The Getty Kouros And Provenance: Article Analysis

There is a world of art and artists out there that everybody knows of, but there is also an underground world of art which contains forgery and deceit. This is discussed in the article Art and The Truth: The Getty Kouros and Provenance. This article goes into the world of forged art and illegally exported pieces of art from their original countries, and it does quite a good job of telling the story. The article’s first main issue discussed in the article is about The Getty Kouros, a life-size marble statue go a male figure standing nude, and whether or not the piece is fake, or even stolen art. The article then gives you good information on what exactly “faking it” is in the art industry, and how forgers would go about doing it. This really helps give you insight on the world of art, and whether or not it is real, because it helps you understand that forgery is a thing that does happen quite often, and there are many forgers who can pull it off. The author makes you question whether or not fakes should be accepted into the art world as pieces of their own.
The article then proceeds to talk about what it calls “The Illicit Trade in Antiquities” and how famous artwork is often stolen from dig sites and smuggled out of its country of origin.
The laws state that a piece of art that is found belongs to the country from which it was found, so the artwork that is smuggled out is often illegally sold. The evidence provided in this article helps make its argument strong. For example, the article talks about the sculpture of Hercules, and how the upper half was in a museum in Boston while the bottom half was dug up in Turkey, and the upper half of the sculpture was then believed to have belonged to Turkey (Art and The Truth: The Getty Kouros and Provenance). This proves that sometimes art truly does get stolen and smuggled out of its country of
origin. The article then takes one more flip back to the Getty Kouros, and now that the reader knows more about the forged and stolen art industry, it answers the main question of the article: Is the Getty Kouros real? After going into a bit of background about the piece, it goes on to discuss the scientific examination of the sculpture, and it is then determined that the Getty Kouros is in fact real. One problem I had with the article is the author seemed to put a bit too much of his personal bias and opinions into an article that should be factual and objective. When personal feelings are added and it is written by a subjective standpoint, it makes the reader question the validity of the article. However, overall the author did a great job with this article helping give the average reader insight into the world of art. The world of faking art will probably never be stopped, it can be considered a style of art all of its own to some people, however with technology advancing, it will become harder and harder to fake such masterpieces, leaving the causal art lovers, and the connoisseurs, to enjoy authentic pieces of art.