Norval Morrisseau Conspiracy Unveiled (Part XXXII)

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~ Continued from: Norval Morrisseau Conspiracy Unveiled (Part XXXI) ~-

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Exhibit No. 29
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© 1970s Norval Morrisseau
~ Genuine Norval Morrisseau painting purchased at Kahn Auctions by Donald C. Robinson of Kinsman Robinson Galleries which is part of below presented scientific paper

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An Introduction:

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Art is an apples to apples and oranges to oranges affair. Artists over time will change their style and ability to paint and/or sculpt. Time becomes a fingerprint to period works easily identified by art connoisseurs who are sensitive to any beloved piece of art. In other words we can tell from which decade or period of art a Norval Morrisseau painting came from just by looking at the piece. We look for colour, palette of coulurs, theme, signature(s) and general feeling. This type of 'seeing' is backed up by a database of thousands of other Morrisseau paintings to compare the piece too that art historians rely on. 'The James Z. Wang report' supports 'art historians' as having the last say in the authenticity of a Norval Morrisseau piece of art in Dr. James Z. Wang's own e-mail and analysis report admissions. Data however can be easily manipulated and misunderstood. Thirty five paintings were submitted to Dr. James Z. Wang for 'curve line coherence analyisis' by the Kinsman Robinson Galleries of Toronto, Ontario. Other individuals and institutions also involved in communication with Dr. James Z. Wang are Richard H. Baker, John M. Newman, Paul C. H. Robinson, John Zemanovich, the City of Toronto and the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS).
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The findings of this report begins with skewed data unknowingly given to Dr. James Z. Wang. The report has scientifically identified a slight change in curve line coherence within the samples of the Norval Morrisseau artworks supplied to Dr. James Z. Wang. These paintings were supplied in form of digitized pictures of the said 35 artworks submitted to Dr. James Z. Wang and his team and not the actual pieces of artwork. The paintings that were identified in Dr. Wang's analysis that showed curve line coherence differences were labeled as 'fakes' on his report. This group consisted of 16 paintings and Dr. Wang was told beforehand that they were 'fake Morrisseaus' by the above listed individuals. The Wang report shows only 6 paintings and omits the images of the other 29 paintings conducted in this study? Requests to Dr. Wang to produce the other 29 images were denied by our research and investigative team. Of the six images of paintings shown two were labeled as fake and four others were labeled as authentic. The public will never learn how the other 29 paintings in this study looked like? Dr. Wang has made an unfortunate intellectual error in dealing with these individuals. Dr. Wang has shown a keen interest in how his data is not conclusive. The e-mails at the end of this article attest to Professor Wang's position in this matter. His words speak for themselves at the conclusion of this article.
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Let us analyze. What we have here are 35 paintings coming from different decades 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's? Naturally there would be slight changes in the way the artist Norval Morrisseau painted his images over time. Period decades were mixed up completely in this analysis. Paintings from the 1960's were compared to pieces from the 1980's. 1990's were compared to pieces from the 1970's and so on and so forth. Each decade of Morrisseau's work is marked by distinctive differences in his execution of a painting which all art historians on Norval Morrisseau would agree. Even Elizabeth McLuhan, member of the NMHS, stated that "his brilliance lies in his ability to break away from his own conventions, to constantly renew his vision." This is a common behaviour trait among all great artists. Pablo Picasso's work was no exception. Why do paintings change over time with an artist? Painting is an emotional thing. An artist's emotions from an hour to hour and day to day basis will vary. This will and does affect the nature of the artwork's final outcome. Norval Morrisseau was no exception to this rule. Morrisseau painted drunk. Morrisseau painted sober. Morrisseau painted stoned. Morrisseau painted happy. Morrisseau painted sad. Morrisseau painted angry. Ask any art historian familiar with Pablo Picasso and of his paintings and they will agree to emotional influence as being a primary factor in regards to how any given Picasso appears. An expert on Picasso's artwork can easily identify what period an artwork by this famous artist came from and how this artist was feeling at the time. Emotions leave behind tell tale fingerprints. Did the artworks by Picasso remain the same through out the decades of this man's existence as a painter? Of course not. Look at your own writing for example. Does your calligraphy look and write the same today in your life as it did when you were nineteen years old? No. Your calligraphy has changed because you have changed. Would the artworks by Pablo Picasso show curve line coherence changes if they were compared to each other separated by decades? Absolutely!
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'The James Z. Wang report' does have it's merits and place as an extra tool in an art historian's tool box. It does prove that art done by the same artist over time changes as art historians have always known this to be the case. The program could also be used to test authenticity in a case sample where 2-3 paintings are submitted that are each identical copies of each other. One of the three paintings would be an original authentic piece and the other two are skillful forgeries. The curve line coherence program created by Dr. James Z.Wang could be put to the test in this hypothetical case in the discovery of a curve line coherence change among the three paintings in this testing. This would of course depend on a database of authentic works inputted into the Edison program before hand as referencing data. Success in determination of any curve line coherence difference in our test could be hampered by the ability of a skilled forger as Dr. James Z.Wang states in his dissertation on the last page of his report. Dr. James Z. Wang admits this three times and leaves it up to the 'art historians' as having the final say if a painting is 'real' or 'not'. Computers are as fallible as their makers.
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Dr. Wang is well aware of these limitations and factors that are beyond his curve line coherence program abilities. The 19 paintings submitted beforehand to Dr. James Z. Wang along with 16 other paintings which were labeled 'fake' by the individuals mentioned above. Where is their proof that these 16 paintings are fake? There isn't any proof except that paintings were "the ones that were disavowed by Norval Morrisseau at an NMHS meeting and donated by KRG to the NMHS" as per Donald C. Robinson's statement presented below. It's just them saying that these 16 paintings were 'fake'. These individuals knew very well that there would probably show a curve line coherence difference because they are very well aware that an artist's work changes over time. These individuals banked on this being misunderstood by the public. Back to apples to apples and oranges to oranges. Period works of art should have been scrutinized. In other words 1960's compared to other 1960's paintings, 1970's compared to other 1970's paintings, 1980's compared to other 1980's paintings and 1990's compared to other 1990's paintings by Norval Morrisseau.

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NOTE: The following individuals have also shown support to this scientific paper's research: Gabor M. Vadas, Bryant Ross, Ritchie R. Sinclair a.k.a. Stardreamer, Mark Anthony Jacobson a.k.a. PEY-SIM-AWAY-APEY-BINASI & Dr. Jonathan Browne who was a webmaster of now non-active www.morrisseaubuyersbeware.com.

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a)

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>>> Computerized analysis of paintings has recently gained in­terest. The rapid technological advancements and the ex­panding interdisciplinary collaboration present us a promis­ing prospect of computer-assisted authentication. This technique has been applied to the paintings of renowned aboriginal Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau and represents material which is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation and The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania (see below presented scientific paper or click HERE):

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"CHARACTERIZING ELEGANCE OF CURVES COMPUTATIONALLY FOR DISTINGUISHING MORRISSEAU PAINTINGS AND THE IMITATIONS"

- The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Lei Yao, Jia Li, James Z. Wang (Page 1) /Click on image to enlarge/

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* Note that the authors of this scientific paper thanked the Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Canada, the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS), Canada, the City of Toronto, Richard H. Baker, John M. Newman, Paul C. H. Robinson, and John Zemanovich for their assistance.

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"CHARACTERIZING ELEGANCE OF CURVES COMPUTATIONALLY FOR DISTINGUISHING MORRISSEAU PAINTINGS AND THE IMITATIONS"

- The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Lei Yao, Jia Li, James Z. Wang (Page 2) /Click on image to enlarge/

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* Note that paintings which were originally acquired from Kahn Auctions, Pickering Ontario by Donald C. Robinson of Kinsman Robinson Galleries and labeled in this paper as 'fake' or 'counterfeit' Norval Morrisseau paintings.--

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"CHARACTERIZING ELEGANCE OF CURVES COMPUTATIONALLY FOR DISTINGUISHING MORRISSEAU PAINTINGS AND THE IMITATIONS"

- The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Lei Yao, Jia Li, James Z. Wang (Page 3) /Click on image to enlarge/
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"CHARACTERIZING ELEGANCE OF CURVES COMPUTATIONALLY FOR DISTINGUISHING MORRISSEAU PAINTINGS AND THE IMITATIONS"

- The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania; Lei Yao, Jia Li, James Z. Wang (Page 4) /Click on image to enlarge/ -

* It is noted in the conclusions of Dr. James Z. Wang's scientific paper "whereas the techniques demonstrate their power on this dataset, they may be insufficient in identifying skillfully forged paintings. A study involving forgeries from additional sources will be desired. Finally, it is clear that the presented techniques may not be suitable for analyzing some styles of paintings. We plan to further study the applicability of these techniques for other painting styles."

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b)

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>>> The following is an excerpt from Donald C. Robinson's questionable report dated November 10th, 2009 (click on the image below for full report; see pages 66 & 67) which pertains to the Dr. James Z. Wang's scientific research. This excerpt was part of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Court File 58871/08, Otavnik vs. Sinclair (see 'Exhibit No. 27'):

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"Recent promising developments in the analysis of high resolution images may soon be available to support results obtained using traditional art historical methods to detect art forgeries. Following earlier success with the artworks of Van Gogh, the computerized analysis of high resolution images of brushstrokes has been undertaken on the artworks of Norval Morrisseau. Dr. James Z. Wang, of Penn State University used curves resulting from brushstrokes to compare the steadiness of the brushstrokes from 19 known authentic Morrisseau paintings to 16 Potter-sourced paintings [1]. The 16 Potter-sourced paintings were the ones that were disavowed by Norval Morrisseau at an NMHS meeting and donated by KRG to the NMHS.

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Initial results from Dr. Wang concluded that the authentic Morrisseau paintings had a consistently higher level of steadiness of the brushstrokes. Dr. Wang plotted on charts the data from all 25 paintings used in the study. His charts clearly demonstrate a highly distinctive and consistent difference between the two groups of paintings. He concluded that the smooth steady flow of the lines and paint showed less hesitancy and more steadiness from Morrisseau than from the fabricator of the Potter-sourced paintings. Prof. Wang's research provided data which indicates there is a statistically significant difference between the set of paintings known to be authentic and the Potter-sourced paintings that Morrisseau himself told the NMHS were counterfeit. This scientific data corroborates the statements made by Norval Morrisseau to the NMHS about this particular group of paintings. A formal scientific paper has been prepared and will be presented to leading world scientists at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing in November [2]. Dr. Wang's paper is also available online (click HERE)."

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[1] - see 'Exhibit No. 4', 'Exhibit No. 5' & 'Exhibit No. 20'.

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[2] - 2009 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (November 7th - 10th, 2009); click HERE to view the 'List of Accepted Papers' and see the scientific papers 3706: CHARACTERIZING ELEGANCE OF CURVES COMPUTATIONALLY FOR DISTINGUISHING MORRISSEAU PAINTINGS AND THE IMITATIONS submbitted by Dr. James Z. Wang and his team.

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* Donald C. Robinson clearly stated that paintings he had purchased at Kahns Auctions (see 'Exhibit No. 4') were later donated by Kinsman Robinson Galleries to the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS). These were the same paintings supposedly disavowed by Norval Morrisseau at an NMHS meeting? Also, Donald C. Robinson of Kinsman Robinson Galleries stated that the data presented in Dr. James Z. Wang's scientific paper "corroborates the statements made by Norval Morrisseau to the NMHS about this particular group of paintings."

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c)

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>>> The following is an e-mail communication between the art connoisseur Mr. Walter Bond and co-author of the above presented paper Dr. James Z. Wang from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.

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- An e-mail communication between the art connoisseur Mr. Walter Bond and

Mr. James Z. Wang of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania - dated August 27th, 2009 /Click on image to enlarge/

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* It was clearly noted by Dr. James Z. Wang that "for a given painting, the computer cannot be 100% sure if it is fake or not. But the information can be useful for art historians who has the final say on a painting."

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- An e-mail communication between the art connoisseur Mr. Walter Bond and

Mr. James Z. Wang of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania - dated October 23rd, 2010 /Click on image to enlarge/

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The conclusion:-

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To conclude this exhibit we are going to quote Dr. James Z. Wang who in his response to Mr. Walter Bond stated the following (see the above screen capture of forwarded Mr. Bond's e-mail to the Blog Master):

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"This project was concluded years ago. The findings, as reported in the paper, were based on training examples identified by the art gallery in Canada [1]. And even with that the computer was not able to completely identify the fakes. So in another word, the findings in the paper cannot be used to identify any particular painting as fake or not. And hence no one will be able to use the findings to judge in favor or against a particular painting."

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Dr. James Z. Wang, August 23rd, 2010

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[1] - Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto, Ontario.

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~ Continued on: Norval Morrisseau Conspiracy Unveiled (Part XXXIII) ~

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