Ever-Changing Journey Pt.1

of Masterpiece Part.1

For every masterpiece, we are fascinated by its unique style and iconic imagery, giving us a privilege to appreciate their existence. However,

there are more stories underneath that has

been threatening the originality of artworks for

centuries. There is more than meets the eye.

Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch, 1654, Mauritshuis, Hague, Netherland

Let us imagine the life without literature, art, music, and a cup of coffee with slice of a brownie (or your favorite choice of dessert) — the worst nightmare. There will be no library, museum, theater, auditorium, jazz bar, and café. What can we possibly do outside of home and where can we ever go for any kind of amusement or entertainment feeding our creative minds? Our sense and sensibility will be on the rock bottom of cliff and lost in space without colors and characters, most importantly our identity — true resurgence of dystopia. For instance, luxury of seeing historic icons such as Mona Lisa at Louvre of Paris or

The Bedroom by Van Gogh at the Art Institute of Chicago respectively will be a hopeless reality.

There will be no echoes of beautiful symphony

in Carnegie Hall. Library of Alexandria is nothing but a gigantic relic of the once great empire in

the past. Simply, we are looking at the life without lifestyle. Life-enduring elements are missing. Scarier version is that we won’t even acknowledge what is missing since there has been no such thing.

Where we stand in world of art, literature, music, and relative matters has been playing critical role in forming our culture and identity because of its authenticity and identification of craftsmanship. This is a transcendental topic in history of all humanity. Security and protection of those determine our past, present, and future of history. It is more than just keeping a record. It is rather a responsibility and right. Such act should be a smooth transition to next generations to come, however original intention doesn’t always lead to expected outcome. There is a shadow behind the light all the time. Just as art has been leaving significant footprints throughout the generations of civilizations, forgery was right there with it like a flipside of a coin. Unlike other valuable assets, ironically there has been no protection of artworks even until now.

Acclaimed author, Donna Tartt has made a strong point about true purpose and meaning of masterpiece and responsibility to it in her most recent book, The Goldfinch, published back in 2013, drawing huge accolade worldwide. Her book received instant rave from readers and won prestigious Pulitzer Award for Fiction. The book took readers to desperate journey of “The Goldfinch”, a storied Dutch masterpiece painted by Rembrandt’s most beloved pupil, Carel Fabritius, who died during catastrophic explosion caused by gunpowder factory in Delft at age of 32, scoped through life of Theo Decker, the protagonist. “The Goldfinch” is one of few painting survived and restored from the explosion. Though it was never stolen, the original painting, just like in the novel, traveled through time and space from rubbles after meltdown to trades among several different owners before settling down as the permanent collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Tartt depicted young and restless journey of the painting as both traveling companion and talisman of Theo along with underworld of counterfeiting and black-market, causing brutal fate of Dutch masterpiece. The novel takes readers to vivid scenes of dark territories of art industry by going through long journey of masterpiece before finding its home after endless turmoil and full of surprises at risk point along the way. Her intention is to have readers stay off the course and not knowing what is going to happen next. Liveliness of the story is turning into joy ride. The distinctive greatness of literary and art masterpiece internalized lifelong values within people and what has become of them with it. She emphasized two keywords, love and work as means of good life that we all pursue throughout our daily journey.

As The Goldfinch, the novel, was flying off the shelves, readers couldn’t hold off the desire and eagerness to see the painting with naked eyes before even finishing the book, seeking the missing link between descriptive text and vivid imagery. As an outcome, The Frick Collection in New York, where painting was for exhibition, had drawn nearly a quarter million visitors in 2013. Readers were already mesmerized with its exceptional realism and captivating plot.

That is how Goldfinch rejuvenated people’s passion for art and culture. Number of visitors for “The Goldfinch” even surpassed another famous Dutch masterpiece, “The Girl with Pearl Earring”, painted by Johannes Vermeer, influenced by Carel Fabritius. Speaking of timeless classic, point is same, a sophisticated journey through generations of art world with groundbreaking technique and expression.

The Goldfinch was igniting contemporary readers — especially adults — to relive the each one’s younger days and take a deep dive into cultural bliss as they become irresistible to go see the painting in person while finding themselves in main character, Theo’s perspective in exuberant fashion. That is the power of story in the world of art and culture. Particularly in hectic life of modern era, we all need a breathing room to take time to think back on ourselves. One single bird — chained to a perch — can do that. That is how masterpiece has prospered. It takes us studiously to soaring journey to the lost world of our own fountain of youth and finally the redemption of imagination. Through it, we have become the guardians of masterpiece that we all are fond of.

Such a phenomenon is adding more significance of its own to rich history of golden age of Dutch painting as a medium of Rembrandt, whom Fabritius studied, and Vermeer, who is considered to be influenced by Fabritius. It links them together as “The Goldfinch” resembles drawing with the end of his brush, painting techniques of Rembrandt’s, so did “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” of Vermeer from Fabritius’ unique style such as frequent use of cohesive lighting effect with light-colored background on the thick texture as well as his famous Trompe-l’œil style.

Self-portrait of Carel Fabritius, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Source: Wikipedia

We are able to see the painting in museum or online, thanks to technological advancement. The museum was able to restore the masterpiece through microscope and x-rays. Since the painting was so valuable, it became the first painting to be ever going through CT scan for further examination and evaluation.

At the art museum or galleries, there are numerous collections of art pieces exhibited for general or different theme, and it impresses some, complicated some. Regardless, there is years of work and effort behind all. That is how art distinguishes and identifies itself before naked eyes. Since we can only see and enjoy what is exhibited at the scene, we hardly think about lives of artist who created such pieces. We only look, observe, and soak it in. We don’t know in details of how many hours, days, and years of hard work has been put on by artists, we can only imagine estimates.

Moreover, we are not even sure whether such piece is real or fake. Distribution of art works is much more complicated than we think. That is even more a case for masterpieces like Picasso, Rembrandt, Monet and more. There has been a conundrum of authenticity as long history of connection for art forgery, underground dealers, and frequently seen art auction scandals are causing more diversified art crime.

Celebrated literary work, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, is set to hit the big screen this coming fall drawing much anticipation and hype from the readers, eager to see how nearly 800-page journey will transform into film even after 5 years since published. The preview during CinemaCon revealed its first vivid scenes of the film and created such vibrant and exciting impression from fans, evoking their love for the original story and convinced with smooth transition from the book to movie of which is hardly a case, especially for prodigious literary work. Such film has brought a keen attention to take a good look at how art forgery has evolved for last 5 years and how industries has handled and will respond for such a historical crime.

For last few years, popularity of famed masterpiece is constantly putting art in motion as “The Goldfinch” travelling from Mauritschuis, Hague to Frick in New York to Netherland exhibition before returning back to The Hague for permanently.

Anticipation will draw more attention from crowd, helping both artists and their craftsmanship. The Goldfinch sensation has brought undivided attention to the original painting itself. Frick Museum has hosted the painting and drawn more visitors than ever. This is the powerful collaboration of art and culture with work of literary prodigy, acting as the guardian of masterpiece in more celebrated form.

Only few of Fabritius’s painting survived from the tragic accident along with his passing, and that is why people are adding more value to it by engaging with it either through reading or seeing or some other ways. Until now, we have protected “The Goldfinch” very well. However, world is still far from protection of art masterpiece and creative minds in the making.