'the Forger', Derek Mahon (Critical Essay‪)‬

Han van Meegeren (1889-1947) is an iconic figure in twentieth-century art. A competent but hardly outstanding artist, he was wounded by accusations of unoriginality and turned to hoaxing as an act of revenge on the critics who had failed to acknowledge his genius. He produced works in the style of Pieter de Hooch, Frans Hals, and Vermeer, and achieved his greatest success in 1937 with The Disciples at Emmaus, which he succeeded in passing off as a rediscovered masterpiece by Vermeer. Goering acquired a van Meegeren Vermeer during the war, which led to the artist's arrest for trafficking national treasures and his confession that the painting was in fact a fake. Van Meegeren continued to make mischief long after his death: a gallery in Pittsburgh discovered in 1967 that some of its Vermeers were Van Meegeren copies. Even today his fakery has left some (presumed) seventeenth-century Dutch paintings under a cloud of suspicion. After his discovery and disgrace van Meegeren continued to paint under his own name and was much in demand. His 'authentic' paintings, however, executed in a style of gaudy neo-Classical pastiche, are of little interest. Derek Mahon's 'The Forger' is less concerned with his art, real or fake, than with his artistic self-image and attempts at self-justification. It also showcases, we quickly discover, his talent for melodrama and bluff. Mahon is a notorious reviser, but in reprints of 'The Forger' he has limited himself to one small change, adding quotation marks to 'mere technique' and 'true vision' in the fourth stanza, emphasizing van Meegeren's contempt for his critics. Van Meegeren's talk of an 'agony' of regrets and his courtship of disgrace ('I sold my soul for potage') are highly unconvincing, and reminiscent of Francis Stuart's rationalization of his broadcasts in wartime Berlin; the stereotype of the artist as moral outlaw or poete maudit is a fig-leaf for his attention-seeking and self-pity. In merely human terms, van Meegeren is a contemptible figure. The real question is whether Mahon still wishes us to admire him as an artist.