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2 L. & Critique 3 (1991)

handle is hein.journals/lwcrtq2 and id is 1 raw text is: Law and Critique Vol.II no.1 [1991] FALSE IMAGES: ON THE MEANING OF ART FORGERY by EWAN MACLEAN* This paper attempts to place the practice of art forgery within both its economic and, importantly, its cultural context. What ap- pears at first to be a fairly marginal and commonplace activity en- capsulates in reality the economic and social forces which underpin the operation of art and its possession. A consideration of art forgery directly uncovers a cultural logic of symbols, dimensions of social and semantic exchange which can easily remain obscured, indeed delib- erately hidden, when art, with its powerful and elite aesthetic as- sociations, is approached directly. The economy of art forgery can only emerge once certain basic structures have developed within the larger, surrounding artistic environment. These essentially revolve round awareness of history and individuality; perception of art works as unique and discrete objects; and a particular desire for the possession of these objects. These conditions have a very specific historical and geographic ba- sis, occurring, with the exception of a flourishing incidence in the Roman empire, in Mediterranean and Western Europe from the fif- teenth century onwards. This period and the countries involved are also those concerned with the emergence of capitalism, and a sys- tematic relationship between this major social and economic forma- tion and the development of the conditions which have been identi- fied as associated with art forgery can be established in some con- siderable historical detail. It is not possible, however, to set these out in depth here.' The late Peter Fuller (when still a follower, rather than the subsequent vituperator, of the critic John Berger) has been one of the * London. 1 For a more extended argument, see E. MacLean, False Images: A Social History of Art Forgery, unpublished Ph.D., University of Edinburgh, 1990.