Art: Authenticity Forgery and Restauration

This book is concerned with how we perceive the authenticity of art objects and asks: What does authenticity mean? Who defines what an authentic or inauthentic artwork is? How has the concept of what constitutes the authentic changed over the past few thousand years and how might this interact with conservation and restoration? Do different cultures have different views on what authenticity is, and if so, how does this affect the notion of forgery or restoration? Are there degrees of authenticity or inauthenticity? How can we apply the notion of authenticity to ethnographic art or to intangible cultural heritage? Do alterations of substance (during restoration) affect the material authenticity, conceptual authenticity or meaning of art objects? The author examines the recent renewed interest in the problems of the inauthentic, namely the world of fakes and forgeries, restoration, replication, emulation, appropriation and falsification of works of art. Contents: Chapter One: Authenticity: Contexts and Meanings Chapter Two: Some Philosophical Notions of Authenticity Chapter Three: Authenticity, Monuments and the International Charters Chapter Four: Cleaning, Restoration and Authenticity. Chapter Five: The Ancient Old World Chapter Six: Mediaeval Authenticity Chapter Seven: Authenticity and the Ethnographic. Chapter Eight: The Renaissance: Restoration, Copies and Authenticity Chapter Nine: The 19th Century and the Victorian Period Chapter Ten: The Modern and Post-Modern Chapter Eleven: Some Final Thoughts and Reflections Acknowledgements Appendix: Glossary of Terms Bibliography