早稲田大学 文学部 ２０１８年３.txt
Choose the most appropriate sentence from the following list (a -h) for each item (25-31).
(a) The confidence of the scholars and experts in their evaluations of paintings was thus found to be completely justified.
(b) However, at the time of his death, Vermeer was only known within his hometown of Delft, and for another two hundred years his work remained in obscurity.
(c) Ironically, his own paintings, which had been condemned by critics in the 1920s as hopelessly old fashioned, became valuable after the notorious court case, though of course it was a vindication too late for the man himself.
(d) Moreover, van Meegeren claimed that he had produced several forgeries over the years, none of which had been detected, and had made a fortune by selling the fake paintings.
(e) Nevertheless, besides satisfying his wish for revenge on the art establishment, once he started being able to sell his fakes for huge prices, it seemed wiser to keep the secret to himself, and perhaps to his family.
(f) A process of detective work and scholarly argument followed each claimed discovery, with art experts making judgements on the style and quality of the painting.
(g) Van Meegeren had been an artist before he became a forger and when he began to make forgeries, his motivation was not, it seems, simply a wish to make money, but more a desire for revenge.
(h) When the war ended, a process of retribution commenced against those who had profited through collaboration with the occupying forces.
Nowadays, people throughout the world know and love the work of the Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632-75). Paintings such as Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Music Lesson, and The Milkmaid appear on posters and in advertisements and are recognised even by those who are not connoisseurs of art. ( 25 ) In the late 19th century, his work was reappraised, and the qualities of light, composition, clarity and humanity were noticed by critics. It became important to the people of the Netherlands, especially, that paintings by a great national artist be discovered and preserved. Nevertheless, such had been the neglect of the artist that few of his paintings were known certainly to still exist, though it was believed that many works, with no certain origin, might be by the artist. On the one hand, the paintings were not signed, and there was little or no documentary evidence; on the other hand, there were frequent claims on the basis of style and composition for this or that painting. ( 26 ) When a new Vermeer was found and given expert validation, there was great excitement and the painting would receive a high price at auction.
In 1940, the Netherlands was invaded by Germany, and subjected to a brutal occupation until 1944. Some of the high German officials were attracted to collecting art works, and sought to add to their own private collections from the countries they ruled during the war, though the general public of such countries as France and the Netherlands considered it criminal to allow their own cultural heritage to be looted in this way. ( 27 ) And thus it was in 1945 that a Dutch art dealer, and minor painter, named Han van Meegeren was put on trial for selling a national treasure, a painting by Vermeer, to a highranking German.
At this point, van Meegeren made an admission that rocked the foundations of the art world: the painting, he protested, was not really a Vermeer, but a forgery, made by van Meegeren himself. ( 28 ) The court was unconvinced, but van Meegeren set up a studio, and demonstrated the techniques and tricks he had used. Avoiding the heavier crime of selling a real Vermeer to the Germans, he was convicted of forgery and sentenced to one year in prison. However, Han van Meegeren died of a heart attack, in 1947, just before he would have started his sentence.
( 29 ) He had begun as a painter by wanting recognition as an artist himself, but he had remained within the realist tradition of Dutch art, while the fashion in contemporary painting moved decisively to modernist and abstract modes. Exasperated by his lack of success, he had come to believe that the art critics and experts were all idiots and charlatans. He undertook a close study of old Dutch art in order to make forgeries, and thus to prove that the experts knew nothing. ( 30 )
Van Meegeren was perhaps the most successful art forger of all time. ( 31 ) His son, Jacques van Meegeren, also became an art forger, but the forgeries he made were not of a great artist like Vermeer, but of his own father, low-grade paintings, which were signed 'H. van Meegeren' and sold for quite high sums. It is also possible that there are still a number of paintings by Han van Meegeren that are hanging in museums and private collections attributed to Dutch master painters other than Vermeer, such as Frans Hals (1582–1666).
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