MICROSTORY OF ART

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

Dedicated to Treasure Hunt

Rembrandt or Gerard Dou?

(22.12.2022) When, during the pandemic, I used to watch television a little bit more often than usually, I found it striking how many TV productions were momentarily organized among the timeless motif of the treasure hunt. Hunting for opals in Australia, hunting for rubies in Greenland, hunting for treasures that may be hidden in storage facilities left by its owners, or the renewed gold rush (on all channels), treasure hunt does move the audiences, but often the stories that enfold are about other things than treasures. Which is why, I am reflecting here on treasure hunt.

One) Hunting for Rubies in Greenland

The story about a hunt for rubies that turned to Greenland I found remarkably charming. But it was not only about the remarkable finding of rubies in a Greenland snowscape, but actually about the fight of the then finder to be allowed to join that trip at all – to be a member of that team. Treasure hunt may, often, be about the individual treasure hunter, but here it was about the fight for being a member of the team, and only then, about the individual’s success (whatever might have been the outcome, economically, of that episode).
To become rich by finding some hidden treasure might be the essential archetypal motive, the dream, but stories about treasure hunt are about the human condition as such. The hunt for treasures in storage facilities might be as interesting as any other treasure hunt, but the story that was told, turned out to be repetitive, since the setting of the auctioneering of the content of containers (after, I am assuming, owners of such containers had failed to pay the storage fees) does not allow for many other stories to be told. And the producers of that series had to turn to staging the rivalries between various small teams, which turned out to be less interesting in repetition.

Two) The Encyclopedia of Treasure Hunt

Treasure hunt stories can be about many things, and the Enzyklopädie des Märchens (article on Schatz in volume 11) has many things to tell. It can be, as often television is as well, about audiences hoping that the treasure hunters (usually male, in tradition, but not today) are finding crap instead of gold. This might be the resentment of people wishing to find gold themselves, but never having the chance to do so, hoping for the disaster of other’s instead. And if many stories accuse women of having undermined the actual finding of the treasure, it may be about another revenge anyway.
The most clever stories might be those that use a MacGuffin only (something that is keeping people going, but turns out to be irrelevant in itself, or even does not even exist, but only in fantasy).
Other fairytales are about the finding of fragments of treasures which seem to remain, largely lost. Golden spoons may teach lessons in life, as to modesty, solid earnest work, and relative success, but of course, more popular are the extremes: all or nothing, fake or fortune, which brings us to art.

Three) The Emperor’s New Clothes

It is interesting that, in the recent Basquiat case, alleged originals had been, allegedly, found, in a storage container, as, it seems, in the popular aforementioned television series (that perhaps also inspired that kind of treasure hunt).
The so-called sleeper hunter has to be added to the personal of treasure hunts today, people hunting for treasures that, as in the story of the purloined letter, are actually to be found right in front of our eyes, in auction catalogues, wherein unhappy people have managed to catalogue such treasures mistakingly, mistaking gold for… something less precious.
The treasure hunt for a Salvator Mundi painting by hand of Leonardo da Vinci has now been on for quite some time (a parallel adventure does exist in Giovanni Bellini studies). And it is not even clear if Leonardo ever painted such painting that many people wish to exist. He may have painted such painting in shape of a lunette in a cloister, a lunette that got destroyed, or actually never painted such design at all, a design that, beyond reasonable doubt, he did provide (perhaps for the lunette, perhaps initially for a painting that someone else could realize, and probably for serial production that involved many of his team members or other associates, who associated with him in a sort of Renaissance franchising system). Be it as it may. The question is: how will this story be told in the future?
Will it be told in terms of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes? One does hear that a television series is in preparation that migth be willing to do exactly that.
Since I myself have researched also another Leonardo case, and written about it exactly in terms of the Emperor’s New Clothes story, I would say that this is not such a good idea. Why? Because the story of the Salvator Mundi does not fit into that framework. I believe the painting in question to be a workshop piece to which Leonardo might have contributed at least the blessing hand. And if this is true, the Emperor will not show naked in the future. It would be about ruins or rags then, but about the finding of at least a golden spoon (if the comparison is allowed here). And in case some people may be hoping for more disaster than necessary, disaster happening to other people – I am not among them. Some will have to face bitter truths, and the academe will have to answer questions as to its competence. But full disaster I am not seeing coming for anyone. While I am seeing that some people seem to be hoping for exactly that.

Further Reading:
Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, [Article on] Schatz, in: Enzyklopädie des Märchens, volume 11, Berlin/New York 2004, col. 1253-1259

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
HOME

Top of the page

Microstory of Art Main Index

Dietrich Seybold Homepage

© DS