The Art of Facsimile

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then art has been sycophantically adored. Since their unveiling, the works of the great masters have been earnestly copied by apprentice artists and – whether paint or print, marble or plaster – have populated many a home. These knock-offs are affordable, sometimes quality, but somehow always an apology...they’ll never be “the real thing”. But is the value of imitation only vicarious? Today, innovators in the art of facsimile are proving otherwise.

Facsimile of Veronese's Wedding at Cana, San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

Veronese’s ‘Wedding at Cana’ was certainly not intended to sit across the room from the Mona Lisa. The French have Napoleon to thank for that breathtaking “acquisition”. Doubtful, though, that the monks (and nowadays, the visitors) of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice were thankful for the void left by Napoleon’s untimely hacking and jacking of the canvas. But Venetians no longer endure that white space as, a few years ago, the artist and restorer Adam Lowe and his team at Factum Arte installed a facsimile of the painting in its original home. Their mimicry is unquestionably accurate. Through digital and technical mastery, they rendered their print with the same texture and depth of paint. The copyist commission was met with the usual skepsticism. But when the curtain dropped and the facsimile unveiled, doubts were overwhelmed; overwhelmed to the point of weeping in the case of some distinguished Venetian guests. This sophisticated illusion assuredly impresses, and though we can’t call it an original work of art, its technical artistry certainly effects something of the sublime experience generated by the master painting.

But while a facsimile can – like art – elevate, Factum Arte’s most recent project proves that it can achieve even more. This spring, a three-dimensional, life-size facsimile of Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened to the public in Luxor. Ideally, of course, we would all have the opportunity to experience the original tomb. But time and tourism have taken their toll on these ancient burial chambers, and – now ravaged – the majority of them have had to be closed. Though Tut’s tomb remains (for now) open, as Adam Lowe points out, ‘the experience of seeing the real thing has been compromised.’ Glass screens partition the viewer from the fragile site; you are segregated, not immersed. At the replica, though, you are allowed a ‘more personal interaction’ (as one visitor reports). The replica also boasts an antechamber containing a series of panels narrating the significance of the original; in further homage to Tut’s tomb, then, the replica speaks on its behalf: allowing access where the other does not, and saying what it cannot say. ‘This is not about taking things away,’ asserts Lowe, ‘it is about bringing things back.’ National Geographic has hailed the first (of many) tomb facsimiles as paving ‘the way to sustainable tourism.’ If imitation equals preservation, then the art of facsimile is surely invaluable.