' 'Blink' is a book about those first two seconds,' Gladwell writes. Through this process we have the capacity to sift huge amounts of information, blend data, isolate telling details and come to astonishingly rapid conclusions, even in the first two seconds of seeing something. THERE is in all of our brains, Gladwell argues, a mighty backstage process, which works its will subconsciously. The historians who relied on their initial hunches were right. The teams of analysts who did 14 months of research turned out to be wrong. It transpired that the statue had been sculptured by forgers in Rome in the early 1980's. A third felt a wave of 'intuitive repulsion' when he first laid eyes on it.įurther investigations were made, and finally the whole scheme unraveled. Another art historian took a glimpse and sensed that while it had the form of a proper classical statue, it somehow lacked the spirit. After 14 months of investigation, the Getty staff concluded the thing was genuine, and went ahead with the purchase.īut an art historian named Federico Zeri was taken to see the statue, and in an instant he decided it was fake. It was covered with a thin layer of calcite, a substance that accumulates on statues over hundreds or perhaps thousands of years. A geologist determined that the marble came from the ancient Cape Vathy quarry on the island of Thasos.

The Getty did all the normal background checks to establish the authenticity of the piece.

It was a magnificently preserved work, close to seven feet tall, and the asking price was just under $10 million. Gladwell opens 'Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking' with the story of a kouros, an ancient Greek statue of a youth that came on the art market and was about to be purchased by the Getty Museum in California. MALCOLM GLADWELL has written a book about the power of first impressions, and every review, including this one, is going to begin with the reviewer's first impression of the book. BLINK The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

Blink the power of thinking