It certainly shows the irrationality of art appreciation. It's not about the quality of the painting, it's about who made it. And that is what makes forgery attractive; it's worth more because people think it's make by a more famous painter. The value comes not from the art itself, but from the history.

It's the same with the talk about modern AI art. Does it devalue art because it's not made by people? The same image made by AI, a modern artist, or an old master, has a completely different value because of who made it.

So Van Meegeren's style not interesting when he painted it, because it's old fashioned, but it is interesting when people think it's painted by Vermeer. It wasn't old fashioned then; it was revolutionary. The historic context is really different. It's clearly not about the picture itself, it's about the history, the cultural significance, the context.

> It's not about the quality of the painting, it's about who made it.

I'm super pessimistic about the art world and I agree with you to some extent but I think what you are missing is that art/art history is a conversation amongst a bunch of stakeholders (artists, galleries, museums, critics, viewers, etc) and what is considered important art at any given moment changes as this conversation progresses.

Someone making a perfect classical oil painting today (without doing something to make it engage with the current conversation) is akin to coming up with the perfect come-back to an argument you had a week ago and then trying to bringing it up in an unrelated conversation today.

The key part of that sentence is "which were not considered of interest at the time". When Van Meegeren was working, the artistic zeitgeist was focused on exploring new concepts of abstraction and extended technique.