The Art Forger Quotes

“Did you ever hear of cognitive dissonance?” she asked. “No.” “Basically, it’s a theory that people subconsciously reinterpret their motives and actions in a way that makes them feel better about themselves afterward. And then they start to believe that the basis of the reinterpretation is also true.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Without light nothing can be seen. And with it, still so much is unobserved.”
― B.A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“So many good uses for ill-begotten gains”
― Barbara Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Nothing like the smell of an artist at work.”
― Barbara Shapiro, The Art Forger

“A neon BUDWEISER sign hangs in the narrow window to scare the hip away.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Now that I'm inside, out of view of the millions of people who could care less about the absence or presence of my soul, I feel somewhat better.”
― B.A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“His eyes found mine, and for a moment I felt as if all the air in the room had retreated.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Although oil paint dries enough in a couple of weeks to take another layer of glazing, it can be fifty to seventy-five years before all the liquid has evaporated and the surface is completely dry and hard.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“But to me, the argument is just semantics, an exercise in mental masturbation. True, Degas painted neither plein air nor spontaneously, but he had his own way of bringing his impressions into the heart of the viewer: his focus on the movement of racehorses and ballet dancers, his depiction of the ordinary milliner or washer woman or bather, caught in a complete lack of self-consciousness.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Did you ever hear of cognitive dissonance?” she asked.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“I heard Michelangelo used to borrow paintings from his friends,” Small pipes in, “copy them, then return the copies and keep the originals for himself.” “Well, that would have worked out great for his friends,” Mike”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“juvy.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“He's beaming at me like a proud papa. But the softness of his eyes has nothing to do with fatherhood and everything to do with sexual attraction. He takes a step toward me. "Claire?" he says, and I know exactly what he's asking.

I want him, I have for a while. It's been a tough day, and I'd like nothing better than to crawl into his arms, have him obliter- ate all my fears and replace them with pleasure. But I've made too many bad choices before him, and now there are too many secrets between us. I shake head. my

He blinks, steps back. "Okay. That's cool. Has nothing to do with the rest of the project. Or anything else."

The longing on his face mirrors what I feel. "Maybe later," I say,

wishing for sooner. "Maybe after this is all over..."

"Probably smart," he in a flat voice that reveals that he says, doesn't think it's smart at all.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“But the most intriguing part of the van Meegeren story is how his success as a forger got him arrested as a war criminal. During the German occupation of the Netherlands, Han-he was also an art dealer-sold one of his Vermeer forgeries, Christ with the Adulteress, to a German banker, who then sold it to Hermann Goering, number two in Hitler's command. When the painting was discovered hidden in an Austrian salt mine after the war, it was traced back to Han. On the assumption that he had sold a Dutch national treasure to the enemy during wartime, van Meegeren charged as a Nazi collaborator and thrown into jail.

Han was then faced with a choice: Confess to forging the painting or spend the rest of his life in prison. After a week in solitary confinement, he told his jailers that the painting was not a master- piece by Vermeer, just a forgery by van Meegeren. But, to both his dismay and gratification, no one believed him. So, under the vigilant eyes s of reporters and court-appointed witnesses, he repainted the forgery while a prisoner at the Headquarters of Military Command. Both of his works were "authenticated" as forgeries, and the war crime charges were dropped.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“I can't take my eyes from the brushwork, the depth of the values, the saturation of the colors. How did Degas do its rabbit-skin glue in his sizing? yellow ochre in his underpainting? egg temper in his medium? But these are only technical questions. The genius of this painting is much more than technique-and quite impossible to replicate.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that things can change in a nanosecond, and I don’t want to regret not having savored the moment.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Time is the devourer of all things,”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Instead of canals, a magical four-story central courtyard faces the interior walls. A greenhouse of sorts. The roof is glass and the floor is a sensuous garden filled with freestanding columns, whimsical twelfth-century lion stylobates, and all manner of statuary. A Roman mosaic sits at the center, surrounded by an ever-changing installation of flowers and shrubs. A pair of towering palm trees reach up to the sunlight, climbing beyond the third floor.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“He stands, too, kisses the end of my nose.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“From the pen of ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER June 10, 1886 Paris, France My dearest Amelia,”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“In front of me stands one of the most valuable paintings stolen in the greatest unsolved art theft in history.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger

“Then I realize what’s really bothering me. “The other paintings. The other ones stolen from the Gardner. You know where they are.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I have no idea.”
― Barbara A. Shapiro, The Art Forger