She looked at the painting and grumbled. Clearly, the painter hadn’t grasped the finer points of the technique employed, and thus had bungled several key strokes, presumably in an effort to finish the darned thing as fast as possible. It always amazed her that artists who were prized and famed for inventing a style or technique often lacked seemingly any proficiency whatsoever in these styles and/or techniques. For all the fame, glory and extensive biographies devoted to these people, they really could not paint better than whatever euphemism for off-colored excrement was in vogue at the moment
She, however, could outpaint even the masters. She had done so on several occasions, in fact, and prided herself on having her work put on prominent display in several of the world’s most prestigious art galleries. Her name was not attached to the painting, of course, seeing as she was technically a forger, but that didn’t matter; she knew, and that sufficed. Above and beyond this secret nugget of satisfaction, she knew she could get into any museum she pretty darned wished, after a sudden strategic recovery of lost art from centuries ago. She took some measure of pride in her work
Alas, one of the drawbacks of having mastered the Ancient’s arts better than they ever did themselves is that the originals had begun appearing to her as first rough sketches. This meant that her more accurate forgeries had to scale back on the artistic ambition and play up the decidedly non-artistic application of arbitrary rules set down by (more often than not) the fact that certain kinds brushes or turpentine were unavailable at that particular historical moment, or some such silliness. The key to historical accuracy was to do it with random precision
If only the ancient masters had been better equipped, she muttered, and set to work on another undiscovered original. She had discovered a collection in Antwerp which did not yet feature her specific brand of art history, yet displayed one of her competitors with an undignified degree of prominence. This lack of artistic integrity simply would not do
More longer friend see that sky? 