title: The Expert versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts
author: Ronald D. Spencer
description: <br>"This important collection of essays makes clear that lawyers and courts now perform a crucial function in the art world both in avoiding and in resolving disputes regarding the authenticity and attribution of works of art.... As [Spencer] writes, 'one goal of this book is to help lawyers advise their clients and judges to arrive at more informed decisions'.... Mr. Spencer has succeeded admirably. For both lawyers and other art market professionals, this book should become required reading."--<em>New York Law Journal</em>
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  Modern Fiction
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
  # Modern Fiction
  
  
  ### Charles Dudley Warner
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  One of the worst characteristics of modern fiction is its so-called truth
  
  
  to nature. For fiction is an art, as painting is, as sculpture is, as
  
  
  acting is. A photograph of a natural object is not art; nor is the
  
  
  plaster cast of a man's face, nor is the bare setting on the stage of an
  
  
  actual occurrence. Art requires an idealization of nature. The amateur,
  
  
  though she may be a lady, who attempts to represent upon the stage the
  
  
  lady of the drawing-room, usually fails to convey to the spectators the
  
  
  impression of a lady. She lacks the art by which the trained actress,
  
  
  who may not be a lady, succeeds. The actual transfer to the stage of the
  
  
  drawing-room and its occupants, with the behavior common in well-bred
  
  
  society, would no doubt fail of the intended d