Over the past few months, I’ve regularly been watching a programme on YouTube called Fake or Fortune?. It follows artworks that, for example, have been in a family for many years or were once bought at auction. The owners want experts to find out whether or not they are genuine works by well-known artists. There have already been so many fascinating artworks by Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Henry Moore and many others.
One of the most important aspects of the investigation is the artwork’s provenance. The ‘paper trail’ of the work. How did it change hands over the years, and who were its owners? They try to trace that trail as far back as possible to eventually establish whether the artwork is genuine.
They search everywhere: museums, old acquaintances (or their relatives), diaries, exhibition documents and, my favourite, letters written by the artists themselves.
In these letters, they sometimes write in great detail about their travels and visits. They describe the places they have been so beautifully that the letters almost become artworks in themselves.
Imagine writing a letter to a friend to thank them for a lovely visit and telling them about the interesting things you experienced together.
At some point, I actually found myself feeling a little sad. Because what do we leave behind?
Certainly not a ‘paper trail’ like the ones these artists left behind. Fortunately, we do leave traces in other ways.
Something I really enjoy doing regularly is writing, even if it is only for myself. Simply telling, asking questions, reflecting, having a conversation with myself. I find it fascinating to discover what comes out of it.
Perhaps we could all become a little more conscious of creating our own provenance.
Not so that someone can prove one day that we were ‘genuine’, of course. But to leave something behind of how we saw the world, where we were, what occupied our thoughts and what mattered to us.
What will remain of us when we are no longer here?