Andrew Graham-Dixon on imitations and permutations in the British Museum, Hyde Park and your liv-ing-room
Masterpieces, everyone knows, don't come cheap. It's a shame: what better way to liven up your sitting room than a Van Gogh Sunflowers, a Turner seascape, a Renoir boating scene? If you thought you could never afford the luxury of such timeless beauty in your own home, do not despair. Artworks of the World can help. ''Hand- painted for you,'' promises their circular - ''one of the world's great works of art.'' Thanks to Artworks of the World, you can pick and choose from among the acknowledged greats of world painting, and at little more than the cost of a good meal out!!! ''Van Gogh, Renoir, Constable, Turner, Uccello - a unique hand- painted copy of the original in the National Gallery London, from as little as pounds 149 plus p & p (and that includes the frame!).''
But what, exactly, are you buying when you purchase a copy of a famous picture ''hand-painted by a talented artist, using oils on canvas spread on natural wood stretchers - exactly as was the original (as you can see for yourself in London's National Gallery!)''? The object you will receive clearly has no art historical value. It will bear little more resemblance to the work on which it is based - and possibly rather less - than a photographic reproduction. It will have none of the saint's-relic preciousness that attaches to the original; an Artwork of the World Van Gogh will not be painted by the hand that cut off the most famous ear in history.
So what's left? Handmadeness, primarily - that, and a very curious notion of authenticity. Much is made of the fact that these copies are made using ''completely authentic materials'', and of...
