“Head of a Man,” Van Gogh? For seventy years, the answer would be an undoubted yes, but today, art experts are saying it was more likely a painting by one of Van Gogh’s peers.
I’ve been looking at quite a few articles on the matter, and it seems that a lot of writers are taking the dramatic approach of calling it a forgery, but the experts feel it’s important to stress that there’s no reason to believe this to be a forgery (a work created with the intent of passing it off as a Van Gogh) but simply misattributed to Van Gogh.
As a Van Gogh work, the painting was valued at $21 million. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent answer on its value now.
As disappointing as it must be for the art world, I live for stuff like this! Over 70 years, the creator of this work has been unquestioned, and now, we find it’s been wrong all along.
The only two history based classes I’ve ever enjoyed in my entire academic career were taught by teachers who reveled in teaching us all the things we thought we knew, but had always been mislead on.
After tonight, I’m off work until next Tuesday. I think I’ll spend a good bit of time researching mis-truths. It’s been a while since I’ve done that.
Do any of you have any interesting tidbits of things the general public thinks they know, but really have no idea?
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 pm
This is really interesting! I love this kind of stuff too. I know there are tons of things like this, though I can’t think of any right now- I’ll have to comment again later if I recall some. You know, this reminds me a little bit of the whole “Davinci Code” thing - not the controversy itself or the movie but the fact that when I read that book, I never looked at the painting of the Last Supper in the same way again. To this day I can stare at it in amazement that I never noticed little details like the dagger and the “V” shape. Just fascinating stuff.
August 4th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I’m the same way! I definitely took everything from that book with a grain of salt, but it’s hard not to think of those things!
Definitely comment if you think of something! Even if it’s a month from now and you have to comment on some random entry! lol
August 4th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Kangaroo is not “I don’t know” in any of the Australian Aboriginal languages, as if often quoted.
I have a bunch more, how many do you want
August 29th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I love it, I took an art history class and I remember learning about all of these paintings. We found out after the class that two were not by the person the teacher said they were, but that was her mistake.
This is very interesting though. I wonder who did paint it if it wasn’t Van Gogh