Errol Morris: More Bamboozling

By Errol Morris / New York Times

I would like to thank the Times readers who posted more than 700 comments to my seven-part essay on the forgeries of Han van Meegeren, “Bamboozling Ourselves.” The responses raised many questions with respect to the historical presentation of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, and to the aesthetic value of Van Meegeren’s forgeries. I found them interesting and thought-provoking. There have been a number of repeated themes that I will try to respond to. I was worried that this essay was much too long already – I’m sure that there are many who would agree – but if I could beg the readers’ indulgence, I also would like to bring up some new information.

Several readers commented on the research in this and other essays, which would not be possible without Homi Bhabha, the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard. I would like to thank him for his encouragement, support and for providing access to one of the best libraries in the world (which fortunately happens to be just down the street from where I live). I would also like to stress that my essay was intended not as a replacement for Edward Dolnick’s and Jonathan Lopez’s books but rather as an inducement to read them.

I have included a Van Meegeren comic book by Ton van Tast from 1946. It was published after Van Meegeren’s confession but before his trial. It was kindly sent to me and partially translated by Jonathan Lopez.

Good Art or Bad Art?

There was disagreement on whether Van Meegeren’s forgeries (or his work in general) was good or bad. The very first comment concerned the obvious awfulness of Van Meegeren’s Vermeers. Of course, the awfulness only became obvious after Van Meegeren confessed to having forged them...

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Bamboozling Ourselves, Part 7

By Errol Morris

This is the final installment of “Bamboozling Ourselves.” Read the rest of the series.

A Tale of Three Locations

Amsterdam City Archives Goudstikker business card.

Herengracht 458.

A sumptuous urban palace, Herengracht 458 was built at the time Vermeer was painting real Vermeers. The building was acquired by Jacques Goudstikker in 1927 and outfitted with period rooms – furniture, decorative arts, textiles, sculptures and, most significantly, paintings – Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Old Dutch. It became an amazing museum-like showcase for art. The Goudstikker family had been shaping the art world of Amsterdam for three generations. Goudstikker’s grandfather, Jacob, his father, Eduard, and then Jacques, who joined the firm as a young man in 1919.

He was one of the first dealers to have a thorough education in art history. From the moment he entered the family business, Jacques Goudstikker combined serious scholarship with a keen sense of how to market and promote art. This was reflected in his elaborate catalogues – his were some of the first to use photography extensively. They became the authoritative sources for art historical knowledge in Holland. He provided an entire discourse on why people living in modern homes should include at least one Dutch master: “It’s craziness to believe that a modern human being should live between bicycle tubes and dental instruments.”

At his country estate, Nyenrode, he created tableaux vivants with his wife and other guests, a living version of the paintings in his collections. For Jacques Goudstikker, his art collections were very much alive.

Left, Amsterdam City Archives; right, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

There is a photograph of Goudstikker and Queen Wilhelmina in 1929 at an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In the next few years, he would mount shows in major cities throughout Europe and America. Despite the decline of the Dutch economy, Goudstikker’s business continued to thrive.

Amsterdam City Archives: Goudstikker and Queen Wilhelmina.

And then, in 1940, at the age of 43, Jacques Goudstikker was dead. In many ways, the story is very simple. He was a victim of the Nazis, though he was not killed in a Nazi concentration camp.

When I first read the details of Goudstikker’s death, I suspected some sort of foul play. But the story seems even worse. Bad luck, an absurd sequence of events that no single individual could ever hope to control – his desperate attempts to flee Amsterdam; the bombing of the cargo ship that was taking him, his wife and infant son across the English Channel to safety; the refusal of the authorities to allow them (or any of the other Jewish émigrés) to disembark at Dover; and his accidental death in the middle of the night en route to Liverpool. The family was crowded together with many refugees in the hold of the ship. The baby was crying, and Goudstikker went up on deck. The rest is conjecture. The deck listing in heavy seas, the black night, the open hatch. . .

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Errol Morris: Bamboozling Ourselves, Part 6

By Errol Morris

The Illegal Camera

Verzetsmuseum, Amsterdam.

On May 10, 1940, the Nazis marched into Holland. Shortly afterwards, they asked the Dutch authorities to survey the Jewish population of Amsterdam. “This map (100 x 100 cm) was made by Amsterdam officials in January 1941 on the instructions of the occupiers. Each dot represents ten Jewish inhabitants. Of the 140,000 Dutch Jews, about 80,000 lived in Amsterdam.” [32]

The sequence of events leading to the destruction of the Jews of Holland follows what is now a well-known pattern. In October 1940 Jewish enterprises were required to register with the German occupiers; a month later Jewish public servants, including teachers and professors were dismissed from their jobs; in July 1941 special identity cards for Jews were issued. And on and on and on. The rounding up of Jews, their imprisonment at various transit camps, principally Westerbork, and ultimately, their deportation by train to the extermination camps in the east. But there is a larger point to be made about Dutch complicity in the Holocaust and their collaboration with the Nazis. The Dutch were among the worst...

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