Imitate Wonderful

Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

Albert Schweitzer

Artland Magazine’s “The Art of Forgery – Art Forgers Who Duped The World” is a quick read about some famous art forgers. There’s Han van Meegeren (1889-1947) who was motivated by revenge. John Myatt, “the biggest art fraud of the 20th century”, now sells “genuine fakes” after his prison sentence. Some, like Wolfgang Beltracchi, didn’t just imitate an existing piece of work, he created entirely new paintings in a famous artist’s style to “‘fill the gaps’ in the artists’ bodies of work”.

About the author

Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German-born French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of the historical Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul’s mysticism of “being in Christ” as primary and the doctrine of justification by faith as secondary.