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 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Lopez
Publisher: Harcourt
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $16.72
You Save: $9.28 (36%)
New (32) Used (8) Collectible (2) from $16.72
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 1657
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0151013411
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.9492
EAN: 9780151013418
ASIN: 0151013411
Publication Date: August 15, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
Reads like a mystery September 6, 2008
J. W. Foxrubin (Aspen, Colorado)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I like mysteries, intrigue, politics, and history. I picked up The Man Who Made Vermeers because it was one of the best sellers in my local bookstore. One of the salespeople told me that customers who read crime fiction had been buying it, and I can really see why. The book presents an excellent understanding of Han van Meegeren, the Dutch artist who sold a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering during World War II. br / br /It turns out that Van Meegeren was a fascinating figure--much more interesting than I would have thought. Because Van Meegeren had fooled Hermann Goering, he became a hero in the Netherlands after the war and he presented himself as kind of a patriot. But it appears that swindling Goering was more or less an accident. Van Meegeren didn't have an axe to grind with Goering. In fact, he had been an admirer of Hitler and fascism since the movement began, and had even painted work on commission for the German occupying forces. br / br /What you really get to see here is the criminal mind at work. While other books about Van Meegeren have taken his story at face value and presented him as a hero, Lopez convinced me that this man was no hero at all. The book offers real insight into the psychology of a fundamentally duplicitous individual who capitalized on one of the darkest moments in world history...
A Scholarly Book That's Fun to Read September 5, 2008
E. C. Mansfield (Sewanee, TN USA)
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
There are a lot of fun books out there that use artworks as a sort of McGuffin for an elaborate or at least distracting plot. Books like The DaVinci Code or The Girl with the Pearl Earring, for instance, give the impression of being based on art historical research, but they take gross liberties with the historical record (or lack thereof). In a way, this ultimately devalues the artworks such books use as plot devices because readers come to see the art as mere accessories to a fantastical tale. br / br /In The Man Who Made Vermeers, the artworks (or, rather, "artworks") remain at the center of a fascinating history. As objects of aesthetic pleasure, economic gain, or social status, the paintings at the heart of Lopez's story exert exactly the sort of power we have come to expect from art. Their status as fakes only complicates our understanding of the real value of art in society. br / br /The Man Who Made Vermeers proves that it is possible to combine lively prose, an intriguing plot AND original research to create a wonderfully engaging yet scholarly narrative. Because the book's prose is so effortless, the painstaking archival research that the author must have undertaken is not as evident as it might be if the book were written in a more conventionally academic style. br / br /Highly recommended!
 An Art Crook September 1, 2008
Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA)
1 out of 15 found this review helpful
A thorough history of the notable and extended art forgery career of Han van Meegeren. While it seems the basic facts surrounding Mr. Van Meegeren's blatant and many frauds are now known, I did not find the prose style of Jonathan Lopez in the retelling of this particular tale in any way exceptional. br / br /I also think the author shows a rather unsympathetic (and, to my mind, unwarranted) attitude towards The Netherlands in terms of the immediate post-war period and that small country's uneven treatment of its German collaborators. br / br /If you have a lively interest in the criminal forgery of European artworks or, more specifically, fake Vermeers --this book would be a reasonable purchase.
Nazi sympathies laid bare August 23, 2008
Acton Bell (New York, NY)
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Not only is "The Man Who Made Vermeers" a great introduction to Han Van Meegeren and his notorious Vermeer forgeries, it serves as an excellent window into Nazi-controlled Holland during the war. It is Lopez's examination of Van Meegeren's Nazi sympathies--and his deft analysis of how Van Meegeren's faux Vermeers sprang from the same 20th-century Nazi iconography as contemporary propaganda paintings--that really sets the book apart. A devasting reappraisal of the man who "fooled" Hermann Goering and a good read for anyone interested in art, World War II, or how the two intersected.
really enjoyed it August 22, 2008
Joseph Tarlo
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
I just finished reading this book and I really enjoyed it. It's a book that appeals to the general public -- not only those into art. I'm not especially interested in art myself, but I got so into the story and the characters that I read it in record time. Faster than I've read anything in a long time. The author clearly did a huge amount of research. But he turns it into a really easy read. I definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a really interesting true story.
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