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| The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century | 
 enlarge | Author: Edward Dolnick
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 4001
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0060825413
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.9492
EAN: 9780060825416
ASIN: 0060825413
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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Product Description
As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark was Hermann Goering, one of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a fanatic collector of art. It was an almost perfect crime. For seven years a no-account painter named Han van Meegeren managed to pass off his paintings as those of one of the most beloved and admired artists who ever lived. But, as Edward Dolnick reveals, the reason for the forger's success was not his artistic skill. Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist. His true genius lay in psychological manipulation, and he came within inches of fooling both the Nazis and the world. Instead, he landed in an Amsterdam court on trial for his life. ARTnews called Dolnick's previous book, the Edgar Award-winning The Rescue Artist, "the best book ever written on art crime." In The Forger's Spell, the stage is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the villains are blacker.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Not as good as the Rescue Artist July 9, 2008
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
When I saw this book mentioned in the New York Times, I went out and bought a copy because I had really enjoyed Edward Dolnick's previous book, The Rescue Artist. I wasn't anywhere near as impressed with The Forger's Spell. What made The Rescue Artist so good was the way Dolnick described the detective Charlie Hill on the hunt for a stolen painting. Hill was a really great, quirky character that Dolnick made come to life on the page. In The Forger's Spell, there's no character like that. The forger, Hans Van Meegeren, is interesting for what he was able to do - sell a forged Vermeer to Hermann Goering - but you never get much sense of who he was. Dolnick presents Van Meegeren as a greedy, second-rate painter who managed to fool a bunch of art experts and rich people because they were stupid and easy marks. It's not so compelling, and there's way too much padding here - a lot of chapters that don't advance the plot, and are pretty easy to skip. I would recommend buying Tom Hoving's book, False Impressions, which is a really good book about forgery. The Forger's Spell is nowhere near as good or interesting
 An amazing story and a fascinating book! June 26, 2008
20 out of 34 found this review helpful
I loved this book. The story of how a brilliant conman, (who happened to be a terrible painter) fooled the world is astonishing, as gripping as a thriller. Dolnick is an expert storyteller, weaving back and forth between art history, World War II, forgery how-to lessons, and the tale of Van Meegeren. We meet Nazi villains like the clownish Goering; Vermeer, the mysterious and divinely talented master; blowhard "experts" and bigtime frauds. Dolnick is an expert explainer, but he's also funny and has a winning voice. There are novelistic touches throughout, and vivid scenes that will stay with you. The narrative zips along to a dramatic ending. If you like a good yarn, you'll really enjoy The Forger's Spell.
interesting story, disappointing book July 4, 2008
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
I am a fan of Edward Dolnick's book The Rescue Artist, but I have to say that I was disappointed in The Forger's Spell. I bought it as soon as it came out because I was interested in the story of Han Van Meegeren. Van Meegeren was a fascinating crook who figured out how to fool people into seeing what they wanted to see. But I had already read Van Meegeren's story in John Kilbracken's book The Master Forger and, unfortunately, I didn't learn anything new in Dolnick's book. Anyone interested in Van Meegeren should look at Kilbracken's book, which does a better job of bringing the story to life. I wouldn't recommend The Forger's Spell.
A Question of Attribution and Identity July 17, 2008
9 out of 14 found this review helpful
Han Van Meegeren was a mediocre artist with an enormous ego. Convinced that his talents were being maliciously ignored by the Dutch artistic community, he used considerable patience and ingenuity to develop a way of forging paintings by some of the greatest artists of Holland's Golden Age, especially those of Johannes Vermeer. His activities peaked during the Great Depression and the Nazi takeover of Holland during World War II, a time period when the Dutch were especially vulnerable as they looked for reminders of a more peaceful, prosperous, past.
When I first opened this book I looked at the illustrations first. Comparing the Van Meegeren "art" with the real Vermeers completely confused me. If someone like me with no art training could spot the differences between sublime works like "Girl With A Pearl Earring" and travesties like "Christ at Emmaus," why on earth couldn't experts and cognoscenti do the same? Edward Dolnick does a good job of explaining the role preconceptions and prejudices play in evaluating a suspect painting and the way the milieu of the period affects judgement. Therefore, in the 1930s the Van Meegeren forgeries could pass muster because they displayed generally accepted views on beauty. Ten years later they were very obviously fakes because by then they looked out of date, which a true masterpiece could never do.
I found Dolnick's discussions of the methods forgers use and the ways forgeries are detected the most interesting parts of this book. I disliked Van Meegeren at first, but he grew on me despite myself for the sheer brazenness of his gall and his obvious delight in fooling so many experts for so long. And it certainly didn't hurt that some of his most celebrated victims were among the nastiest and most horrible people of all time: Hitler and Goering and their ilk. I was very glad to know that while in prison Goering was told that he had been tricked into buying a Van Meejeren fake, and that that, at least, seemed to cause him real anguish in a way that his multitudinous crimes against humanity did not. Most importantly, this book causes its readers to ponder where the line between illusion and reality really lies at times.
 What spell? July 14, 2008
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you are looking for an interesting, well written book that does not trivialize WWII history and follows a logical story line, then this book is not for you.
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