by Jon Lackman | 27 September 2007 | Uncategorized
Jonathan Jones writes:
Why do journalists write the same six generic stories about art over and over again? … Imagine how little news about visual art would appear in the papers if the following generic stories were banned:
1. The most expensive work of art ever …
2. Anything about graffiti …
3. Lost masterpiece rediscovered …
4. Contemporary artists as plagiarists
5. Art historian/archaeologist makes earth-shattering discovery
6. Restoration stories …Bad reporting along these generic lines distorts understanding and can destroy our pleasure in great art. The worst recent example of this is the global media attention paid to a study of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Adoration of the Magi by the “diagnostician” Maurizio Seracini, who was invited to apply a range of technologies to look beneath the visible surface of this great work in the Uffizi Gallery. Seracini was able to photograph underdrawings that add to the number of figures and images in what is already a picture that teems with possibility. This is interesting and valuable. But Seracini went on to make totally unfounded, badly argued claims that in effect this is not a Leonardo at all – it is a botched job finished by a lesser artist.
