The art… of deception?

Making a new instrument look old is a painstaking craft that requires skill, patience and imagination. But why do luthiers spend their time creating an unreal effect?Peter Somerford speaks to both advocates and critics of the process

Above and right The 1714 ‘Leonora Jackson’ Stradivari violin (on the right in both pictures) alongside a copy (left), varnished and antiqued by Jeff Phillips and Antoine Nédélec at the 2017 Oberlin Violin Makers Workshop

JACKSON’ PHOTOS COURTESY ANTOINE NÉDÉLEC. RIGHT PHOTO JOHN SIMMERS

As with making copies, the practice of antiquing, or simulating the wear and tear of old instruments, divides opinion among violin makers. Is it a symptom of a craft that’s too glued to its rear-view mirror, still so in thrall to past idols that makers today not only seek to copy 300-year-old models, but want their instruments to look old too? On the other hand, antiquing has a long history of its own, and if the classic old look is still admired, and in commercial demand, why shouldn’t makers continue with it? For some, antiquing is a way to challenge oneself, and to showcase flair, imagination and technical prowess. Skilfully deployed artifice might elevate violins into works of art, but these are musical instruments, not paintings, goes the counter-argument – so why bother with all the fakery when an attractive straight-varnished instrumentworks just as well? Perhaps, if what really counts for musicians is how an instrument sounds, then whether it’s antiqued or not becomes simply a matter of personal taste – just as for makers, the way they varnish and finish their instruments is a personal choice.

For some makers, the experience of seeing and handling the finest violins by the likes of Stradivari and Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ creates a strong desire to emulate the look of those instruments. ‘The main reason I do antiquing is because I just find old instruments incredibly beautiful,’ says Antoine Nédélec, who regularly teaches varnishing and antiquing techniques as a faculty member of the Violin Society of America’s Oberlin Summer Workshops. American maker Joseph Curtin explains why the finish of old instruments can fascinate and beguile: ‘Old violin finishes can have so many things going on. There is the texture from scraping and finishing the wood. There is the surface texture of oil varnish, and then how that changes over time with scratching, corrosion, and craquelure. There’s the way that dirt gets worked into the finish, highlighting the texture. All this tells a story.’

To emulate such effects convincingly demands excellent skill, but also flair and artistry, say makers. ‘Violin making is more of a craft than an art,’ says Nédélec, ‘but there is certainly some artistry about it.’ Antiquing can be an avenue of creative experimentation and technical virtuosity, going beyond what makers were ever taught in school or permitted to do for violin making competitions (Cremona’s Triennale and the Mittenwald competition, among others, both prohibit artificially aged instruments). Australian luthier John Simmers says: ‘For some makers, antiquing can become a personal challenge to push themselves and prove their skill and artistic flair. It is great fun and I’ve enjoyed doing it in the past, and so I completely understand why people do it.’

A violin by John Simmers, who uses antiquing methods to achieve a ‘warm’ look

There are different degrees of antiquing. A luthier tasked with making a bench copy of an old violin, for example, might go to amazing lengths to capture every last mark or variation in patina on the original instrument. Simmers thinks this amount of effort makes sense in certain circumstances: ‘There is a very legitimate reason for making exact copies: if someone has a beautiful old instrument that they don’t want to travel around the world with, then they might have an accurate replica made. In that case, the intention of most makers is to make the instrument look as close to the original as possible.’ For Tokyo-based maker Andreas Preuss, antiquing is less about scrupulous attention to detail and more about leaving space for a maker’s personality and artistic expression to come through.

‘Antiquing is about creating something individualistic,’ he says. ‘It’s about flair and imagination. My goal with an antique finish is to capture the spirit of the original instrument, and I think the true art of antiquing is being able to leave some things to chance, and not to try to control everything. I think that’s how to achieve the most convincing result.’ In Preuss’s opinion, the more subtle the antiquing the better. And for some makers, it can come down to finding just the right amount of intervention to make a pristine finish sing. ‘I’ve made quite a few instruments with very little antiquing,’ says Curtin, ‘but I find there is still a fair bit of artifice involved. Simply applying even layers of ground and coloured varnish is rarely enough to produce an expressive finish, at least to my eye. Some minimal amount of texture and colour variation is needed to make the finish come alive.’

Left–right Antoine Nédélec applies patina to a varnished violin

ALL TOP PHOTOS COURTESY ANTOINE NÉDÉLEC.

Once an antiqued instrument is completed, it has one practical advantage over a straight instrument when it comes back into the workshop, argues Nédélec. ‘You can give your instrument on trial to a musician and it doesn’t matter so much if they return it with a scratch on it,’ he says. ‘It’s also easier to work on an antiqued instrument; with a straight one you really don’t want to put any dings in it.’

For some makers, antiquing can be less of a choice and more of a market imperative –a way to stay in business. Much depends on customer preferences and market tastes, and where and how makers sell their instruments. Preuss observes: ‘There are huge differences, for example, when you compare Japan with the US. In Japan, clean instruments still sell the most and the fastest, whereas there’s a much bigger market for antiqued instruments in America.’ Oslo-based maker Jacob von der Lippe says that interacting with and selling directly to musicians was one reason why he moved away from antiquing to making almost exclusively straight-varnished instruments. ‘But for makers who sell through dealers,’ he says, ‘the dealers may say they want antiqued instruments because they’re the easiest ones to sell to their market.’

The demand for antiqued instruments has led to plentiful examples of what experienced exponents consider a kind of pastiche antiquing, where poor technique, simplistic execution or a half-hearted commitment to accurate representation make for particularly unconvincing results.Nédélec says: ‘Often when you only go halfway, it doesn’t look like any instrument has ever looked at any stage of its life. This kind of approach is what I like to call “New Age antiquing”, and it looks completely fake.’ In Nédélec’s experience, high-quality antiquing needs time as well as skill. ‘It takes me as long to antique an instrument as it does to make it,’ he says. ‘I can spend three weeks on the antiquing.’ But such intense commitment may not strike other makers as a worthwhile use of their workshop hours. Simmers says: ‘If making an antiqued instrument takes twice as long, and you can sell it for twice as much, then that might make sense. But if it takes twice the time and you can only sell it for a little more than you can a straight instrument, then it’s not an economical way of working.’

‘DEALERS MAY SAY THEY WANT ANTIQUED INSTRUMENTS BEC AUSE THEY’RE THE EASIEST ONES TO SELL’

Jacob von der Lippe now makes straight instruments almost exclusively

BOTTOM PHOTO PER TORE MOLVAER

Andreas Preuss’s copy of Paganini’s Guarneri ‘del Gesù’’ violin known as ‘Il Cannone’

PHOTOS ANDREAS PREUSS

Why focus time and effort on antiquing, suggest some makers, when creating a good-looking straight-varnish violin can be just as challenging and fulfilling? ‘In a way it’s a bigger challenge to make a straight-varnish instrument look attractive and like something that players want to touch and play,’ argues Von der Lippe. ‘I look for varnish that’s lively and enhances the wood, and I like some of the texture in the surface to show. And you can do that without antiquing.’ Simmers states that ‘it’s much easier to make a quickly antiqued instrument look decent than to make a very fresh instrument look good. With a straight instrument you have to be very subtle.’ For some makers, including Nédélec and Preuss, switching between making antiqued and straight violins means they don’t have to limit the challenge in either direction. Nédélec often alternates between making antiqued and straight violins, while Preuss says: ‘I do both straight and antiqued instruments and find them equally challenging as a maker.’

Success with either approach can rest as much on the quality of the wood as the character of the varnish. Simmers says: ‘You need to have good wood. You can have the best ground and varnish in the world, but without a reflective piece of wood, you can’t do anything with it.’ Curtin agrees. ‘So much depends on the reflectivity of the wood,’ he says. ‘Dull wood gives the impression of varnishing on plain paper. With highly reflective wood you feel like you are varnishing a mirror. The effect is magical, and I think it explains some of the charm of the best Old Italians.It’s not so much the varnish as what’s immediately underneath it.’

With a varnish that wears well, proponents of straight instruments say that player-wear appears more natural than the wear patterns given to antiqued violins. ‘I find natural wear patterns much more attractive than anything I could fake,’ says British maker Kai-Thomas Roth‘.And when makers try to give their violins 18th-century wear patterns it looks even more fake, because nearly everybody plays with chinrests now, so the wear patterns today are different.’Von der Lippe argues that the mix of artificial wear and player-wear creates a mismatched look: ‘If you see an antiqued violin that has been played for ten years, you have a kind of fake potential for varying patterns undermines the case for antiqued instruments: ‘If you create the look of 50 or 100 years of wear artificially and give that instrument to a player,wear and tear from the start, and then you have natural wear on top of that. Musicians might not think much about it, but as a maker I just think it looks very strange.’

Simmers, however, isn’t convinced that the they’re going to wear it differently. But that wouldn’t be any different to giving the original old instrument to another player and them adding their wear to it. So I don’t think the idea that wear patterns would be different is a great argument against antiquing.’

For Preuss, the key to ensuring that player wear on his antiqued instruments looks natural, and does not expose any awkward colour contrasts, is pre-treating his wood. He explains: ‘A big motivation for me to continue with antique finish was that I discovered a way to stain the wood naturally – simply steaming it to make it go darker. This way, when my instruments get additional wear, it just looks natural. If I hadn’t discovered this method, I wouldn’t have continued doing antique finishes, because it would have bothered me to see, after a few years’ use, any white wood come through underneath the scratches.’

Careful scrutiny of an instrument’s finish may come instinctively to makers, but do players share this obsessive attention to detail? No, says Roth. ‘I want my instruments to work, and to look attractive to the customer. The only people who really see whether something looks clever or convincing are my peers.But I want to sell to musicians, not my colleagues, and musicians don’t see a fraction of what we see as makers.’ While acknowledging that musicians might feel uncomfortable walking out on stage with a garishly new-looking instrument, something that looks too squeaky clean and polished, Von der Lippe says that, in his experience, this does not mean that players only feel happy with an instrument that looks old. ‘Musicians care mostly about the sound,’ he says. ‘As long as the workmanship is top-notch, and there’s a good varnish that enhances the wood and has an organic, lively feel to it, I find players don’t have anything against a fresh varnished instrument.’ And along with the sound, how an instrument feels and handles is more important than the way it looks, says Roth:‘Whether an instrument is faked or not doesn’t make a difference to how it works. What is important is how the instrument feels under the hand, the quality of the set-up, what the bridge and soundpost are like, and how the neck feels. These are things you learn from exchanges with your customers.’ For Roth, who has had a long career building only straight-varnished instruments, antiquing is simply unnecessary. ‘The creed that we grew up with, that you can’t sell instruments as easily if you don’t fake them, is just that,’ he says. ‘It’s an act of belief.’

Artificial craquelure (left) and patina (right) on a Joseph Curtin violin

ALL PHOTOS JOSEPH CURTIN

‘SO MUCH DEPENDS ON THE REFLECTIVITY OF THE WOOD. DULL WOOD GIVES THE IMPR ESSION OF VA R NISHING ON PLAIN PA PER’

Detractors have argued that antiquing reinforces the notion that old instruments are always the best, in which case it could be seen as undermining the cause of contemporary making. Does antiquing make sense in a world where musicians have been priced out of the rare violin market, and where doubleblind tests have challenged ideas of old instruments being sonically superior to new ones? Simmers says: ‘The most positive thing I see in the market is that new instruments are becoming much more acceptable to players, and just that fact alone decreases the necessity to antique.If players moving from old to new instruments can influence a shift away from antiquing, so too perhaps can makers who have moved on from building copies to making their own models. Von der Lippe says: ‘Doing straight varnish, for me, has been tightly linked over the past ten years to making my own model, and finding my own style and voice. Going in a more personal direction is not an easy choice, but you have to focus on the idea that you’re not making instruments to please your colleagues – you’re trying to make great-sounding instruments that please musicians.’

Antiqued scroll by Joseph Curtin

For all that antiquing and copying divide opinion, as long as the market supports all options, there will surely be space for fully antiqued bench copies, straight-varnished new models and everything in between. If makers can make good-sounding instruments and sell them, are they not free to go in whichever direction they choose, and varnish in the way they and their customers like? There’s no justification, some say, for anyone to take the moral high ground. Preuss observes: ‘You could even say there’s a mismatch going on when makers who don’t do antique finish are using old models rather than their own model. What is right and what is wrong? Everything is a personal choice, and as long as customers are buying the instruments, everybody is happy to serve their own market.’

And yet, if makers want to evolve the craft, then antiquing, like copying, might still be seen as a retrograde approach.Von der Lippe says that everyone can celebrate and learn from the great Italian masters, but wonders how violin making can move on if makers are always looking to the past: ‘I think if we as makers could maybe focus a little less on how Stradivari made his bee-stings in the corners, and talk more about what makes greatsounding instruments, then that would help all of us.’And considering how the finish of instruments might evolve in the future, Curtin believes in the search for a different kind of look, something that reaches beyond the normalised expectations of either antiqued or straight finishes. ‘If one wants to consider the violin a work of art, then some measure of originality is expected,’ he says.‘It would be disappointing if we remain stuck in this bipolar swing between the new look and the old.Surely we can come up with something beyond the more literal forms of antiquing, but what that might be I do not yet know.’