MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Five Fallacies in Attribution

(16.11.2022) Five years of Salvator Mundi label salad? Ten years of Salvator Mundi label salad? No, several decades of Salvator Mundi label salad, several centuries of Salvator Mundi label salad (since the confusion actually starts in the 16th century). Just study the attributional history of the Detroit Salvator Mundi, and after having digested the fact that everybody was wrong, ask yourself why this might have been the case.
What is there to do about it? Fairly simple. I am naming here (while others may remain to be committed to entertainment) the five most common fallacies in attributional studies. In case there might be an interest to raise the level, to improve the quality of attributional studies. Because fallacies, perhaps it is necessary to say, have to be avoided (or we will just get more of bad entertainment and for a longer period of time). The art market may just be pragmatic – it is actually the duty of scholarship to care for the quality of attributional studies. Is there anybody committed in the academe? It does not seem to be the case. Over ten years of Salvator Mundi frenzy have not led many scholars to reflect on standards of quality in attributional studies, or to think about what quality may be at all. Fair enough. This would mean to analyse the errors having been committed in the past. Not necessarily a graceful view. But this is exactly what we do here. Not by means of naming specific errors by specific people, but by putting together the five, in my view, most common errors in attributional studies, brief: in attribution.

Fallacy Number One) It is not necessary to know the history of your own field

Is it necessary to do the same mistakes over and over again? Virtually anybody would anwer no to that question. But in Salvator Mundi studies it does not seem to be the case. Scholars not even seem to know about the many, many errors having been committed in the past – about how often scholars of the past got it wrong. And so they, the scholars of today, do not know why, due to not having analysed why it happened in the past. And it is a fact that many, many got it wrong, because otherwise, today, we would already have a Salvator Mundi museum with many, many, autograph pictures by Leonardo (just check the Getty provenance tool). In fact Leonardo da Vinci would not have done many other things in his life than just producing, by his own hand, Salvator Mundi pictures.
The more general reason why it might be useful to know about the history of your own field, is the reason that it might be useful to learn from past experiences, good as well as bad, resulting also in an awareness what might happen today and to yourself. But there is still one more specific reason: it might be useful to stay cautious as to Leonardo attributions in the past, having come up in the sources. Because few people, since the 16th century, actually had the chance to develop an actual discernment as to Leonardo and his followers. Leonardo attributions are everywhere – and they usually mean little. Hence the Leonardo studies of today still rest, to a large degree, on a actual history of confusion. And this is the problem that has to be addressed. Because it is also a fact that an artist like Francesco Francia has an excellent oeuvre catalogue, complying to professional standards of today, while Leonardo has none such catalogue (because Leonardo scholarship does seem to have betters things to do). And still another reason: please spare us with discoveries that are just rediscoveries of things having already been observed or named in the past. This is just inefficient, even it this might pass as entertainment.

Fallacy Number Two) It is not necessary to question the cult of personality (in terms of genius cult)

Leading Leonardo scholars are acting as if it would not be necessary even to know or to name the people in the second line (the people around Leonardo). Not even the big museums seem to care (but the curators have not the time to do actual research anyway). Resulting in artists around Leonardo, artists like Francesco Melzi or Giampietrino, not even having been named in the first wave of Salvator Mundi scholarship (that turns out to be a desaster and a disgrace). Step by step, it now reveals that the Salvator Mundi case is more complicated than many people had thought it to be at first. The first step in sound attributional studies is always the question: what alternatives do we have? And not the question: Is it Leonardo or not? Because there is already bias in that latter question. We want it to be a Leonardo, this question says, and everything else does not interest us. And so the people in the second line get neglected, one does not even name them, and one does not know them. And suddenly it turns out that they may be much more important than expected (and also better than one thought them to be). And with such awareness one could start, also in Leonardo studies, since already the 19th century knew that the so-called Leonardeschi were neglected. Everything was ascribed to Leonardo – since few did question the cult of personality in terms of genius cult, on which Leonardo studies, sadly, are still based today, with ›followers‹ as well as ›pupils‹ not even been named, because for so-called leading Leonardo scholars these categories seem to be empty. But these people did exist, and they have names, and we would know a lot more about them, if Leonardo scholars had cared about getting to know them.

Fallacy Number Three) It is not necessary to question your own cult of personality (in terms of knowing what, perhaps, other scholars might be doing)

Sound scholarship, good scholarship, always thinks also against itself. It questions itself, its premises, its arguments (and revises, if necessary, its results). Good scholars do question themselves all the time and work with their own doubts, use their own doubts. The contributions of other scholars might help them to ask the questions that they, themselves, did forget to ask (perhaps due to their own bias).
But the scholars of today rather seem to think that they might be entitled to such personal bias, flooding the world with such ignorance. This might the result of what the conditions are today in the academe, but it is nevertheless wrong and fairly deplorable. If vanity goes along with good scholarship, it might not be a problem. But we see much scholarship today that primarily is meant to serve the interests as well as the personal vanity of individual scholars. People choose to live inside their own filter bubbles (they are not forced to do so). They read only their own language (or prefer it), they do not listen to what other scholars might do or say, and they do not care what other scholars might have done in the past (see also fallacy number one). This results in bad scholarship. Because again: good scholarship always works against itself in the process of scholarship (and it uses and appreciates the help of others). And as a result, the result of such scholarship might stand for a longer time – as long as better scholarship comes up, correcting and improving what, at a time, might have been the best of knowledge.

Fallacy Number Four) It is not necessary to know the ways of production of artists in the past

The specific question that has come up in Salvator Mundi studies is the question of unique autograph work or serial production. And it is fairly surprising that Renaissance scholars in general seem to have neglected to think about the ways of production at the time of the Renaissance more carefully. If Leonardo would have had his entourage produce many, many Salvator Mundi versions (which seems to be the case) – it would actually not be very surprising. Since we can observe – and study – serial production in painting workshops such as: Giovanni Bellini, probably Botticelli, certainly Lucas Cranach and others. But no one seems to have studies serial production at the time of the Renaissance, and in painting workshops, systematically. Central is the role of the cartoon, but also the role of assistants, pupils. Perhaps we even can observe a kind of franchising (also artists with own workshops, artists around Leonardo, did produce Salvator Mundi pictures, derived from Leonardo’s design). Scholarship still seems to be sticking to the idea of individual geniuses, producing masterworks, in reclusion, by their own hand. But this image has to be revised – systematically. If fallacy number two would be avoided, as well as this fallacy number four, we would be working towards better scholarship, able to revise our viewpoints, as to Renaissance artists working (also in Spain, namely, Valencia, by the way). With many, many, and also very capable people working (only seemingly) in the second line.

Fallacy Number Five) It is not necessary to know the rudiments of scientific culture

What happens in attributional studies today is simply deplorable. And there are two main problems. First of all, professional art historians, all too often, have not enough of an awareness of what the rudiments of scholarship actually are. Which means for example to know what hypotheses are, and how to work with them. Not confusing them with facts. And not neglecting to work – all the time – with alternative hypotheses, avoiding to produce bias (by staring simply at the idea that you want to be true).
But this problems combines with another one. Attributional studies are a meeting point of scholars with a background in the humanities on the one hand, but also of scholars with a background in the sciences on the other hand. And attributional studies cannot be handled or conducted, if the dominating stance is a anything-goes mentality, which is fairly common in the humanities. Nobody seems to notice that what the humanities are actually producing today, very often, does not deserve to be called scholarship at all. Because, all too often, the results of such scholarship are not representing a ›better knowledge‹, compared to what common knowledge may represent in terms of quality. Such scholarship is actually not needed. Questions of attributions have to be handled in a more serious manner, and attributional studies would need an actual sound framework, with standards of quality to which art historians as well as chemists, physicists and so on could agree. And there is much that could be done, and it is the task of scholarship to do it, and, in case, the art market would be relying on scholarship, it would be the task of the art market. But as the situation is now, the art market is just pragmatic, being confronted with a total absence of a sound and rational culture of attribution (with standards of quality), which the humanties, namely the discipline of art history, have/has failed to develop.

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