Make It ’Til You Fake It: The Virtues of Counterfeiting in the Renaissance

The Forsyth Galleries at Texas A&M is hosting a talk with Dr. Tianna Uchacz entitled, 

Make It ’Til You Fake It: The Virtues of Counterfeiting in the Renaissance. 

 Renaissance artists were always looking for new and more convincing ways to counterfeit costly materials with cheaper ones. Sixteenth-century how-to texts, such as painters’ manuals and so-called “books of secrets,” abound with recipes to imitate gold with yellow glazes over silver foils, to imitate gemstones with colored glasses, or to imitate exotic corals with twigs covered with dyed resins.

 Far from being shunned, these counterfeit materials were often acknowledged as fakes and were avidly collected and prized for their ingenuity.

 This talk looks at the phenomenon of creating fakes and material doubles as a Renaissance version of materials science. It considers artists as proto-scientists in their quest to understand the properties of the natural world in order to harness them for their own ends.

RSVP is encouraged, but not required. We are located on the second floor of the MSC. The closest parking garage is the University Center Garage. The talk is free, but there is a small fee to park.