Prima Gallery

There was a time, not too long ago, when ripping off other people was a lot easier ... and a lot more rewarding. We're not talking about bad rap or tween country rock stars, we're talking about actual artists: the talented liars, the meticulous copycats—the forgers. With an eye for detail and stunning ability to trick even the buffest history buffs, they sold popular Renaissance busts and paintings to unsuspecting buyers, even our very own Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Instead of getting pissed off (as most of us would), Gardner still appreciated the talent behind these forged busts, and continued to display them in some of the most prominent places in the museum. Discovering a fake requires some detective work, but unlike in CSI, it took about 30 years to draw a definitive conclusion. "There are a few ways of testing dates," says Alan Chong, the museum curator. "There's something called thermoluminescence, which is a way of testing fired clay. It provides an approximate firing date, so we can tell roughly if something was made in the 15th century or the 16th century, or 100 years ago." Though almost all of the busts in the museum checked out, a few looked suspicious. Years and years of scholarly speculation has led to the verdict that the busts are, in fact, fakes. At the turn of the century, forgeries were often bought and sold to Renaissance superfans ... some with possible knowledge of the forgery, some without. "I think people wanted to have really nice-looking examples of the work, so they were attracted to these copies that were in better condition," says Chong. "They were buying a McMansion version of the work of art, I suppose."

What once would have been a source of embarrassment now offers an opportunity to study preservation and re-creation during the museum's Italian Renaissance and terracotta sculpture exhibition. The works, divided into two distinct types (religious figures and busts), are all made with similar terracotta clay. The artist molded the clay when it was still wet, allowing a freer, more adaptable medium. "Unlike carving marble, you can choose things along the way, so it is easier to capture emotion more directly," says Chong. "You can see the blood and tears on the Christ figures. I think it is a more direct way of communicating religious meaning."

Scientists and curators have been working diligently for the past three years to preserve many of the most monumental pieces, restoring them to their original splendor. These include works from Matteo Civitali and Giovanni de Fondulis ... the latter was discovered only recently. "His work has always been respected," says Chong, "however, it was only recently discovered to be done by this man that no one has ever heard of. Pretty exciting."

The beauty and elegance of the Italian Renaissance restored, the museum encourages art lovers to experience the emotionality and turmoil of the sculptures. Feel free to fake it, too.

Exports of gems and jewelry from India, the world’s largest supplier, advanced 55 percent in February to $2.3 billion, an industry group said.

Shipments rose from $1.5 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to preliminary data published by the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council on its Web site.

Exports in the April-February period climbed to $25 billion, 10 percent more than the previous period.

A decade ago, when the Montana native took note of his young son's paint-by-numbers kit, a light went on. He took the idea of the design and created his own system.

"I'd gotten really bored with the way I was making paintings," he says. "I found that systematizing gave me this whole new lease on life with painting. It freed me up to sort of not have to make subjective decisions."

Williams outlines his paintings in advance, breaking them up into sections across the canvas. He defines each element with a specific color, and then premixes those colors before pouring them into their delegated spots.

Of course, it's still a subjective process, no matter what Williams says. The color mixtures are of Williams' own choosing, not of some company design. And Williams designs the way in which a painting will be broken into pieces and how it will be colored. In the end, it's certainly a strategic, tidy way to create a painting, but definitely not mindless.

The result is something both orderly and offbeat. His most recent series, which shows at the Missoula Art Museum (MAM) through the end of April, is called It Is Not Down In Any Map; True Places Never Are. The seven enamel and resin paintings utilize glossy combinations of the same bright variety of colors. Black ink drawings of cyclones made up of tiny silhouettes of people, monkeys, hawks and other creatures appear to swirl from the bright flowers and mountains of what might otherwise be considered a straightforward landscape. It's Williams personal take on the art of landscape.

"I don't find myself having a great kinship with landscape painting or landscape photography," Williams says. "They're often less about the landscape and more about people's desires, like the things that you wish to be true about the land, that we kind of romanticize and mythologize—the wild spaces. That's been true for centuries. And, for me, it's always rung kind of hollow."

Williams says his colorful landscapes don't depict any particular place. Instead, the flower images are distorted versions of old Dutch still life paintings, while his mountains are presented with the symmetry of a Rorschach test. Those are the imagined, heightened versions of romanticized landscapes that people desire, while the cyclone represents a darker, more empirical reality. It's an exploration of the idea that we all simultaneously occupy life in our heads and in the real world. And those, he says, are two very different experiences.

"It's like eyewitness testimony in court," says Williams. "It never really holds up. Our experiences are so malleable, so mired in our desires and our own way of remembering things. I think we all kind of experience the world differently and I think the paintings present these two polarities in the way we experience things."

It's hardly surprising that Williams' themes center on the idea of landscapes and ideas of wilderness, when you consider his family background. Williams is the son of former U.S. Congressman Pat Williams, who represented Montana from 1979 to 1997 on platforms protecting wilderness and state land, and current state Sen. Carol Williams. Griff was born in Butte, went to junior high in Helena and moved to D.C. with the family when his father was elected. He moved back to Missoula to get his bachelor's degree in fine arts. When he moved back to D.C. yet again, the struggle for National Endowment for the Arts funding was in full swing, and he ended up joining his father to advocate on behalf of fighting for the arts.

In 1993, after moving to San Francisco, Williams founded his own gallery, Gallery 16, along with a printmaking studio called Urban Digital Color. With federal arts funding in crisis the gallery and printmaking studio served to balance each other.

"I saw it as a new model to support visual arts programming in that we could use the revenues created from one to support the other," he says.

Williams says his paintings take on a different feel when they move from his San Francisco gallery to Montana. Here, where traditional landscape artists like Thomas Cole and C.M. Russell have often dictated people's view of the land, Williams' paintings seem loaded with editorial statements about perception. It's a realist message, couched in abstract art that both celebrates landscape and attempts to reveal its hidden qualities. And it's not far flung from the context of a family of political activists.

"The landscape is a seduction but it ultimately leads to these dark realities," says Williams. "It's true of the way that the land has been treated, it's true of the way that we consume and consume. That cyclone, those tornadoes, that swirling imagery in black that go through these paintings are really referring to the link that connects us through history."

Art fans have just a few weeks left to see a celebrated sculpture before it leaves Northumberland next month.

Stella McCartney's stunning three metre high leaping horse Lucky Spot is to be removed from display at Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens on April 18.

The sculpture made from more than 8000 Swarovski crystals was created by the internationally renowned fashion designer specifically for the Grade I historic site in 2004 as part of Fashion at Belsay.

One of the venue's most popular attractions was returned by popular demand last Easter and attracted thousands of additional visitors .

Rob Flower, head of visitor operations for English Heritage in the North East, said: "We were fortunate enough to be able to bring Lucky Spot back to Belsay last spring."

Lucky Spot's current home will be closed for two weeks for the installation of its replacement. Contemporary arts exhibition, Extraordinary Measures, will open on May 1.

Running until the end of September, the exhibition will take visitors of all ages into a world of dark enchantment.

Highlights among the specially commissioned installations - most of which are being seen for the first time in the UK - will include the premiere of new hyper-realistic sculptures by Ron Mueck in the 19th Century rooms and photographs of tiny day-trippers facing everyday dramas within the gardens of Belsay, as documented by urban artist Slinkachu.

To mark Lucky Spot's departure, English Heritage is giving visitors over the Easter holidays the chance to win a selection of prizes, if they are able to find the hidden 'Lucky Spots' dotted around the castle, hall and gardens.