It is true that the painter’s work was dismissed by Dutch art critics who scornfully reproached the artist for a style which remained too close to that of the Renaissance masters – prompting one critic to write that van Meegeren was “a gifted technician who… has every virtue except originality.” The forgeries then were not only an attempt to deceive unwitting fascists like Goering but to make fools of the same critics who dismissed him as a mediocrity. At one point, van Meegeren explains to Piller that his career as a legitimate painter was thwarted by critics who dismissed his work as irrelevant and derivative. The artist’s relationship to the art critic is a theme which runs through the film and adds to the dramatic punch of van Meegeren’s trial. The result was a painting that looked and responded to the critic as if it were three hundred years old. The canvas would then be rolled over a cylinder to increase the cracks. Van Meegeren’s solution involved mixing his pigments with a synthetic resin, Bakelite (phenol formaldehyde) and ultimately baking the canvas.
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Perhaps his greatest technical challenge was in how to get the oil paint to thoroughly harden, a naturally occurring process which took some fifty years. But it was not enough to utilize Vermeer’s materials and techniques if he wanted to fool the most discerning critics. He acquired authentic seventeenth century canvases, and mixed his own paints using raw materials, according to formulas used by the ‘Master of Delft’. The climax of the film is a courtroom battle, in which van Meegeren seeks to prove that while he acted the role of a Nazi sympathizer – throwing lavish, hedonistic soirées frequented and enjoyed by members of the occupying force – he was, in reality, swindling Goering and other officials by selling them masterful forgeries that he himself painted: van Meegeren was a national hero, not a collaborator.Īs bizarre and unlikely as van Meegeren’s story sounds, it is mostly true: he may indeed have been the greatest art forger of the twentieth century and as the film accurately relates, he scrupulously studied every aspect of Vermeer’s style and technique, and in time devised a method to produce what was in effect the perfect forgery. Piller comes to believe in van Meegeren’s innocence, putting him at odds with government officials who want to see the artist suffer the fate of collaborators – public execution by a firing squad. Piller’s story is complicated by a fraught relationship with his wife (played by Marie Bach Henson), who remained in Holland during the occupation and while she provided intelligence to the Resistance, the implication is that she was only able to acquire such intelligence by carrying on a romantic dalliance with Nazi officers. Enter the flamboyant painter and art dealer, Han van Meegeren (masterfully played by Guy Pearce) who is suspected of selling Dutch art treasures to Field-Marshal Hermann Goering and other top Nazi officials. Joseph Piller (played by Claes Bang), is a Dutch Jew who fought with the Resistance during the war and is now commissioned with uncovering and redistributing art stolen by the Nazis. The Last Vermeer – producer Dan Friedkin’s directorial debut – is a well-paced and thoroughly engaging World War II drama.
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