Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Forger's Spell:
1. What motivated Han van Meegeren to become a forger?
2. Van Meergeren mastered the scientific side of forgery through by using plastics in his paints. Would you consider him a genius?
3. Talk about the Nazis' passion for art, especially in light of the fact that the crates of confiscated masterpieces often lay unopened.
4. Why has Vermeer been so prized as an artist? What is it about his paintings, beyond their limited number, that is so alluring?
5. Dolnick says that laymen would not have been fooled by van Meergeren's fakes. How, then, was he able to fool scholars and curators, starting with Abraham Bredius? What is the psychology behind conning art dealers and collectors into accepting forgeries as genuine? What makes those who should know fall for fakery? Is "connossieurship" a hollow pretense...or does it have merit?
6. Van Meergeren became a sort of folk hero after the war when his deception was uncovered. Did he deserve that status? Does the fact that van Meergeren was able to swindle Goering, Hitler's second in command, increase your estimation of him?
7. Dolnick's book calls into question the nature of art itself, especially "great" art. If a painting is skillfuly imitative of a great artist, isn't the imitation something to be admired and valued in and of itself? If a work is good enough to fool the experts, isn't it good enough to be considered on its own merits as "art"?
8. What is the "Uncanny Valley"? How does it play out in van Meegeren's forgeries? Can you think of other instances in life where the Uncanny Valley theory applies?
9. Did you learn something new about the world of art—and the practice of forgery—by reading this book? What surprised, or intrigued, you most?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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