The Improbability of Love

All that matters is that artists keep reminding mortals about what really matters: the wonder, the glory, the madness, the importance and the improbability of love.

Art only survives by striking a chord in someone’s heart and offering solace and reassurance.

...the value of a work of art is set by desire: who wants to own it and how badly

There is nothing so desirable as the unobtainable.

Annie believed taste and aromas had the power to transport people from the present to other places. Sometimes this was a journey to a different mood, but it was also a form of time travel. For Annie, the subtlest whiff of freshly cut grass, or the essence of pine needles, a freshly risen cheese soufflé, the scent of a dog rose or a rain shower on autumn leaves, conjured up past summers.

I was painted to celebrate the wild cascades of love, the rollicking, bucking, breaking and transformative passion that inevitably gave way to miserable, constricting, overbearing disappointment.

Nothing drives men crazier than the inability to possess.

...ignorance is a curse lying in wait for the younger generation, for those who forgot to ask.

That was the glorious thing about art: its value was entirely subjective.

Food, she decided, was like performance rather than fine art: its power was in its transience and immediacy.

Annie had stopped listening to music. It was too evocative and she found it easier not to live with unexpected emotional stimulants.

Beauty and desire to possess have driven men mad for centuries.

I am called, and I personify, the Improbability of Love. I was painted to celebrate the wild cascades of amour, the rollicking, bucking, breaking and transformative passion that inevitably gives way to miserable, constricting, overbearing disappointment. At first my master imbued every tiny brushstroke with unbound ardour, untrammelled desire and unquenchable lust. During the painting of the work he had to accept that his feelings were a mirage, a chimera in his mind. This is the great tragedy of love - even if you are lucky enough to stumble on it, it never lasts.

He was, simultaneously, the impassioned happy man lying at the feet of his beloved and also the morose clown standing in the background of the picture. Being in love pitched him, moment by moment, between waves of ecstasy and misery. Like every other person, he believed his predicament was unique.

Art follows power. Just as soldiers hang medals from their uniforms, the rich hang paintings on their walls.

The one area that Winkleman avoided was dealing in contemporary art, which Memling described as "shooting poisonous snakes with a water pistol.

Only now that he had great swathes of time could he begin to have hobbies. This was why art was such an incalculable luxury: it sent out a message saying, "I have time to subcontract all the menial, dull chores out to others; I waste hours in idle contemplation of a piece of cloth covered in spots; I am an art lover; I am time-rich. I can mooch about in a sea of pickled sharks.

This is the great tragedy of love—even if you are lucky enough to stumble on it, it never lasts. Every young person believes that their case will be different; fools, damn fools.

love is as much an art as painting or living; it requires practice, finesse, determination, humility, energy and delicacy.

Wealth did not, he realised, guarantee happiness, but it did offer a measure of security and opportunity.

The difference between a good and a great work of art was down to an almost indistinguishable series of largely unidentifiable factors: the élan of a brushstroke; the juxtaposition of colours; the collisions in a composition and an accidental stroke or two. Like a rolling stone gathering moss, a painting gathered history, comment and appreciation, all adding to its value.

As we all know, a fierce female mind is a passion-killer. Men prefer the breast to the brain.

...love is as much an art as painting or living; it requires practice, finesse, determination, humility, energy and delicacy.

Eating was an essential, sensual and communal activity requiring nothing more than taste buds and an open mind.