A modern-day marriage of Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” and Humans of New York, Canvasing The World details host Sean Diediker’s quest to explore the interplay between art and the human condition. The series takes viewers on adventures to exotic locations to explore creativity, absorb cultural diversity, and reveal the places that spark the inspiration for Sean’s original paintings.
UNFORGEABLE: WOLFGANG BELTRACCHI LAUNCHES NFT COLLECTION
Wolfgang Beltracchi is back. This time, however, the world’s most renowned art forger has ventured into digital realms: Beltracchi has launched his first collection of NFTs. The focus of each of the 4608 unique pieces is no less a motif than Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the most expensive painting in the world to date. Starting price: A whopping 10 000 ETH, or 35,1 Million US-$. But the collection is also a statement against the established art world – and not just the digital one.
Imposing halls, walls with precious stucco decoration, dark marble tiles, and precisely staged works of art: When entering “The Greats” gallery, nothing is left to chance in terms of atmosphere. But before visitors reach the works of art, they first have to pass a massive bust. The bust depicts the artist behind the exhibition: Wolfgang Beltracchi.
Whoever thought that “The Greats” would be a physical gallery in one of the world’s great art metropolises, was mistaken. This gallery is an online one. It’s precise location is in the metaverse of the Ethereum blockchain, which Beltracchi is using as a stage for his latest coup – his first and so far only NFT collection. NFTs, which stands for Non-Fungible Tokens, refer to the digital representation of intellectual property. Songs, poems or, in Beltracchi’s case, pictures and paintings can be produced as NFTs. Each of these NFTs is non-replicable and its owner and transaction history can be transparently traced on the blockchain (Forbes reported, read more in: “Punks, Kitties and a Revolution”).
Upon close examination of the paintings, those with some knowledge of art history will quickly discover: amidst the distorted forms of Picasso’s and Warhol’s cartoon characters, the painting “Salvator Mundi”, which is officially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (more on this later), pops up recurrently. In November 2017, Mundi was sold by New York auction house Christie’s to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia for a dashing 450.3 million US-$. With proceeds of almost half a billion dollars, it is the most expensive painting in the world to date.
The fact that this very painting serves as a model for Beltracchi’s first NFT collection is no coincidence. There are various theories about the history of the painting itself, as well as its current location. At the beginning of the 16th century it had been in the possession of the French King Louis XII, a few years later it crossed the channel, ending up in the house of the Stuarts to the art-loving King Charles I. After his execution, the painting was sold on the market for 30 GBP at that time. The painting eventually returned to the British crown, but by 1900 it had become forgotten to the international art market; copies of the motif were now ubiquitous.
After restoration work and changing hands for insignificant amounts a couple times, the work received international attention for the first time in 2008. A team from the Metropolitan Museum of Art officially recognized it as the work of Leonardo Da Vinci and verified it as such. After sales in the range of 75-128 million US-$ Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman finally broke all records in 2017: for 450.3 million US-$, he acquired “The Savior” via Christie’s auction house for the Louvre Abu Dhabi. But: It has never been displayed to the public since. This has led the art world to question its whereabouts: is it even in Saudi Arabia? Some hypotheses suggest that the painting could also be in Swiss hands. Questions about its authenticity has also arisen. Could it be the work of one of Da Vinci’s pupils? Some art experts as well as the French filmmaker Vitkine think this might be so. In April 2021, a documentary by Vitkine caused a stir in the media, as it questioned the painting’s origin.
Wolfgang Beltracchi
. was born in 1951 as Wolfgang Fischer. He flunked out of school, dropped out of art school and led a wandering life through Europe and North Africa. In 1992 he met his wife Helene. Over many years, Beltracchi forged several hundred paintings, which he sold to collectors and gallery owners. In 2011 he was caught, had to go to prison for six years. Since his release, he has been painting again as a “regular” artist.
Beltracchi knows only too well what it is like to be the center of media attention. The former art forger and painter gained international notoriety when he confessed to having forged hundreds of artwork by famous painters such as Max Ernst or Fernand Leger. Despite scrutiny by art experts, he was able to deceive the art collecting world for almost 40 years. Forbes DACH first met Beltracchi along with his wife and accomplice Helene in 2018 in his Swiss studio, which was previously a dance hall, near Lucerne (click here for the interview). At that time, it hadn’t even been that long since he finished serving his six-year prison sentence. Already during that 2018 conversation, when asked what changes they would like to see in the art market, the two criticized the lack of fairness for artists. Beltracchi said: “Especially for young artists. But you first have to know how the art trade works to understand that. The art trade is not as big a story as people often think. The volume is perhaps 50 billion US dollars worldwide. That’s not so much. That’s why the trade is dominated by a very few people – and that’s what bothers me. At the bottom, it still starts harmlessly, there are many small galleries that take care of artists and try to sell their works. These gallery owners and artists don’t earn much, but these are the ones who put in the most effort and time.”
The art elite, the top 1%, would be no more than a circle of one or two dozen people worldwide. For the seasoned artist, who jokingly refers to his extraordinary talent for painting through the eyes of others as a genetic defect, the motivation to enter the still fairly novel world of NFT art lies in the liberalization of the market: “NFTs are a big step forward, towards liberalization. Everyone has the opportunity to find out about artists and their art, then make their own decision. Gathering a collection is no longer dependent on physical space.”
The page of The Greats gallery also states: “The current state of the art world is comparable to a cartel; the most influential people are not artists, but bouncers. They dictate what art is and who may own it.”
Still the Salvator Mundi motif at its core, Beltracchi embarked on “a journey through art history” for his first NFT collection: the 4608 artworks are divided into seven distinctive eras. From the Renaissance to Surrealism and Pop Art to Cubism. Christ is portrayed here in the various art styles of great masters such as Picasso or Van Gogh.
Beltracchi’s bidding system, however, differs from the common methods currently seen in the NFT market: in a classic auction, the winning bidder is the highest bidder whereas in a Dutch Auction the bid-price drops at regular intervals. The twist in Beltracchi’s auction is that after the first, highest, bid is placed, the price decreases within a certain period of time until the last bid is placed. The last bid, as in the Dutch Auction, is the lowest in the sequence. If this is the case, everyone who has bid in the auction pays only the price of the last bid. That is, the lowest price, the rest will be refunded. In addition, each user can only bid for one of the 4608 pieces with his wallet, which prevents, for example, a single user from gaining possession of 200 pieces and thus securing a monopoly position. The starting price according to the Greats has been placed at 10 000 ETH for one artwork, which translates to approximately 35,1 Million US-$.
Sean explores the custodianship humans have over nature by visiting a treehouse community, releasing baby sea turtles, and discovering the origins behind Boruca Masks. These, along with a special experience involving two veterinarians and an injured bird, come together to inspire Sean’s painting “ The Bird Doctor .”
Experience Southern Costa Rica
Canvasing Paris, France
Sean meets with three artists who masterminded a bank heist. Not to steal money, but steal an entire building. Sean also explores and finds the subject for his painting
“ The Writer ” at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore.
Experience Paris, France
Canvasing The Blue Mountains, Australia
Sean lives in a treehouse, meets Lionel who built a literal “man cave”, and finds a body painter that makes her subjects disappear into nature. Sean also interviews an Aboriginal Elder who was taken from his native family to be raised in white society – sparking inspiration for his painting “ The Stolen Generation ”.
Experience The Blue Mountains, Australia
How to look at a painting
Have you ever questioned the way you view an artwork? We ask our expert, Alice White, to guide us on the ways of looking at a painting.
The Night Watch painting by Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum
1. GET CLOSER TO ART
Art belongs to you. Don’t be put off by what the so-called ‘art elite’ might have to say. Whether you’re an art aficionado, a dabbling art lover or (perhaps most promisingly) a budding art fan in the making, your perspective is important.
This is the secret of gallery etiquette: get up close. The position of front-centre is usually the most desirable when viewing a painting, and therefore hardest to attain – particularly at a private view. Wait until the person in the best spot moves along. Then swoop in, extending and propelling yourself in one confident movement. Clear your throat (this invokes an atmosphere of power) and become utterly silent in mind and body. Occasionally, people will sidle up to you. Ignore them. When politeness dictates that you should move left, right, or take a step back to free up space for another member of the audience, do so.
Once they move along, you may reclaim your place. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed: this delicate choreography is treated by some as a competition, but it isn’t. Everyone has a right to see art. Maintaining the right point of view simply takes patience.
2. THE EYES HAVE IT
There have been studies conducted to find out how long we spend looking at artworks, and the results vary.
One found that visitors look for less than two seconds, turn and read the explanatory text for an additional 10 seconds and then move on. The Louvre found that people look at the Mona Lisa for only 15 seconds on average.
At the turn of the millennium, the National Gallery launched its exhibition Telling Time, inviting researchers from the Applied Vision Research Centre to investigate how we look at paintings. Their landmark study, conducted over three months between 2000 and 2001, collected more than 5,000 responses from participants. One of three paintings were displayed to visitors and their responses were logged by eye-tracking technology designed specifically for the task.
The results were revealing.
We do not consume paintings in one visual gulp. Rather, we view paintings as we do the rest of the world: in a fragmentary way, gathering information from multiple small, precise points of vision, to assemble a picture in our minds. The longer we spend contemplating a painting therefore, the more visual details we can collect, and so the fullness of an artwork is gradually revealed.
Peter Paul Rubens, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
3. LOOKING VERSUS SEEING
The art of looking at a painting is also the art of slowing down. Considering the evidence, we should stay with artworks for far longer than we currently do.
I recommend 20 minutes minimum. In a gallery visit lasting an hour, this allows us to wander around for 20 minutes, choose an attractive artwork to spend the next 20 with, and still have time to grab a catalogue and a drink.
You needn’t always select the most ‘iconic’ work on show; these are not always the best. Instead, choose one featuring subjects that you have a personal interest in (music, horses, epic landscapes) or that possesses characteristics you enjoy – photorealist detail perhaps, or grand painterly gestures.
Next, lean into the canvas. Paint is all about layers, so look carefully at how it is applied. Oil paint is a particularly sensuous medium. Its wonderful heft and slickness, magnetic depth of shine and transportive smell must be experienced up close. Look for gaps or thin areas of paint: these are where the secrets of an artist’s technique are on show.
Look at the above work by Rubens, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. He flaunts his ink drawing, brown-umber ground, dripping milky wash, highlights and muscular modelling in unfinished corners of this work.
4. PAINTING IS A PROCESS, NOT AN END POINT
I favour artists who use drips, splats, gestures and puncture marks in their work.
Although the term ‘process painter’ was coined around the 1960s to refer to experimenters like Jackson Pollock – who considered materials and methodology to be fundamental parts of the overall artwork – this view on art as active is useful to introduce the idea that paintings are in constant flux.
They are functioning objects, whose effects shift depending on our cultural and personal environments. The complex machinery of a painting can be appreciated immediately, and understood with practice.
Frank Auerbach is an artist whose relationship with the dimensions of paint is determined by time (spent), space (in which the work is created) and depth (of material and meaning).
He is a glutton for paint. Each brushstroke creates grand furrows and peaks; the paint arching into place in glorious meringue folds. The extraordinary slippery-sticky quality of oil paint is captured with multiple tools: alternately brushes, his own hands, putty scrapers and even paint applied directly from the tube.
Although generous, his approach is as much about deletion as addition. He scrapes the paint off the canvas with a palette knife at the end of every session, to begin again the next day.
5. PAINTERS BREAK BOUNDARIES
Auerbach’s approach relates to his artistic forebears: Rembrandt used a palette knife. Art conservationists have used X-rays to reveal that Rembrandt used the sharpened wooden end of a brush to carve into his paint while it was wet. This ‘worked impasto’ was used to depict fine details such as hair, wrinkled faces, fur and delicate undulations in armour and jewellery. Rembrandt’s painting process was ahead of its time. He worked in a sculptural way, layering different densities of pigment and glaze, then cutting into them so that they physically resembled the textures and quality of the real subject. He can be understood as a creative construction worker, building monuments to stand the test of time.
Turner was similarly incisive. He was one of the first artists to risk oil painting outside (anticipating the oil-paint tube before its invention), and he scratched at the surface of his sketchbooks with the thumbnail of his right hand – which he grew long for the purpose. This literally cutting-edge approach revealed the white pulp below, creating highlights. His early adoption of new pigments (cobalt blue, chrome yellow, emerald green and scarlet red were invented during his lifetime) influenced the bold colour palettes of the Impressionists – and artists today.
ALICE’S TOP TIPS
GO ON A DIGITAL HUNT
All too often, gallery visitors dash up to an artwork, pause (without looking) to snap a digital photo, and rush off. This could, in principle, be a bold act of ownership: you can go home with the Mona Lisa in your pocket. Our modern generation is the first to be able to access hundreds of priceless artworks for free, yet the images are never really examined. Digitised artworks can have an important role. I recommend visiting the Wikimedia Commons collections of Turner’s Sketchbooks. When you have the privilege of seeing an artwork in person, please keep your eyes open.
With so many museums and galleries launching their collections online, it can be hard to know where to start. I’d suggest the following:
- The National Gallery
- The Louvre
- The Guggenheim
- Virtual tour of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling
The Google Art Project, featuring important collections from the Tate, the Getty Museum, MoMA, the Musée d’Orsay and the Rijksmuseum, São Paulo street art from Brazil, and more
A GOOD READ
Ways of Seeing by John Berger, published by Penguin Modern Classics’
OUR EXPERT’S STORY
Arts Society Lecturer Alice White is an oil painter and tutor at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She also gives lectures at The Art Workers ’ Guild, King ’ s College London and The Courtauld Institute of Art. Her talks include Ways to Look at Painting. Her essay A Painter ’ s Perspective appears in the book Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe, published by the Alfred Cohen Art Foundation and Ben Uri Gallery in March 2020.
Her artwork is informed by scientific collaborations with Brunel, Cambridge University and ZSL London Zoo and she will be exhibiting at Gustavo Bacarisas Gallery, Gibraltar in 2021. Find out more about Alice’s work.
Portrait of Alice White © Chris Stokes; The Night Watch by Rembrandt © Alamy; Person looking at sketches © Shutterstock; Rubens, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes © Alamy; paint tubes, courtesy of Alice White
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