Masterpieces of Deception

This blog is about the discovery in 2012 that until quite recently it was usual to hide messages in works of art, messages that revealed a second and dramatically unexpected meaning. These long lost inscriptions are now disclosing such astounding secrets that history is being completely rewritten… indeed the discovery constitutes probably the biggest art story we will ever come across in our lifetimes.

For thousands of years artists were commissioned by the rich and powerful to decorate their palaces and temples. Frequently these patrons were not the nicest of people, having robbed, tortured, threatened and murdered their way to power, and so artists responded by creating not one, but two paintings. They painted what the patron demanded, of course, but hidden within that work of art was another, usually allegorically, and more often than not it was a vehement denunciation of the scandals and evils associated with their patrons.

They wrote faintly, camouflaging their annotations with great skill – only the initiated would ever know there was anything there to be found. All the characters in the superficial painting were given names from the real world surrounding the artist, along with information about their aliases, their families, their misdeeds, and about the vengeance that was to be exacted against those that had wronged them. These second stories are not remote, boring tales of Biblical characters or Greek myths, they are tales of many of the greatest names in history, accounts of passion and poisonings, of vendetta and rape, of illicit affairs, of lust, avarice and sexual abuse.

And the history they present is surreal. It is unlike anything we ever encountered in our history books, and as the revelations flood forth, it becomes apparent that everything we thought we knew not only about art, but about the history of our civilisation was just a fairy tale. It was a cover story created by those in power to hide their wicked ways.

So let’s get started. In the ‘Features’ column to the left, apart from this page you will find five other main sections:

1. ‘Day By Day‘ the blog proper, with comments, news, odd discoveries, and thoughts.

2. ‘Glimpses of a Past Unknown‘: these are the stories, thirteen to begin with, dating from around 1200 to 1600AD, revealing how the Renaissance and the great age of Discovery was the invention of one very secretive family. They are glimpses from a forthcoming book called ‘Shadows on the Wall’.

3. ‘Spelling It Out‘: these are articles and videos showing more clearly than ever before the existence of hidden messages in – well, not only paintings, but also engraving, drawings, mosaics, sculptures, tapestries – any and every form of old graphic art.

4. ‘Videos‘: these are DIY aids to show how to look for, recognise, and decipher the hidden material, and thus reveal the true meaning of the work of art you are intrigued by.

5. ‘Who am I?‘, for those who are curious as to who the fictitious Peter Merlin Cane really is, and why he called himself that.

Wherever you start (I’d recommend ‘Spelling It Out’, then the video above), welcome, but be prepared for a roller coaster ride, because this is the gateway to a new reality, one that is at once intense, shocking, passionate, horrific, endearing, terrifying, amusing, and utterly unlike the world you thought you were living in. It reveals what truly cast those shadows on the wall that we all mistook for reality.

Peter