It was this social climate that his art reflects. Van Meegeren also put a great deal of research and artisan craft in creating works so like Vermeer that the audience was fooled in to believing these were newly discovered works by Vermeer.
This is a bit of a stretch but the critics who refused to believe Van Meegeren created these paintings reminded me of postcolonialisms reaction to non european artists creating modern work. the critics praised picasso's ability to be influenced by african masks yet degraded the masks themselves as primitive tribal as well as referring to modernism in Indian art as mimicking Picasso and other "revolutionary modern european artists

[@theguynextoyou]

Personally, I think the Van Meegeren 'forgeries' have a lot of artistic value, maybe even more so, than if it was only a Vermeer painting. While they didn't earn their worth from the historic values of a Vermeer painting, they pull their worth from Meegeren proving his ability as an artist and emulating techniques that were present within a Vermeer paintings as they still have a high level of attention to detail and emotion therefore proving their artistic worth. Also the only people who were really taking for fools were mainly art elitist and Nazis which is probably why he got such a small sentence for his crimes. I mean he did take heaps of money for the paintings and they probably still could of arrested him for collaboration with Nazis, but I think his popularity, after the forgeries were revealed, made it hard for the court to place a heavier charge. Though this is all merely an opinion and I'll be happily disproven if you feel it's right to do.

[@josephcunningham5882]

Aesthetic value was defined as "the value that a work of art has in virtue of it being a work of art". How is that not the same, or linked very closely to, artistic value?
I don't see how you can meaningfully consider the aesthetic value of a work of art without considering the artistic value. Many works of art have little aesthetic value, and more often than not it is secondary to the artistic value.

[@PhilosophyTube]

Joseph Cunningham The slightly more technical way of cashing it out is to say that aesthetic value is the value that a work has in all possible worlds in which it exists, but artistic value can be local to a world where contextual factors might be different.
Also, Joe, is that you, or do you just have the same name as my mate Joe?

[@aaronsmith1023]

In the sense that a forgery can be passed off as the original or an entirely new work of art, and people are willing to believe it is either the original or an entirely work of art, and willing to buy it, then yes, it is functionally, and ergo aesthetically the same.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

Another thing to consider is that aesthetic value is subjective. Maybe I think the Mona Lisa is beautiful, but the person standing next to me thinks the Mona Lisa is ugly. We can, however agree that the original painting is historically relevant, and that the copy is not.

[@Phlabberghost]

Note: Jorge Luis Borges pretty well annihilated Dutton's entire position in his story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. Just a thought.

[@PhilosophyTube]

matthew bowie Is that the one where the new Quixote has the property of being archaic? I'm not entirely with Borges on that one, for various technical reasons, but still think that Lessing is better than Dutton on this issue.

[@Phlabberghost]

It's more Borges' observing (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the reproduction or forgery has certain possible advantages over the original due to the effect context has on forger. Archaism is, yes, part of the argument, and I agree that this is problematic for the narrator's argument (which is not actually Borges'). I think that because of the irony with which Borges-as-author treats his narrator, the argument Borges would likely make is that the debate is largely meaningless, as art, for him, is always a species of forgery and reproduction, hence the tongue in cheek attitude. Anyway, great video, and congratulations on graduating. :)

[@petersmythe6462]

Like, if an alien culture finds the Taj Mahal and exact copies made after the fact, both damaged and abandoned in an asteroid belt that used to be Earth, I really doubt they will say "aesthetically the real one is best."

[@apollo4132]

His forgery might have actually been worth more than an authentic painting from the person he was impersinating because the forgery has a pretty significant historical value of being the painting that trolled the nazis

[@dinninfreeman2014]

It's a different skill to perfectly replicate a painting than to make it yourself, I'd say it's more technically challenging to make a convincing forgery but it's more creative to make it the first time

[@erinmcdonald7781]

Belated congratulations! Wish I had this earlier, would've been a great subject for my Creative Writing aka "I flunked English" class. They could sink their teeth into the odd and controversial. 😁

[@bobsobol]

Literally "big headed" Olly! XD
I agree, aesthetically, the value is the same, but the total value has to depend on other factors. Replica Edwardian furniture isn't worth as much as _actual_ Edwardian furniture, because it isn't antique, even if it is indistinguishable to the naked eye. There is art, and craftsmanship in furniture, and I don't see why a painting should be any different.
If it's done honestly, there shouldn't be a problem with replicas, or art produced "in the style of". However, if it is attempting to replicate _everything_, for example, if you are trying to reproduce the Mona Lisa, you will never succeed, and because you have limited yourself to replication, there will be nothing to balance your failings, and therefore your replica _will be_ a lesser work. If you reproduce the setting and character of the Mona Lisa in your own style, or using modern materials (even if you're imagining how da Vinci would have painted, if he had access to acrylics, or a 3D Printer) you have added something to make up for the flaws in your replica, and may have added more than you missed.
The "art" I tend to think of is musical. If you try to copy another artists rendition of a musical track, that is _generally_ never _as_ good as the original. You may have access to better recording equipment and be able to make a cleaner sounding track, but you'll always miss some of the raw power and emotion of the original because the original artist wasn't trying to _copy_ anyone else, they where ad-libbing them self. (you'll know about the power of ad-lib from your acting Olly) If you _cover_ a track popularised by another artist "in your own style" nobody will complain, because this is how music has always been, it's how the art form evolves etc. etc. etc. Again, I don't see why a picture should be any different. It's also not uncommon for musicians to pay homage to their most influential artists by releasing a re-mix of a popular track of their own, but "in the style of" ... The Beetles, or The Bee Gees, or Elvis Presley, or whoever. Again. Totally fine. It's honest, and there is still a considerable part of the artist them-self, in that production.

[@PhilosophyTube]

bobsobol This is kindof similar to a point made by a philosopher called Sherri Irvin, so good thinking!

[@bobsobol]

:o Thanks. :)

[@ooccttoo]

Nice Cinemasins reference in the doobly-doo haha

[@PhilosophyTube]

ExistentialOcto That's a link to a video I did on them!

[@sriramhrishikesh2033]

You could say that the supper of emmeus is a terrible Vermeer panting. However it is an excellent Van Meegeren painting. To make an analogy if I work to forge a "lost Da vinci", and it was a good painting, you could say it was a good Hrishikesh but a terrible da vinci. The value of the artwork could be said to be the value of the artwork itself + the value of the name. If it came to light that the "lost Da vinci" was actually a forgery, then the artistic value would drop as there is no brand name to associate the artwork with. The aesthetic value however remains unchanged. However, as Van Meengeren was already well known as a painter, there would still be branding. Thus, the artistic value of the supper of emmeus would also remain much the same.

[@Farfromhere001]

Your videos are great! I watch them all. Keep it up!

[@everestjarvik5502]

If anything, a forgery is harder to make than an original, so aesthetic value= the same, rarity value= less, but labor value= more so I think it cancels out

[@zarchocon]

Sometimes I question the value of hyperrealistic art. It seems almost pointless to me when a camera can capture the same image. If hard work, good technique, and attention to details are all virtues in our culture, then knowing they've gone into a piece of art should make it more valuable, but still feels empty and wasteful.

[@3DMint]

IMO Aesthetic value is purely determined by sensory properties (how it looks, how it sounds etc.)
While artistic value is determined by historical-relational properties.
So forgeries have identical aesthetic values but not artistic values to their original counterparts.

[@margothutton]

Right, I know very little about painting, but I like books. And to me the question of "the time it was created, and what the artist was faced with and was trying to say with the art" sounds a lot like "Death of the Author" arguments.
In books, there's usually two ways you read a work: the author's purpose, and your own personal interpretation. It's basically the difference between asking the author, "So what did you mean when you wrote your magnum opus?" and saying to yourself, "Welp. The author's dead. I guess I'd better figure it out for myself." But in practice it comes down to what the author meant to say, and what you heard. And in books it is completely legitimate to have two conflicting answers for that simultaneously!
I think for me I can see the intrinsic value of Vermeer's work as an artist of his time, skill, resources, and contribution, and then Meegeren's story of an artist or skill with something to prove, and both of those tales lending a separate sense of awe to their respective paintings. And then, there's the paintings alone, not knowing who Vermeer was or who Meegeren was trying to be and looking at them and just...feeling. All of those situations are intrinsic in value. You can't put money to awe. But they are still separate reasons for awe. Adding them together is something that has to be weighed by the individual feeling that emotion.

[@mikec3172]

Doesn't it require some sort of artistic ingenuity for someone to forge a major work of art completely as if it was an exact copy? It seems a little unfair to count a work of art as something less for the mere fact of not being an original. Someone could definitely make the work of art better or worse when recreating it, but if a thrid party presented Vermeer's original and VanMeegeren's forgery side by side with no indication of whose is whose than they could not tell you which one is the original; which should indicate to the person that if it can't go without being seen in the painting then it shouldn't be added to the value. So, without going too much into the subjective beauty argument, one can objectively study both of those works of art to be good paintings. There are other aspects such as creating the painting in the first place, but that speaks more for the talent of the painter rather than the value of the painting.

[@petersmythe6462]

So here's the thing, let's say we want to judge the aesthetic value of a work that we will never know the historical-relational properties of? Can we do it?

[@Drudenfusz]

I think there is no such thing as aesthetic value, since art is inherently subjective. And even though I don't care about authorial intent or intellectual property laws, I nevertheless think it makes a difference. Just emulating the artworks of others seems to be for me of less value then actually making a step forward, so I don't want to read books that feel like shakepeare, or watch movies that feel like Citizen Kane, or hear music that feels like Mozart, either it is the orignal, or I want the new stuff. (Anyway, nice to see that a comment of mine was in the video).

[@Vortor]

Small criticism for your american transatlantic accent, although you might've gotten better at it already since it's been 5 years, and I doubt you'll read this, the people who used it had more of a clipped way of finishing sentences, you're kind of rounding them out. Like "Rather a lot of money" should have some kind of emphasis point, I'd think.

[@mughat]

The price (value) is dependent of the creator. Its like counterfit money has a very different value then the original.
Aesthetic value is independent of the creator. Like a copy of a book is just as good as the original.

[@DistractionDonkey]

mughat Yes...but why? wouldn't that be the question here? Why do we tie the value if something to the person who made it?

[@mughat]

DistractionDonkey Because it limits the supply of that particular good. Especially if the artist is dead. Money only have value if the supply is somehow limited.

[@DistractionDonkey]

mughat huh... i do see where you're coming from, you're thinking economically.
but your argument suggest that the value we apply to a painters work will diminuish as he produces more works because the good becomes less limited. that evidently isn't the case in real life.

[@mughat]

DistractionDonkey Its a a balance between supply and demand. If the art is popularity and the demand rise with or faster than the amount of paintings produced the price might still go up.
Pirate copies will never have the same kind of monetary value because they can be produced unlimited.
The painter can only make so many paintings. So he will most likely not flood the market with an excess in supply.

[@DistractionDonkey]

mughat You're reducing the debate on monetary value. The video and the discussion was more about the immaterial appreciation for art rather than the money people pay for it. Because the pricing on the art market is absurd and has its own crazy rules.

[@KRIGBERT]

Is it really that common to talk about aesthetics as if it only has to do with art? I understand that it is among some philosophers, but I think it is a very narrow view, that makes the concept a lot less interesting and applicable than it could be. After all, aesthetic terms like "beautiful", "sublime", "nasty" and so on, are used to describe just about everything that can give us some sort of sensory experience. Honestly: isn't it kind of weird to say that nature doesn't have aesthetic value?
...and from that point of view, the questions of whether the forgeries are art becomes irrelevant with regards to whether they have aesthetic value. I also suspect the effect the fakeness has on the aesthetic experience, would depend on the individual. An academic who knows and cares a lot about the history of art would have a different experience from, say, a six year old who doesn't.

[@DeusAmoeba]

Ok so i'm going through all your videos now and it doesn't look like anyone dropped in on this one's comment section in awhile. But how do you get by the idea of people caring about the individual suffering of people they've never met?
When I hear one person I don't know and I've never met died, I'm less affected than when I hear five people who I don't know and I've never met died. I don't see how his argument just outright beats the "least amount of suffering in the world" argument. If even one human in the entire world is even a little affected by 5 being worse to them than 1, surely his argument crumbles?
I mean I do see the argument and all, but it seems like a pedantic thought experiment.

[@andrewharrison8436]

So we have:
aesthetic value
historical value
rarety value
snob value
They all get mixed up a bit but what is being exposed here is that a lot of the art world total value comes from the snob element. Although that's the one element they would claim doesn't exist.

[@DelapierceD]

Personally, I would rather have a perfect forgery of the Mona Lisa in my room than the original. The story of the forgery is way more cool and meaningful to me than the story of the original

[@HAngeli]

I love art forgery stories!!!
Of course that it does't have "less aesthetic value" but the forgery has less historical value.

[@daddyleon]

I don't even think it has less historical value. Makes me think of the Ship of Theseus problem.
Why would it have more historical value? Because it's... been through stuff? I don't see why that matters. Especially not if experts sometimes can't even tell the difference, which happens with sooo many forgeries. And then what about forgeries that aren't historical pieces, but more modern art. Is it more valuable because it's made by an artist? I don't see why that has more value.
I would love to understand why, so if you could explain your pov more thoroughly, I'd be very charmed :)

[@HAngeli]

It is easier to explain with an object that is not art. There is this autor (Leonardo Boff) that gives an amazing example, he has a piece of a burned cigarrete in a glass. A piece of burned cigarrete is just junk, right? Not this one, not for him. Because it is the remains of the last cigarrete that his father smoke before leaving this life.
Let's face it, maybe if we secretly change it for a very similar one he wouldn't notice it... But the only value that this object has is it's history.
Historic value is pretty much the same - at least from my perspective. We see in museums daily artifacts like cups and such that are only more valuable than our own cups because it's age, it's history.
If we think about contemporary art there are so much times in which what truly matters is the idea (kosuth's chair for example)... Many times the object itself was not made by the artist, or it was made only partialy by the artist.
Considering all this we can attribute to a piece of art tree different aspect of value: 1 the quality of the idea, 2 the quality of the technical execution, and 3 the historical value. A recent forgery would have only the 2 value, as it is not an original idea nor has historical value.
In the end there are many ways to understand value, there is a lot of discussion about that in art - especially since the invention of engraving and photography (can you have an "original" photography? only the film is the original thing? what about digital photography, where there's no film? - if you are super interested in this you will like to check Walter Benjamin's text "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction").

[@daddyleon]

*I apologize for the wall of text*, I’m sorry, but I find this interesting and your response was thought provoking.
I do like that example, but there is something significantly different about historical objects, I think. The emotional value of the cigarette butt is only there because of the personal relationship it represents, and historical objects don’t have that aspect of evoking emotions due to personal connections. The emotions they do evoke, I think, are quite different.
Furthermore, I don't think we just value historical objects because of their emotional value. We don’t say things, like: _I'm X nationality and ages ago the people that lived here are my ancestors (which might very well not be the case), so there's my emotional connection_.
I was once told that people used to think the ancient Greeks (and/or Romans) made statues without arms etc., because that's what we found. But those pieces just are much easier to break off. Then, later, we learned that they were actually painted in bright colours instead of the pale white marble that we generally think off. The reason why we like those historical pieces is not because they're old, but because, for one, they teach us about that era: what their life and culture was like, what art they liked and how they saw the world, what they valued, how much 'progress they made', etc. And of course... we tend to express this value in money. I think we would both agree on this. That it's not just the age, but the things that come along with that age. And for similar reasons, stuff owned by old dead kings is often more valued that stuff of old dead common folk - the power makes it more important, places it closer to the things we value.
When I was a young child I used to read books of a particular writer, and when I read those books I also wanted to own the books. Not for convenience, but because I liked the idea of owning them, and that was because: I read _these_ books, I liked the stories, having them lined up like that gave me a sense of completion and accomplishment, they looked nice, they might tell a little about me. Having them from the library isn't the same feeling in anyway, owning the PDF (even the official one with the same drawings etc.) or even having a photocopy, is not the same.
To come back to my ancient Greek statue example. While we know they did this, I have hardly noticed significant endeavors to realign our notions about these statues, how they looked, and the ancient Greeks with our newest discoveries. We have also not seen things like ‘dinosaurs with feathers’ permeate to the mainstream entertainment and only somewhat to the musea (again, from what I know). This seems to fly in the face of what I said earlier - about historical things being valued because of the information it basically gives us. But I think we should not forget how strong our biases can be, I think, we would like to have our nostalgic memories to be the same. Small changes (like an ancient Greek settlement being discovered, or a new species of dinosaur) can easily be welcomed to expand our historical canon. But deviations that are just too strong (like brightly coloured statues vs stately, dignified high-brow, and clean statues in ancient Greece; or big, dark, scaly, and scary dinosaurs vs dinosaurs with bright feathers and puffy lips - see T-Rex controversy), are harder to accept.
So in the end it there is not really the same kind of emotional component that the cigarette butt had, and even that emotional component was only indirect. The value and emotion is only there in terms of what it symbolizes, it’s not actually there in the thing (which is why I don’t really visit graveyards either to memorize the dead). I would say art is also different from the personal connection people have with objects, and is also different from historical objects (apart from sometimes being historical objects themselves).
When you compare forgeries with originals, to use the three sources of value that you mentioned, I don’t really see the point there either. The originality of the idea is not in the art itself, it’s merely captured in the art - the source is in the brain of the artist(s). Furthermore, if you can only discover that the originality is ‘absent’ from that piece of art after several experts used x-rays and many other things to determine whether it’s real… then doesn’t that really miss the point of the art anyway? Then, the quality of the technical execution. That is not really something you can see in the work either; again, unless you study it. Besides, in order for people to think a forgery is the original, the forger would have to be really good in order to pull that off. So you might even argue the technical execution is therefore probably better with forgers that with original artists. And its history as of a piece of art, too, is not something you can see without studying it.
The real point about art, I think, is in what is does with us. Whether it’s original or forged. As you alluded to with Kosuth's One and Three Chairs. It’s the concept that matters to us and/or the aesthetics. It’s not just something you could say about Kosuth's One and Three Chairs, the same could be said about plays. For instance, as they say about plays from Shakespeare, they’re never the same as each theatre company’s performance is different. And for both of these (Kosuth's chair and theatre plays) you could say these are basically conceptual art, even the aesthetics can only be experienced through the concept. And by definition, these existing works cannot be forged. But you could still say that you ‘discovered’ a manuscript by said artist that details the art, but was actually just forged and merely in the style of (and because it’s conceptual even harder to verify/falsify) - and that would make it a forgery. Like the ones Olly mentioned. If art is physical, it just makes it so much more explicit and concrete. Similarly, I think burning a ‘real’ copy of the Quran would get you in more trouble than burning a hard-drive that has a million digital copies on it. This might seem like a tangent, but I think it illustrates quite nicely the bias we have for physicality and how much easier that would make it for our biases to be triggered.
I fear our obsession over forgeries and originals can all be traced back to just being the same thing as my desires to own the physical books that I read, and not simply be content with having read them (in whatever form: library, PDF, etc.). A desire for owning something unique and special for yourself is strong is strong. It cannot be unnique of pure if it’s a fake, a forgery, a scam. It has to be original, or else our desire to own this special unique thing will not be satiated. And as I said, I fear we’d get much more shocked if this forgery happens to physical art, rather than conceptual art.
Also thanks for your suggestion of Walter Benjamin's text and of course also many thanks to you :)

[@HAngeli]

*A wall of text receives a wall of text reply =D*
Absolutely. I didn’t mean to reduce historical artifacts to cheesy emotional value, we obtain glimpses of the past by studying them and it is a very “alive” field of study as a new discoveries can change our views. When you point in your first comment that these objects have passed through time this is not something to be dismissed either, they truly bear witness and by chemical analyzing, for example, we can discovery important information (like the exactly composition of an ancient red pigment). In fact is this sort of thing that reveals many forgers, an incoherence between some pigment or material used now and the one that were used in the time.
You are very assertive when pointing the symbolic value the physical things have, using your childhood books and the printed quran as examples. Dan Ariely made some research comparing how people respond to actual printed money versus tokens and virtual money and the results indicate that people are less likely to cheat/steal when dealing with actual printed money - it bears a deeper symbolic value - If I’m not mistaken he presents these results in the book “the honest truth about dishonesty” but he probably mentions it in some of his talks as well. Nevertheless I think that is more in why we value the original over the copy.
Despite the conceptual focus of contemporary art we still value hand-made objects. Partly due to the contrast that such goods create when compared to it’s industrialized versions: a hand-made pair of shoes would fit perfectly. Also we tend to value the patience, time, and skill put in hand-made objects. But it goes far beyond that, forgetting about shoes for a moment and considering only visual art: _gesture contains meaning_.
Is easy to put this statement to test: just try to draw a simple object like a glass bottle in different moods, angry, tired, happy, well rested - the result is different. This is especially important when considering the 19th and 20th century art, in which the artists work freely, guided by their own interests in their investigations, not bounded by theme, technique, or material.
This is lost in forgery. _The forger is not making choices_, they are using their skill simply to reproduce (even if they are making a “new” work in the same style of the original artist, they are choosing only considering what will be more convincing). Again I insist, this has technical value - the work of a mechanic that fixes a car engine has technical value as well, but he is not expressing anything, neither is the forger.
Still, as you put, what is the difference from the perspective of someone experience the art? After all, the choices and moods of the original artist are replicate perfectly there (let’s consider a very good forgery). I would say none. I myself visit a couple years ago a modigliani’s exhibition full of works that latter were revealed to be forgeries and I can’t say that the new information made a lot of difference in my experience. So, from my point of view at least, the forgeries have less value as a work of art because they are cold, calculate, they fake expression, but _they also have the same aesthetic value of the originals_ as they are visually striking, engaging, moving - maybe is not the best comparison… But considering aesthetics I think of the forgery as an actor. We can be very moved by an actors performance, even if they are not really feeling any of what they are expressing.
Now, I never heard a case of forgery of conceptual art - but as you put, it is possible. The same way is possible to fake a manuscript of a famous literary author or a sheet music of a composer by mimicking the style, structure and so on. The sequel of the count of monte cristo for example is considered by many a forgery - so, in the perspective of a dumas’ reader, is it worth reading? The forgery can be interesting, engaging, moving, even if the intention behind it were simply to convince as an original. I always feel some doubt when people discovery a manuscript of a famous deceased author, it is pretty plausible that some skilled specialist could write in the same style and make it pass as an original as the deceased has no say on the matter.
* Couldn’t fit it in the body of the text, but as far as I perceive we don’t change our view of ancient greek statues because it’s traditional marble whiteness was absorbed and used as reference in renascence (and neoclassicism).

[@daddyleon]

Haha, thanks for that wall of text, I liked that, despite being so terribly late with this reply. Sorry.
I’m not saying that history is not important in those terms. It can of course be used to see if the pigments indeed do correspond with the era it’s said to be made in. My point was that this adds no real value to the art itself, no more meaning, no more creativity. If there is a painting that ‘has seen’ a great deal of historic things, like been witness to the marriage of important people (like kings of queens) marry. Or even inspired important history altering decisions (like for someone to go to war over), etc. Etc. Then those would be indeed interesting.. Fascinating stories. But those stories would still be true, it would still have happened, the beauty and creativity of the painting could still be admired if the original painting was lost in a terrible fire (part of its history too), but instead you’re looking at an identical copy (unless you investigate the pigment etc.). To me nothing of real value (in terms of how I look at the work) would be added knowing I’m looking at a 1300 year old original or a replica. In fact, frequent replicas might be preferable in some situations, as works vade and can become damaged - looking at these damaged works gives you a wrong, that is, historically incorrect/inaccurate, view of what the work looked like in it’s original time of completio. Another thing could be that the original work not on display in your location but on the other side of the globe - rather something than nothing to look at.I’m not at all saying studying the way of creations of originals, or originals on their own, have no additional value. As you said, you could learn more about the maker, or their mistakes, or the works they painted over, etc. etc. To me those are all perfectly valid reasons to prefer originals. But only in terms of study, not in the appreciation of the things you’re actually seeing (or otherwise experiencing).
Hmm, yes, haha, I was indeed very assertive. I hope you don’t mind, I was trying to be… clear? And it is kind of my opinion. Some sort of inference to the best analogy, I guess?
I have heard similar things to what you said about that Dan Ariely book. There are many examples like that. But I don’t really see what that has to do with art and that we appreciate it and ought to appreciate it for more than just what it is - regardless of its maker or the history it went through. It’s not at all surprising to me that people treat real money with more care or respect than (clearly) fake money. We’ve just been conditioned so strongly. These things go very deep, but that doesn’t make them rational. We know, very strongly know that real money has real value. All our lives we’ve been conditioned to treat it more carefully, also because doing bad things with real money can have real consequences. I cannot help but think this is all because it’s so deeply entrenched. But even if it wasn’t… even if this does (unequivocally) point to us valuing originals over forgeries/copies, then that still doesn’t mean this way of valuing is rationally justified. As you said: in the game they played, the fake and the real money had the same use. Treating it differently was not justified given the rules of the game.
There was this experiment where people had the opportunity to donate money to a charity. And when there were eyes (just photos or drawings of eyes) people would be much more ready to donate money to that charity than if there wasn’t and something else. The reason to this, the researchers concluded, was that people would do morally good things more readily if they have the feeling they’re being watched (something we could probably all attest to), even if the eyes were mere pictures and not actually any thing watching you. (In case you’re wondering: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eth.12011/full that might well be it.) It’s not that I don’t get these urges (of all these three things, the eyes & donation, the real money & stealing, the desire to own physical works & the emotional/experiential difference between physical and digital works. I get these, and to this day, I have these same experiences. But I know..think that they’re not really rational, but I still have the desire to own a few books I like, to make but one thing. Similarly, (I think) get that people like originals and dislike forgeries, but I think they’re still mistaken about it. I think they ought not to, because it’s not reasonable. Not just on a cognitive way, but I also think it’s not fair to your emotional side. I’ve seen someone be ecstatic about owning a sculpture, loving it in all it’s beauty, but when it was discovered it was a forgery… all the love was gone. Because it was not ‘real’. So what about all those things you loved about it before? How it looked, felt, the memories you had of it from when you were a young child, the things it inspired you to do… all these things are gone??? Just because it was made by someone else at a different time and place? Then, if that is _really_ the case, you did not _actually_ love the art, you merely loved the idea of the original, of owning something special (and - if I may be so blunt - valuable, in monetary terms, more likely).
I agree with what you said about hand-made objects, though that too, is sometimes very overblown. Sometimes, more and more, things made on assembly lines can be objectively better things than if those things were made by hand. Better in practical terms: stronger, cheaper, less time to make, more durable, more sustainable, etc. All we’d have left are those… pardon my foul language, but: petty emotional feelings. Like ‘wow, a person took the time to make this and now it’s mine: specially made for me’. And yes if you like those minor imperfections, if you think those can give it charm and life. Well… machines can fake those too. There is this thing with synthetic diamonds: they are better than natural diamonds in all practical ways (and even moral ways, since they would not have a chance to be blood diamonds). And those imperfections in natural diamonds, they can be created in the synthetic ones too - hence the legal need to indicate (with a trademark, logo, or something) that they are synthetics and not natural ones.
Yes, gesture certainly does contain meaning. But that meaning is the intent, the meaning is not physical. So forgeries also have that meaning there, as they are just copies of originals, and the originals had the original gestures and meanings. Sometimes we don’t even know that there was a specific meaning in a gesture. Sometimes we think meaning upon something… meaning that was never intended by the original artist. And when you say that the forger also does not have this gesture and meaning even if they are making a ‘new’ work, then… I wonder. If an original artist makes an original art in a style that is his, or a new style, or whatever… surely their gestures are also limited as they’re still within that style. Yes, that of the forger would be even more limited, but still, would the original artist have complete freedom? So also with these points you mentioned, while I agree with them, seems a mute point to the notion I was struggling with originally: why does that matter in terms of appreciating the art as you experience it? I don’t see how the coldness of forgeries comes in, because, as you said: you don’t experience that at the time.
Oh, and about those ancient Greek statues… yeah that seems to prove my point, doesn’t it? The marble white that we falsely associate with classicism is incorrect and ought to be changed to better fit reality - after all is that not what archeology is for? We should keep the neoclassicist statues white… of course, that’s after all what they were. We should say explain why they’re white (false assumptions and reverence of the ancients, etc.) so that would help to greatly understand our past and how we as humans do things. I found it very very interesting to learn. Same for how the greeks came up with legends about cyclops and griffins (based on dwarf elephants and triceratops respectively).

[@emperorjustinianIII4403]

Happy Graduation!

[@whydoineedalastname5989]

You have great points but I love that he scammed the nazis