A question of attribution

There is a brilliant play by Alan Bennet which includes a conversation between Anthony Blunt (surveyor of the Queens pictures, later exposed as a spy) and Queen Elizabeth. At one point he points out that one of the pictures in the royal collection is a fake. The Queen looks at it and even she can see it is a fake. She asks why no one spotted the fake at the time it was added to the collection and Blunt says that a fake is not obvious in it’s own time, whilst later it becomes obvious.

There is something about this idea that struck me as an amazing distinction although I wasn’t able to put my finger on why. The idea that only when viewed from the future does the forgery become obvious even to someone that doesn’t know that much about paintings.

Look back at some family pictures from 20 years ago and instead of noticing the difference between the people you just observe that they all have very curious clothes and hairstyles. Look at a costume drama from the 1970s and even though it is set 200 years ago you will still realise that it was made in the 1970s.

There is so much about the way we dress and do interact now that tells us far more about 2009 than it does about what we think we are.

The same idea applies to music, and business. Things that seem very different are just another version of the norm. The key to creating something new and interesting is to realise how much of what we do is just the fashion of the day and putting our focus on what is not.