Carson makes a point about the Fake Vermeers

There is wisdom through out all of the is Carson interviews. While talking to Martin Mull who besides being a comedian was also a artist , they had an interesting conversation about--what is art, can a great forgery be considered true art.


Carson: " Everybody is either a frustrated painter, and you ( Mull) are talented painter, or a frustrated musician( like Johnny)
and everybody thinks they have that inherent talent, which they really don't have, i think you have to have a natural eye, for being an Artist, i don't think you can take lesson, like that little matchbook cover, you keep seeing--draw this figure, which has been around for 108 years, "

Mull: " You really think that, or do you think people can learn?"

Carson: " I think you can learn the mechanics of composition and drawing, like you can learn mechanical engineering and Anatomy , i don't think you can learn inward feeling about art, i don;t mean to be heavy here...there was a famous case years ago, when a dutch artist.....Vermeer, there were these Vermeers hanging in museums all over the World, and they authenticated them, it turns out that they were not done by Vermeer, they were forgeries. Now they had an interesting case, the question was , was the guy who did them great artist."

' The paintings, there were 14 of them and they were authenticated, they were so good, but was that Artist truly a great artist."

Mull: " Lets put it in another vernacular in terms of art, and lets take some liberties with the term art, and lets talk about television, lets make up a network, there's a show called 'my mother the car' and its a big hit, now you know next year theres going to be a show called 'my uncle the Limo' on that other Network, which might even be better, does that complicate the argument here?"

Carson: " would you be interested in what the court decided....they said NO he wasn't , he was a great technician , a great engineer, because ..but he didn't have the soul because he was copying somebody else's impression of something , where Vermeer saw the beauty of what ever it was that he was painting, this guy was simply duplicating that, while he was a good technician he was not truly a great artist because the soul didn't come through."


can you imagine Jimmy Fallon. or Jimmy Kimmel having the intelligence to have a conversation like that. It was such a different time back then when you could have an intelligent conversation on the biggest show in America. I bet anything Neither Jimmy knows who Vermeer is, let alone the story about the forgeries, Carson was much more knowledgeable and sophisticated then them, and so was the country. You can see Carson is the type of person who is fascinated in learning new things, the world as well as history fascinates him.