The Perfect Landscape (6 page)

“The tree trunks have been altered,” she ventures at last, unsure as to what conclusion to draw.

“Icelandic birch trees don’t have straight trunks,” says Steinn. “I believe there are some with straight trunks in Hallormsstadur Wood. And nowadays it’s definitely possible to buy such saplings in this country. But there weren’t any birches with straight trunks in Iceland in the middle of the last century.”

He looks at Hanna as if waiting for confirmation of his statement. She is bewildered; this has caught her off balance, and she doesn’t know what to say.

But Steinn has more up his sleeve. Closing the file of images taken with light shining from the side, he opens another one. “This is the ultraviolet version,” he says. Hanna can hardly recognize the painting on the screen. She can make out various colored patches on the surface. Some are darker than others, and some sections stand out. The mountain is clear and sharp, but the trees merge together into a patchy mishmash. The sky, on the other hand, is even lighter. Hanna glances at Steinn as he peers at the screen.

“The ultraviolet light picks up the fluorescence in the colors and in the linseed varnish,” he explains. “Under UV light, you can see subsequent additions or alterations made with other types of color or varnish.”

“I can’t make out anything from these blotches,” admits Hanna. “Are you saying Gudrun started on the painting but didn’t finish it until later, using different colors? That’s always possible. Painters must need to renew their colors sometime and maybe don’t always use the same ones.” Hanna deliberately doesn’t mention the possibility that the painting is a forgery, even though this is clearly what Steinn is implying. She doesn’t want to be the first to say it; she wants to hear it from him.

“Conceivably,” he says reluctantly after a pause. “This image isn’t clear. And yet it’s as if someone had altered the painting, changed the tree trunks, the mountain...” He falls silent, and Hanna realizes that he is puzzled.

“There’s a substance nowadays that is a sort of mock-linseed varnish,” Steinn carries on. “It appears old. Although
it’s actually new—it’s oxidized. If a painting was covered in this sort of mock varnish, then it’s a lot more difficult to see if it’s been tampered with. This varnish is specially designed to deceive the UV rays.”

Hanna waits for further explanation, but Steinn doesn’t say anything more. He closes that file and clicks on a tab with a long list. Shifting his position, he inadvertently knocks against Hanna’s knee. She slides away a fraction, still following what he’s doing on the screen. He leans into the computer and scrolls up and down a long list of files.

What could be the matter with his eyes? Does he need glasses and doesn’t want to use them? How can he do his job properly if his eyesight is so poor? As Hanna thinks about it more carefully, his behavior does indicate that something is wrong. It’s not only that he bumps into doors; he floodlights his desk and avoids driving. He is viewed as an absentminded eccentric; she has seen it in both Edda’s and Agusta’s eyes. There’s probably something more amiss here than plain shortsightedness. She recalls their walk through the wood. The silver ski pole that rhythmically broke the wood’s silence now reminds her of another sort of stick. Hanna is so deep in thought about Steinn that the seriousness of what he is showing her fades into the background.

Steinn eventually finds what he is looking for, and now a third image of the painting lights up the screen, or at least Hanna assumes that this image is of the painting. Curved lines reminiscent of a half-moon, a shape that has nothing to do with a copse of trees or with Mount Baula, appear on the surface of the picture.

“Are you sure this is the right painting?” she asks.

“I hoped you’d ask. This is an infrared image. You’re maybe familiar with the technique,” he adds. “Under the oil paints is a charcoal sketch. Well, that’s usually how it is. Of course, you know that in those days artists typically used charcoal to sketch out the picture before they painted it. Even pencil drawings show up on this type of image. You see, the infrared light only reflects the charcoal, not the colors or any other substances on the canvas.”

Hanna looks at the image on the screen. The sharpest lines show the half-moon Steinn talked about. A half-moon drawn with straight lines, but there are a number of other less distinct lines on the surface of the picture that are difficult to make out, let alone perceive a flawless picture in them.

“There’s no clear sketch of the wood here, as you can see,” says Steinn. “But if you look carefully you can see lines here, look, where the birches are thickest.” Steinn slides the cursor over the screen; there, with a bit of effort, lots of faint lines that could be tree trunks are just about visible.

“Do you mind if I fetch the painting? I’d like it for comparison.”

Steinn gets up. “I’ll go.”

He pulls on the gloves lying beside the keyboard and rushes through to the storage room. He stands it up on an easel next to the computer to compare with the image on the screen and then sits back down next to Hanna. She looks hard at the real painting but can’t make out any hint of the curved or diagonal lines that are so clear on the image Steinn showed her when he shone the light from one side.

She never expected the painting to be a forgery, and she’s still not ready to believe it yet. The fact that there could be two
paintings on the same canvas is not incredible. Artists regularly use the same canvas again if they aren’t satisfied with the first attempt, and the artist’s final painting is built up from many attempts. They paint over part of the picture, move one element slightly on the canvas, give the colors a different tone. Sometimes, perhaps more often in the past when colors and canvases were harder to come by, they resorted to painting over old pictures bought cheaply at flea markets or in secondhand shops. But, as Steinn pointed out, it’s odd for that time for a landscape painting to be painted over an abstract painting. Abstract art was beginning to flourish in Denmark in the thirties and forties, whereas traditional landscape painting was viewed as conservative. It’s virtually out of the question that Gudrun would have painted
The Birches
over an abstract work.

Steinn is a trained conservator, isn’t he? With a recognized qualification in analyzing and restoring works of art. Hanna has never inquired about his background or his education; she just assumed he was qualified. Surely the art gallery wouldn’t entertain employing a conservator who wasn’t trained? Obviously she can’t ask Steinn straight-out; she’ll have to have a quiet word with Edda at an appropriate moment. Hanna isn’t a trained conservator; she doesn’t have the specialist, technical knowledge necessary to interpret the information these images reveal. And she is probably the only person at the gallery who knows there’s something amiss with Steinn, but she’s not sure what. Something seems to be up with his eyesight, but maybe Edda’s right and he’s just a bit absentminded.

Steinn’s hand is resting on the table, curled around the mouse; his index finger is steady, poised to click if necessary. Hanna glances down at his hand, then back at the screen.

“It could be a yacht,” she suggests. “A harbor scene. That fits the time frame. Harbors were popular subject matter around 1930. Or a street scene, maybe even a bridge? It’s quite difficult to decipher, don’t you think?”

Steinn doesn’t answer. Maybe he doesn’t want to be the first to voice the idea it’s a forgery either. A painting that was bought from a reputable auction house in Copenhagen, a painting that in every way resembles Gudrun’s work so closely and matches a painting on her auction list from that time, both in size and subject matter. How could it be a forgery? But as the UV image showed, there’s undeniably something fishy about the surface painting—as though it has been altered. And if there’s an abstract painting underneath, that’s a strong indication something’s amiss. Hanna continues to look questioningly at Steinn but is careful not to say anything. She imagines herself on the fencing piste, in the en garde stance. She can wait; she knows how to be patient.

“You’re familiar with that forgery case, I suppose?” Steinn asks eventually, pulling up the UV image again while he talks. Hanna knows what he’s referring to. He’s going to keep on going, like a cat around a saucer of hot milk. But she’s relaxed; she’s got plenty of time. Steinn is referring to an extensive art forgery case investigated in Reykjavik a few years back when it came to light that there could be hundreds of forgeries in circulation.

“I found it a bit difficult to grasp the ins and outs of it. I was abroad at the time,” she replies. “Did they consult the gallery or you personally?”

“No, they didn’t,” says Steinn dryly.

“I particularly remember one photo of a painting that was attributed to Kjarval,” says Hanna, referring to Iceland’s most
beloved painter of the twentieth century. She’s quite relieved to delay saying what’s on her mind. “The sky was full of fluffy orange clouds. Nothing like Kjarval. I was really surprised.”

“You wouldn’t believe how amateurish some of this was,” says Steinn, smiling and pulling a face. “It was a lengthy case. Extensive. The investigation took a long time. And then it all fell apart, on a formality!”

Steinn clicks the mouse sharply to enlarge part of the image on the screen. There are dark patches on a large part of the tree trunks, but they are hard to make out. Hanna looks at the painting on the easel, sees the raised brushstrokes—the ones that don’t match up with the top layer of the painting. This is what put him on the scent, she thinks, picturing Steinn’s fingertips running slowly and delicately across the surface of the painting.

“Of course, there are lots of ways to forge a painting,” she ventures. “I didn’t really follow the case very closely. Were the paintings forged from the outset?”

Steinn doesn’t answer immediately but looks pensive. “Well, it kind of varied,” he says at length. “Some were marginally tampered with, and others were totally repainted.”

Jumping to his feet, he suddenly goes to a rack farthest back in the workroom and picks up a painting wrapped in polyethylene off the shelf. Removing the plastic, he shows her a still life painting of flowers in a vase.

“See this. Look at how the painting is structured!” Hanna senses the tension in his voice. “Who would put the vase here, right at the bottom of the picture?” he asks without waiting for an answer, and Hanna sees straightaway that there’s something odd about this still life. “This was attributed to Kristin Jonsdottir.”

Hanna looks at the painting. It could be, but then again maybe not. At any rate it’s not typical of Kristin’s dramatic flower paintings, with their dark colors and powerfully rhythmical brushstrokes. But she can’t be sure. Maybe this was a painting from early in her career. Before she found her stride. It’s hard to say.

“What do you think?” asks Hanna.

“It’s hard to say,” Steinn replies, “but look at this.” He shows her Kristin Jonsdottir’s signature in the bottom left-hand corner of the painting. “The original signature could have been scratched out and this one put in its place.”

Hanna looks in surprise at the painting, which is oddly structured on the canvas. Suddenly it all becomes clear. A painting from an obscure artist has been taken off the canvas stretcher and cut, removing the original signature. Obviously it’s not good enough to paint over the signature, which would show up on the UV image, Hanna thinks.

“Then the forger puts the painting on another canvas stretcher. It’s no big deal to get a hold of an old one and paint whatever signature on it he chooses,” says Steinn. “Or leave it without a signature.”

“That’s a bit crude,” says Hanna. “Isn’t that rather obvious?”

“Did you notice it before I mentioned it?” Steinn asks. She doesn’t reply. Steinn is right. At first glance she didn’t notice anything untoward. Steinn shrugs and wraps the painting back up.

“Don’t forget that some folks who buy paintings have a limited knowledge of art. Many of them, but not all, of course. People also have faith in galleries. Who would imagine that a reputable gallery would sell a forgery? And some people simply
have so much money. Owning an old master has long been a status symbol. D’you know what I saw advertised in the paper the other day?” Steinn asks in an irritated tone. “Wanted: a Kjarval painting, in beautiful colors.”

“They actually specified ‘in beautiful colors’?” laughs Hanna. “I wonder what colors those are.”

Steinn lightens up and laughs back; their eyes meet in mutual understanding.

“That shows what the market’s like, how these things can happen,” he adds. “But in this forgery case, you know, this major one we were talking about, lots of paintings were forged from scratch there. Sometimes they painted on old paper or canvas. Some paintings were done on colored paper. Sometimes they used old paintings, usually by some Danish artist, and just changed the signature. The original signature was removed with sandpaper and then painted over and a new one put in its place.”

While Steinn talks, Hanna wonders what they should do next, since the painting is evidently a forgery. The possibility is not so far-fetched. In the light of history, it’s really rather likely. She looks at the painting on the easel and sees Steinn is watching her. This is the moment he has been waiting for, her assurance. It’s so typical of Steinn to go to enormous lengths to get her to see it for herself. She realizes that her newfound conviction wouldn’t be as strong if Steinn had just said it straight-out. She would have protested, thought it far-fetched.

“I still don’t understand why that court case collapsed. I mean, they were all acquitted, weren’t they?” says Hanna, looking at the painting. It’s far from amateurish. If it’s a forgery, whoever did it is no fool. She’s been admiring and relishing the
painting herself, and she’s a qualified art historian with specialist knowledge of Gudrun’s work. She finds it hard to even look at the painting now, knowing that Gudrun probably had nothing to do with it. Steinn is pensively contemplating the painting, his expression betraying his curiosity. He intends to get to the bottom of this, Hanna thinks, now realizing why he didn’t bother looking at all the sketches with her. He knew it was simply a waste of time.