how to approach authentication p.5
The situation changes with a new type of professional painters in the 20th century China. So a greater weight can be put on general quality. An advantage, which is mmediately destroyed unfortunately by the better access of forgers to their material in prints and now even online.
The question about a general quality is a very different matter then we are talking about the professional Japanese painters. Here the system of an internal education in techniques, topics and their representation in the great and proud painter studios produces such a high level of skill and understanding, that forgers are hardly able to keep up with it. Those professional painters are working also according to the subject and the taste of the usually unknown costumer in very different styles. So scrutinizing the individual calligraphic style is often less helpful and requires at least references of the same subject by the same hand. Often it will not be possible at all.
In this situation the general quality is of much greater importance. So if we can establish a certain very high level of quality in the composition, brushwork, shading and coloration we could at least exclude what is not good enough – meaning most of the frogeries.
But how could this be done? What is such good quality?
Now this alone deserves a special essay about quality. Its an important but difficult to answer question. Often it is only answered with an autocratic declaration, in most cases its not answered at all.
In the end to see quality, it needs probably not only a trained eye but also a trained hand. Calligraphic quality could be understand easier with a certain amount of practical study. Trying to understand calligraphy, brushwork as anything different than movement is not helpful. This problem grows of course even bigger when you try to compare individual brushwork with references. To compare two similar looking patches of colour or ink and not understand the movement had created them is rather meaningless.