Fine Art: is it real or just an illusion?

Fraud, misplaced help or vandalism - or could it be that the artist just was not that good?

I am appalled by the ridiculously obvious mistakes and "strangenesses" found in many works of art adorning our museum walls. After watching another program about Vermeer's technique, this latest from the Penn & Teller team, I only got 13 minutes in before downloading the pic in case I wanted to compare notes on what they said to the painting. After looking at the picture for a minute or two, I was appalled by what I saw and incensed by the way people worship shit. Some spend more money on one painting than 20 average people could earn throughout their whole lifetime.
(£1,950,000 per person based on 65 years working @ £30,000 per annum, leaving school at 15, dying off at 80 years old)

I realise that there were/are a few very good forgers who could paint Van Cock or Reubens "better" than the original artists - I say that because they perfect the techniques of the artist in such incredible detail as to be able to recreate their style at any given time in their life to a level which probably is too perfect. Every artist has good and bad days, and styles will vary from the backgrounds to the foreground and to brush techniques used throughout. It's a bit like learning to play in Santana's style or Rory Gallagher's (one is easier to play than the other, probably not the one you would expect either!).

It is common knowledge that a large percentage of works in museums today could well be fakes. When I say large, it has been reported as 2% at it's lowest range, to up to 15% of ALL art works. I doubt it is so high, but imagine 2% is probably right, though who knows whether it is the tip of the iceberg or the whole amount - I am certainly no art expert.

I have, however, spent many hours studying a work of art in as fine a detail as I can, the Google Art Project and some individual museums such as the National Portrait Gallery and the Guggenheim have outstanding high detail imagery. Some are not so high quality, it often depends on popularity and appeal. I found one image of the Girl with the Pearl Earring (Vermeer) at 70 megapixels, while the other one of his works I was interested in tonight, The Milkmaid, was only available up to 40 megapixels.

The Milkmaid - Johannes Vermeer (c. 1660)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
(click above link to view there)

At first glance the picture is great, with no obvious areas of concern. That is, until one looks closer. A 12 megapixel (MP) image may seem massive, but it is not really. Most mobile (cell) phone cameras do around 10 megapixels (MP), and these are squished using compression into a .jpg file between 1 and 3 megabytes (MB). They can even be smaller, depending on how few colours and shades are in the picture.

Zooming in on a 12MP version, the bad quality and blocky pixellation hides all the flaws and blemishes. It is not until we get up to 40MP that the detail starts to be visible properly.

Now, I am not an artist. I can draw stick men, but they are not that good. I can, however, spot a bit of shit when I see it. Here are some slices of the painting - they are rather large images, but bear with me as it will be worth it!

So, here is the first image, a closeup of the centre of the picture, pouring the milk; taken from a 70MP version from Google Art Project - though they are now trying to claim cultural reign over all the world by calling it the "Google Cultural Institute" (shame no-one told the web designer as the page title is still Google Arts Project lol).

As you can see, without clicking it, it still looks fine. Let's enlarge it a bit ...

 Now, is it me, or is there something not quite right with this picture? Or maybe even several things not right with it? The original is 410 x 455 mm, or 16.14" x 17.9". That means this slice of the pic is around 220 mm wide. On my screen it is 180, yours may be bigger or smaller.

So, we have it at almost the size intended by the artist, and from that you can see that painting the detail would not have been easy. There are, however, some niggles for me. This painting has been edited! IMHO :¬)

What makes me say that? well, this does ...

1. Inaccurate brush strokes of a spastic
2. Missing colouring from the coverup in 4.
3. Not sure about this one, but would the jug not be the same colour inside as out? Maybe in the low light it was how Vermeer saw it.
4. Obvious cover-up, not even properly matched to the wall colour on the far-left (or right) of the image
5. I suspect this is even below the standard set for GCSE art.
6. Mistake? Looks like it, though it appears as if it may just be shadow painted by Vermeer, try turning your arm to look like that - your hand cannot maintain that position if you twist your arm to match.
7. Another dodgy blue bit
8. If this is the best Vermeer can do for an elbow, then he should have been shot
9. Ah! There's her elbow, so what was all that mess in 8. ?

So, firstly apologies for the size of that one!

I realise these may have been corrections to stance by Vermeer, but as everyone keeps banging on about "how he achieved such perfection", be it through mirrors, pin-hole lenses, camera obscura or whatever, that is still a load of old dodgy stuff!

And there are so many more that look a little like this, taken to extremes we have the Mad Bearded Monkey Man Christ picture created by an old lady in the Santuario de la Misericordia church in Borja, Spain   

I am not saying The Milkmaid is as bad as that, but hey, something dodgy has been done to it - or is it just me?