forgeries       p.2

As there is a long tradition of collecting, accepted forgeries became the base for a next generation of forgeries and on, and on…. Also we may find an early successful forgery praised later intensely and honestly as a fine original.
And of course on the other side, the omnipresence of forgeries looming over everybody is creating panic, so that many good and correct paintings are denounced as false and wrong.

To copy a fine painting for the purpose of studying a composition and training the brushwork is a regular method of learning. But a honest copy is signed not with a wrong name. Its not a forgery. But later though, such a work might be turned into a forgery by attaching the wrong signature.

Different types of copies are produced to reference the old masters. One form of a copy is a work produced only in the style of  a certain famous painter. The Chinese terminus for this is fang 倣,  meaning in the manner of. Used mainly by amateurs it is often not at all in the manner of the model painter. This rather should be taken as some intellectual attachment to the reported traditions.
Such a copy in the manner of an old master is usually inscribed as a fang copy after the painter and signed as an original work of the painter who had produced the painting. In an album for instance are produced several different fang paintings to display versatility and taste.
While such a fang painting is by no means a forgery, the tradition of creating paintings in different styles opens a wide gap for the professional forger to come up with paintings in an individual manner and sell them off as a fang painting of a famous painter.

A different and more professional form af a copy is an exact copy after a certain masterwork. A copy that would be called lin 臨.