Master Copies
February 28, 2007
Three men with beards and long curly hair work together on a large canvas in their studio in Berlin's Neukölln district. One mixes new colors on a palette while the other two men paint. Looking up close one can see that some of their brushstrokes are fine, made with a fine goat-hair brush, while others leave layers of color as thick as a finger using a trowel.
By taking a few steps back, visitors can see exactly what the three brothers have been painting for the last six months. It's an amazingly accurate copy of Rembrandt's "Night Watch."
Becoming the artist
When it comes to reproducing famous artworks, Michael, Evegni and Semjon Posin are among the best in Germany. Renoir, Dürer or van Gogh -- their repertoire covers all the grand masters from five centuries of art history. Evgeni Posin explained that copying a painting isn't really that difficult; giving it a soul is a real challenge.
"Reproducing a painting doesn't just mean copying what you see," he said. "You have to capture the essence of the original. That means going through the same processes as the artist. You need to be familiar with their techniques and their way of life, and their brushstrokes. You need to become the artist."
That means painting at the same speed as the original artist too. An artwork by Raphael or Rubens can take months to complete, while impressionist paintings can be reproduced in a flurry of activity lasting just a few hours.
Larger than the original
It's a craft the Posin brothers learned at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. All three are qualified art historians and painters in their own right. Not satisfied putting their skills to use for socialist propaganda, they left Russia in the 1980s and moved to Germany. To pay the bills they began copying masterpieces from a wide variety of artists.
The resulting artworks can easily be confused with the originals. One con-artist has already tried selling two of their William Turner reproductions as originals, and nearly got away with it. But Evgeni Posin said he and his brothers do their best to steer clear of the criminal art market.
"What we do is completely legal," he said. "We don't try and pass off our artworks as originals -- we're not frauds. We stick to the rules, which say the reproduction must be a few centimeters bigger or smaller than the original, and the artist must have been dead for at least 70 years."
A museum for fakes
The key to accuracy is careful research. Instead of looking at art books, the brothers travel to the museums where the originals are displayed. Copying the Mona Lisa, for example, kept them busy at the Louvre in Paris for an entire year. That attention to detail comes at a price. A "genuine" Posin copy can cost anywhere between 400 and 20,000 euros.
Most of the customers come from the United States, Japan and Australia -- from architects looking for an abstract Malewitsch to retired couples looking for a Dürer to hang in their living room. German businessman Gerold Schellstede has purchased more than 30 Posin paintings himself. He said he plans to open a museum dedicated to the reproductions in the eastern German state of Brandenburg later this year.
"A lot of people are unable to see these paintings in the museums of Paris or Madrid," he said. "They can't afford it, or perhaps they think they don't know much about art. That's why we want to make these works accessible – who knows, maybe they'll capture their interest. Maybe one day they'll even get to see the originals and make a comparison."