[sufue]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Thanks. Looks like a fascinating read.

I've wondered something before, and reading the book description for this book has made me wonder it now as well. What I've wondered is why someone, like Elmyr de Hory, one of the three subjects of the book, who painted so well that they could fool experts into thinking that they had genuine paintings of the master artists, could not himself paint original paintings of their own and become famous artists in their own right, rich, etc.

There is only one thing of which I can think. My thought is that becoming a recognized master painter usually, if not always, took many, many years; many artists, in fact, did not become famous until after they died. Perhaps this de Hory fellow did not want to wait many, many years to get rich and this was his way of "getting rich quick."

Maybe some of you have some additional ideas. And, bringing things "full circle," maybe this post will pique someone's interest, in addition to mine, in reading the book to find out if de Hory revealed the answer to that question and if the book tells us what he said.

I haven't read the book either, so I don't know if the author reveals his take on this, but I've wondered the same thing sometimes, and I think that perhaps there is a creative element to it as well. I'm a technical type, and I can write technical reports, proposals, and all sorts of factual stuff with ease, but the couple of times I have tried to write fiction, it has not gone well at all.

Part of it may be that I have had training for technical writing, but have not had any training in writing fiction. Training aside, though, it still seemed a lot more challenging to me to try to create a story line, come up with believable characters, create un-stilted sounding conversation, etc. etc. etc., than it is to write a report which simply derives from fact.

And I can easily see that extending into the visual arts as well - I can imagine that it might be possible to sort of "factually" copy paintings, or even emulate someone's style accurately, while still being rather harder to come up with your own creative artworks.