Poured Over: Michael Finkel on The Art Thief

By Jenna Seery / July 15, 2023 at 6:00 am

“Every reader can have a different opinion at the end between admiration and disgust and nobody’s wrong.”

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel is the stranger-than-fiction true story of Stéphane Breitweiser’s infamous and incredible career as — you guessed it, one of the world’s most notorious art thieves. Finkel joined us to talk about his own interactions with Breitweiser, the notion of obsession, how we should start viewing art and more with guest host, Allie Ludlow.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Allie Ludlow and mixed by Harry Liang.     

Featured Books (Episode):
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel

Full Episode Transcript
Allie Ludlow
We’re on Poured Over with Mike Finkel, the author of The Art Thief, and The Art Thief is the story of Stéphane Breitweiser and extraordinary thief that only stole for beauty and never money yet his destructive passion for art and master treasure worth nearly $2 billion. We learn about his origins, his family, his partner in crime and girlfriend, Anne Catherine, and ultimately his catastrophic downfall as an art lover. I was shocked that I had never heard of Stéphane prior to learning about this book. How did you come upon this story?

Michael Finkel
Well, first, thank you for having me on the show. Yes, Stéphane Breitweiser the reason why you haven’t heard of him and he’s probably the greatest art thief maybe who has ever lived is that he’s French. He lives in the Alsace region of northeastern France. He doesn’t speak English. We spoke to each other in French. I think if he was American, that would be like four movies made about him already. He’s also quite media shy, as we may talk about it took me more than 11 years and counting now work to work on this project. And so it was a very slow trust building exercise between myself and Stéphane Breitweiser, the art thief.

That’s amazing. How many times would you say that you met with him over the 11-year period.

So we started by the classical way, I wrote him a letter by hand, a handwritten letter, which is usually the way I like to make contact with people. These days, when everyone sends texts and emails up a handwritten letter. I think I’m giving away my secrets now, but a handwritten letters really a personal thing, we exchanged handwritten letters written in my mediocre to poor French. And these letters, like a couple of years of letters. Eventually, they got slightly more friendly. I finally received an invitation to have lunch with the art thief, I wasn’t permitted to take a recorder or notebook, it was just a hello lunch. And after we had a lunch, where in which we didn’t talk about art thieving, just sort of general introduction, he agreed to sit for a series of interviews, we spent about 40 or 50 hours together, but that also includes museum visits, some really fascinating road trips through Europe, and a lot of cool demonstrations about how one steals a work of art from a museum. And I know everyone’s curious about how to do that.

Yes, very much. So I would love to learn more about his methods later on. So Stéphane comes across in your book as a very complex person, his love for art is more than just appreciation. It’s almost like it’s been carved into his essence. Throughout my entire life, I’ve been dedicated to studying and celebrating art. And some of what he said really resounded with me. I love how he talked about his acquirement of the tobacco box commissioned by Napoleon, and he said to hold it is to travel through time. He also talks about the hold that art has over him, what it’s like to caress a sculpture and feel all the imperfections you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. How energy is really within these pieces. And you don’t necessarily see that behind a plexiglass window. Why do you think Stéphane did not try to get involved in the arts in a way that would allow him to be close to the pieces rather than the bank?

I mean, you’ve touched upon like, touched upon a few things. The main reason why I’m I don’t think it’s a stretch to use the word obsessed. The reason why, the reason why I became obsessed with this story was not just the number of crimes that Breitweiser committed, which is more than, he stole more than 300 works of art from 200 museums, but the reasons in the way in which he stole, he stole without using violence, during the daytime. And also at you know, I was uncertain about this at the outset, he said that he stole only for the love of art and put all these pieces in his he was a full time art thief so he didn’t have a paying job. He put them in the attic of his mother’s house where he lived with his girlfriend. Why didn’t he do what all of us who are admirers of art, and I loved what you just said, you know, I think every time I go to a museum I dream of what I would like to put over my fireplace mantel.

Oh completely all the time.

Yeah, right. And if you truly you know everyone has a thing that they love most in the world whether it’s you know, mountain or sunset but for Stéphane Breitweiser it is a specific type of Renaissance art in which you just truly was, you know, carried away and captivated by it. And if you think about it, like a museum, I spend a lot of times and time and museums it’s not the greatest place to really commune with a piece of art. What you really want to do as Breitweiser was the first to tell me it’s like you want to find a quiet spot. Good luck finding a quiet spot in front of the Mona Lisa. You want to relax in a comfortable chair. You don’t want to be standing there. You don’t want to have a bunch of people with selfie sticks. You know, it’s really not conducive to commune. If you really love a piece of art. It’s really very difficult to the museum seems like it’s great because it gives you access to almost everyone but doesn’t really allow you to really see a piece of art the way it should be seen. And that same is true for art galleries and even churches and using his incredibly flawed logic. Stéphane Breitweiser realized that, you know, he this aesthete of enormous proportions needed to bring these pieces home to his attic. He was careful about humidity and light and dust.

Yeah, he even said that he thought that he took care of the pieces better than the museums themselves.

He did say that I get it. I would like I said, like we both agreed, I mean, wouldn’t it be nice to you know, I’m a little bit more of a modern art fan than Breitweiser, but boy, would it be nice to have a Picasso or Georgia O’Keeffe in my, in my room, and I agree. So he, you know, he placed them in his attic. He convinced himself that this was the right thing to do with these pieces of art that he appreciated them more than most people. And you can see that I sort of have an ambivalent feelings about Breitweiser, sometimes I admire him and a lot of times I dislike him, which is a kind of, I think, a healthy attitude to have towards one subject if you’re going to try for impartiality as a journalist

Completely. And it’s really interesting, when I was reading the book, there were so many things I agreed with, but there were so many things, almost equally so, that I was horrified by. Going into his youth a little bit, so he lived amongst beautiful and historic artifacts and art in his family home until his parents divorced and the father left with all of the family treasures. The separation, absolutely devastated Stéphane and in time partially inspired him to start stealing as well. He and his girlfriend Anne Catherine were visiting a small museum in a farming town when they happened upon flintlock pistol, similar but far nicer than the ones in his father’s collection. And Stéphane was overcome with his feelings of loss, knowing that he would never be able to afford one on his own and went to Anne Catherine saying that it’d be the ultimate FU to his father, if you were to take it and Anne Catherine actually said, take it. This was, in a way, the beginning of hundreds of steps over several years. But when do you think Stéphane’s longing turn into obsession and desperation?

Yeah, I mean, I loved that encapsulation. And you know, as we touched on just a minute ago, you know, I like a main character like a Stéphane Breitweiser where, every reader can have a different opinion at the end between admiration and disgust and nobody’s wrong. And I try in my, in my own writing to lay out the facts, as pleasingly as possible, but I really admire, I feel like I try to honor my readers by letting them decide whether or not he’s a good guy, or a bad guy. So you know, when you were talking about his youth, I presented what he said, but I’m not entirely sure if you can go like, you know, psychology is so complicated if you can go well, my father had a beautiful collection of artwork that I adored living with, he takes his artwork, you know, that triggers stealing, I’m sure we can find 100 examples of people that didn’t do such a thing. I mean, even speaking with his father, and the depositions that his father gave to the police, it was clear that Stéphane Breitweiser, the art thief had this attraction to inanimate objects, all his life, you know, his father’s father collected antique weapons, ivories, watches and even paintings, there was a family, his last name is Breitwesier or Breitweiser as they call it there. And he had a member of his family that was also a painter. And so he was surrounded by these things. I think he felt comforted by it. He’s an unusual person in that he’s a little bit of a loner, except for his girlfriend. And I found I feel like if you just like I love to read and I remember growing up thinking that, you know, I wasn’t the most outgoing person and I felt like books and I’m looking at the books behind you right now. I thought that books were sort of my inanimate objects, my friends, my world that it opened up, so I sort of understood that you are correct. He fell in love with a woman Anne Catherine Klein Klaus, and she had no criminal history at all. And somehow the mélange between the two of them, really just, I mean, it sparked a thieving spree that is just not only unequaled in the annals of archive, but just like not even there’s not even like a second place. They still, I mean, just jump in. They still like think, an average of one piece every 12 days for more than seven years in the heat of that. And so I think there was the roots of obsession from when he was a kid. That first crime that you mentioned, he’s still something that he ended up not even loving, like his tastes sort of matured. I think he was 23 years old or something like that when he stole his first piece and so none of our tastes are 100% mature then but he stole this pistol and then I think he panicked and thought he was about to get arrested and no police actually came. Nobody caught him and I think to the success of his first crime that got to a few more, and the latent obsession for inanimate objects that appealed to his sense of aesthetics sort of just came to the forefront and took over literally took over his life. And that is, to a lesser extent that of his girlfriend who, who served as look out.

Another part of the book that I really appreciate it is how much he went into detail with his methods for stealing, which were pretty logical and simplistic. I mean, mostly during the daytime, and make sure no one is around those were kind of the major two roles. But the most ingenious method to me was when he was using museum cards, lots of exhibitions have assortments of objects on display, and some items would be removed for restoration and a little card would be left behind, detailing their removal. And Stéphane would rearrange the displays after taking what he wanted and use the cards to distract from their absence, which I thought was just so brilliant. It’s so simple and effective and graceful. Were there any methods that you found particularly innovative?

So as I mentioned, Stéphane Breitweiser stole every single piece during opening hours in a museum. Often while tourists and even sometimes guards were in the room. I mean, he’s like journalistic catnip, I mean, the way Breitweiser, he has a great memory, which by the way, I tried to verify everything through police reports or talking to the museums themselves. And if I was only 99% sure of something, I would cut that out and said, I want to emphasize that this is a true story, not a fictionalized, not slightly fictionalized, not 1% fictionalized but true, because it’s so unbelievable that any unnecessary exaggerations would almost make it worse. Let’s see, he carried into museum almost no thieving tools except for a Swiss army knife. And he had a nice, long jacket that was just tailored or purchased just a little bit too roomy. And I just loved the number of things one person can do with a single swiss army knife, which involved like, you’d look at a display case they have these big locks on it, but they also have a sliding door, all you have to do is take the screwdriver attachment out and just using it as like a little bit of a lever just slightly. unhinge the sliding door of a display case and it hangs like a mailbox flap and you can stick your hand in even like the most alarmed and tightly sealed display cases are connected by silicone glue, you can cut those things and you can separate panels. I think, as you mentioned, I think the simplicity of his crimes, but also just the sheer chutzpah, the like sang-froid they would say in French, the cold bloodedness, like you know, I couldn’t, I couldn’t steal a pack of gum without like, late breaking out into flop sweat. And like I would just, I don’t have the mental fortitude or whatever, maybe I’m just unfortunately too honest, or afraid of being caught. You mentioned basically my favorite thing too, which is basically he came across a display case that was half empty. And he thought, oh, my gosh, art thief had been here before him. And in turn, it says there’s just a little folded index card in the display case that says objects removed for study, which if you spent a lot of time in historical museums, there’s often a little card, like literally a note card. And he actually breaks into that case, just to steal the note card. He didn’t like any of the things in it and ends up stealing a bunch from another case and just placing an index card in, in the case from which he stole and as he told me, it’s like, you know, there’s we talked a lot about historical thieving, where people use like, you know, Uzis and machine guns and you know, you think about the movies coming in through a skylight and you know, infrared things and all that Tom Cruise sort of jazz. He said to me, Mike, you know, the most effective tool I’ve ever used to steal art was a bent index card, and I am a sucker for a great story. And I, I was sort of fascinated by his simple and yet insanely daring methods.

It was simple and so daring, but just so smart. So smart, like not that I’m an aspiring thief whatsoever. But that would never come across to me to just use that simple little folded piece of piece of paper to you know, get away with stealing the most amazing works.

And I was gonna say he had a general ethos, which is what he said to me was something that an art thief would never do is something that he thought, Oh, well, that’s exactly what I should do. For example, he stole several times on a guided tour. Now you think about a guided tour where a docent or a museum employee knows your face, you’re right there and he would often take something when they were visiting room, put it in his backpack or at the small of his back and continue with the tour and engage the tour guide because this would be maybe the last person you would suspect, often a theft is noticed fairly quickly in a museum and alarms are sounded. And he thought so what you want an art thief would never do with a with a piece of stolen art on them, we’ll eat at the museum cafe. And he did that with his girlfriend with multiple stolen pieces on him. Basically, while the police are called in, was, was there where’s the last place the police are gonna go right to the museum cafe? No, they’re gonna go look for these thieves hiding or running. And so just subverting these expectations was you know, I feel like I’m speaking of him with undue admiration, but I have to admit, you know, I mean, if everybody acted like him, all of all of society would collapse, you know, there’s rules, but I couldn’t help you know, feel a little bit, but maybe a little jealous of his ability to get away with this. Like I said, I wouldn’t be able to do a single one of his crimes without I would be arrested immediately. But I it was, it was fascinating to sit in a tiny hotel room in Europe and do an interview. I mean, while he would just explain to me his methods, and, and even one time stole my own laptop out of my tiny hotel room, right, right under my nose. And I didn’t notice it. And it was like it was when I was questioning about how he could steal in front of other people. And he was like, look around, and I was like, I don’t see anything and he lifts up his shirt. And there’s my laptop stuck in the small, in the waistband of his pants, I had just like, lowered my eyes for a couple of seconds to take a note. And he obviously stole it, stuck it there and returned to like the calmest sitting position. And I never saw it. I think that action alone in my hotel room, sort of brought to focus his thieving ability. And then of course, as you said at the outset, there’s this sort of aesthetic. There was this whole other level of conversation where we just spoke about art as if we were as if he was just like, you know, an art professor, not a thief.

That’s absolutely incredible. I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. Because, I mean, he just seems like a master at subverting. Yeah, just incredibly impressive. And I would also like to talk a little bit about another thief in a way that you wrote about. You wrote the best seller, The Stranger in the Woods, which was about Christopher Knight, the last true hermit. He lived undiscovered in the Maine Woods for 27 years, even through the harshest of Maine winters, he would never light a fire since it could risk his whereabouts to survive. He’d break into surrounding homes and steal food, gear, tech and reading materials to supply his isolation. There’s something that I understand and both of them with night, I can empathize with his need to escape and live in solitude to have the quiet and the intense relationship between human and nature. That’s also mostly because I live in New York City and with Stéphane, there are moments that I see a work of art that is so moving, that I can’t get it out of my head and I want to devour it and own it in any way possible. There are unique similarities between the two, they were both thieves one stealing for necessity and the other for passion, but also in a way necessity. Do you also feel that there’s a connection?

I mean, I, as a journalist, I can’t list, I feel like sort of like stuff on Breitweiser’s obsessions and even the hermit that you mentioned Chris Knight’s sort of obsessive need to be by himself. I guess I have to follow what really sparks fascination obsession in myself now. I mean, heroes of the world like the freedom fighters and the soldiers and the firefighters and all these frontline nurses and doctors, you know, I admire these heroes, but they’re almost like distant stars. I couldn’t imagine, I’m a flawed human being I almost couldn’t imagine this. And so I’m really attracted to like the scallywags and the ruffians and the sort of slightly immoral people. And so, you know, so I find that the story of Christopher Knight, the person who lived in the woods of Maine by himself and stole from people’s houses, and the story of Stéphane Breitweiser, the art thief who stole from museums, you know, I believe that they’re similar in that. As I mentioned before, as a reader, you could have almost any opinion about this person from complete understanding and admiration to utter disgust. And none of those reactions are wrong. And in fact, I don’t disagree with any of them. Because as a person who has to spend a lot of time sort of cogitating about these stories and writing them down, I also sort of in my own writing room range from disappointment and sometimes real disgust to the jealousy and fascination and I sort of look for those. I like a main character that is hard to pin down and I feel like there’s a good book and I’m not saying that mine are good that’s for you to decide. A good book I think is like it’s not like a professor at a lectern, but really more of a dance like between the reader and the writer and like I like to involve I always imagined the reader sort of like, Oh, I like them now I don’t like them now and sort of it’s a conversation even though it might seem kind of one ended. But I think a good book or when I, when I’m, when I’m enjoying a book fiction or nonfiction, I feel like, I’m having a little bit of a conversation with the author and I strive, I strive to achieve that. I don’t know if I succeed, but I strive.

Oh, you’ve definitely succeeded, you really do. I really enjoyed reading The Stranger in the Woods as well. You write really beautifully about these outsiders, scallywags and their passions, and it really comes through, and I mean, maybe that’s just me, and the way that I take it, the way that I’m reading it, kind of, I don’t know, affiliating myself with an outsider as well. But it’s, it’s, you provide all the details, which is absolutely wonderful, because you do allow the reader to make their own choice, and their relationship with the characters, it’s really good.

I also sometimes think the world of readers, I grew up as a reader. I mean, I always wanted to be a writer as well. But really, I feel think of myself as a reader. And sometimes the books I write are just the ones I can’t find that are already on the shelf. So I just have to add one to the collection. But we’re, readers are kind of a tribe ourselves, where, whether or not we’re the most outgoing person or not. We all readers like to spend time by themselves with an object in their hands and tumble into the world of a book. And so I think that the strange and wonderful tribe of readers sort of gets the, you know, we can kind of groove with other people who have sort of oddball passions, and I think both Breitweiser, and the hermit really liked to spend time by themselves. The Hermit love to read as did Breitweiser. We talked about books almost as much as we talked about art. He was an autodidact. He also had a huge collection of books. In fact, he stole a book right while I was with him. And as one lawyer said, Well, you know, if you were there, and you witnessed them stealing a book, you’re you could be an accomplice in so and so please don’t arrest me French courts.

To do all the research for The Art Thief. You met with investigators, psychologists, government officials, museum workers, and even Stéphane’s personal framer of everyone besides Stéphane himself, who was able to give you the most insight.

Breitweiser really was somewhat of a loner. He had this he had a tiny little inner circle. He was in love with his girlfriend and accomplice Anne Catherine Kleinklaus, ph, who doesn’t have somewhat of an odd relationship with their mother, but he had a very tight relationship with the mother sometimes for good sometimes for ill and two grandparents. And that was it: mother, grandparents, girlfriend that was his inner circle. one other person was admitted to this inner circle, which was the person that framed all of his stolen works this artist and framer named Christian Meisler, who had kind of one of the most loop de loop interviews I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was like meeting another Breitweiser, someone obsessed with the aesthetics and art but one who, like me and like you, was afraid to steal but I think Meisler, the framer framed all of the Breitweiser’s, he stole 69, 68 Renaissance paintings, which is insane, they’re incredibly valuable. I mean, they’re unique. Every painting is unique. You really can’t even put a price on a museum work and framed most of them didn’t framers are not in the business of asking where how you acquired something he and I believe actually, mostly, the framer did not know that these works were stolen but certainly was at an odd friendship with the with the thief. But this framer spoke about works of art and what it was like to have an intense discussion with Breitweiser, he actually volunteered to work in his frame shop learning how to frame paintings, but really, between me and you and the pages of the book, really learning how to take frames apart. So you could do so in a museum very quickly, even at you know, giving away just a little bit even at Breitweiser’s trials. The framer, Meisler couldn’t bring himself to say anything bad about Breitweiser, the thief because he was he’s like, I’ve never met such a young person that could speak with you know, art without, with such passion had nothing to do with price tags, Breitweiser never, during his stealing days, sold a work. So even though he’s still like you’d mentioned an estimated as much as $2 billion worth of art. He was broke. He didn’t sell any of these things. He just he considered himself the richest person, perhaps in the world, but he didn’t have any money. And I think there was something about this sort of old school I think whenever you read about a work of art in a newspaper magazine, what’s the next thing after they mentioned the title? They mentioned how much it’s worth I get it I’m kind of curious to that’s $100 million painting you know, that’s cool, but it really everything seems to be reduced to its price tag rather than a Oh my God, that’s the most wonderful color of blue. You know, that seems to be not as important a thing as the price tag. But Breitweiser himself was really, I mean, truly, he was a thief of all thieves obsessed with the aesthetic details. And I think this framer and him I can only imagine the crazy discussions they had, in the frame, this tiny little like completely disorganized frame shop like this, you know, you walk into the shop, and you’re just surrounded with bits of it, you feel like you’ve walked into the middle of a painting in progress, I really loved speaking with Meisler, and it was one of those just knocked on the door, I thought I might get 30 seconds and like four hours later, and a bottle of wine later, he’s still we’re still talking about what it was like to encounter Breitweiser and he, like me was sort of not sure how to deal with it all and how to, you know, how to handle all the disparate parts of Breitweiser’s personality, the absolute thief who’s like, basically a bane on society, a cancer on the common, you know, the what binds us all together the ability to go to museums, and yet at the other hand, like this aesthete of impressive proportions. And I kind of like that that’s sort of I was glad to meet a person who felt like me, like, all over the place about the same person at the same time, which, like I said, I tried to capture that it those are the those are the subjects that attract me for a book.

Yeah, you captured it beautifully. I loved his storyline within the book, and I loved reading your conversations with him. You were saying that Stéphane despised other art thieves. He despised their tactics that left priceless, works destroyed and their only motivation being money. And I’m going to try and avoid spoilers right now, because the ending of this book is absolutely insane. It had me in a vise and I was stunned at how it all fell apart. But in the end, do you think that Stéphane still considered himself different than other thieves?

Breitweiser, as I mentioned, was a big reader. And a lot of what he read was art history, art theory, but also he was fascinated by other people that steal art. And you know, when you think of an art thief, and I think of an art thief is probably somehow I’m always picturing, like, maybe The Thomas Crown Affair, someone in like a tuxedo, you know, or like a James Bond movie, where it’s always like this connoisseur and this sort of gentleman the for gentle person thief in reality 99.9% almost every art thief in history really was doing it for money had no interest in art, in fact, as we mentioned before, maybe even hated. I mean, how could you stick a knife in a Rembrandt? I mean, what kind of frame what kind of a criminal would do that, you know, and so Breitweiser hated to be called an art thief, which is sort of funny because he is the, you know, or the FBI. But he hated that because of the implications that he was breaking works and destroying them. And as you mentioned before, the no matter where you’re where you think the ending is going, you probably will not guess what happens, which is one of the things I like.

You can’t even make this up.

I mean, if I made it up, you would throw the book across the room saying this stuff isn’t believable. It’s impossible. It’s one of the reasons why I really, again, became obsessed with this story is that it is, you know, it’s a cliche, but I really look for it as the truth is way stranger than fiction. There is no way if I was reading fiction, I would, I would attempt to have an ending as operatic, perhaps as Breitweiser’s, but I think yes, right to the very end, Breitweiser had a big ego, thankfully, because he spoke to me at such great length, admitting to crimes that even the police didn’t know the statute of limitations on most of them have run out, telling me secrets and things that no investigation ever uncovered. I love when someone starts galloping away and telling stories. And so yeah, he has a big ego. He’s proud of what he did. And so I yes to this very day, Breitweiser is only like 52-53 years old right now. He did all of his stealing in his 30s, 20s-30s and early 40s. He feels that he is a different breed of thief more in line with the fictitious thieves of culture.

He actually was though.

He’s not wrong. You know, I know for a fact he would rather have gone to jail than sliced a Rembrandt that he would never he would have rather sliced himself than sliced a Rembrandt. Honestly.

it’s true. It’s true. The art always came first.

I walked through a few museums with the world’s greatest art thief, he would put on like a light disguise. It was like your favorite professor of all time sort of whispering in your ear and then like, turning like the dark side, like first you talk about the art and then he would like take my hand and make me like touch with the lightest touch like a painting in a museum which you don’t reach is one of the things we about them is that they’re done by humans, they’re not made by machines and each brushstroke is that there is a third dimension to a painting. It’s not a two dimensional thing. It’s three dimensional, but you really don’t know till you touch it. And then he would, you know, then the tour would continue to like how it was attached to the wall and then where the cameras were and how he would avoid the security guards and where he had parked the car, etc. I’ve just changed the way I walk the museums by the way,

So every time you visit another museum like it’s kind of going….

Yeah, so I tried to bring some of that out in the book. And I hope that if you read it, the readers, too will not look at artwork, or museums the same way and I also loved the way Breitweiser didn’t like the way professors and tour guides spoke about art, like you know, you think about Venus or Renaissance painting. And you guys can decide whether you’re, you’re whether you’re in this category now, but I get into this like pseudo weird, sophisticated mode in a museum where I’m like, oh, what a fine you know, what a fine form there, a nice use of color.

The juxtaposition is wonderful.

The symbolism like— Mike screw the big tomes you know, that you got in your art history class, how do you feel? And it’s like, all these things that you probably did when you were like nine years old, if it turns out to Breitweiser, that’s exactly how you should look at a painting with not with art history, and big vocabulary eyes. But we the most seems a little cliche, but almost like childish, like, how do you feel like we’ve sort of lost this ability to like, that’s part of the painting. That’s why, you know, that’s why Renaissance paintings are like that they are titillating and why even deny that? And once you like, not only did I it, fully accepted, you run with how you feel.

Yeah, yeah, well, and also, you know, there, there are some that are definitely erotic. But then there are others that are incredibly disturbing. And it’s like, art elicits an emotion. It’s a give and take. And I do feel that a lot of museums lose that. Because constantly surrounded by people, you have art history being thrown in your face quite a bit. I’m excited to go and look at other museums now after reading this book and taking a little bit of Breitweiser’s methodology with me.

I mean, I would just only suggest maybe leaving them in the museum.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I won’t take them.

If you do, you know, I got some advice for you. Just a Swiss army knife.

Large jacket, bag.

During this conversation, I was just thinking about what I think one of the one of the reasons why maybe I’m just selfish, I can only you know, it takes me several years to produce a book. And I think the reason why I can live with the story so long is that you know, I think I got something out of the deal from hanging out with Breitweiser and listening to his sometimes crazy, sometimes completely intelligent analysis that sort of changed the way I never think about an art thief eating lunch at the museum cafe. But you also don’t like the way this the way he spoke about art was refreshingly approachable, is what I’m trying to say. Sometimes I think I feel like people feel like they are excluded from museums because they don’t have the right vocabulary. And he would be so disappointed if anybody out there felt like, you know, what, how you feel in front of a piece of art is correct. That’s exactly right. Because that’s what it’s there for. As you just said it’s not there to make you, you know, just decode hidden symbols, which exists, but that’s a secondary thing. It’s really there. And if you don’t like it, you’re right. You’re right.

And that is fine. If you hate the painting. That is also fine.

It’s totally fine. I don’t know, people get nervous that you know, just because of the museum, modern art. If you don’t like it, you’re correct. He hated modern art, Breitweiser, and I like it, but I totally respect it. Like how you feel is so there’s just sort of like, I don’t know. So maybe like 90% of this book is things you shouldn’t do, but maybe 10% should change how, even how you look at anything that attracts you a lover, sunset, rainbow and Renaissance painting.

Exactly. I do want to say before we end that I was reading I read the last few chapters on the subway, and I just want to reiterate to the listeners and soon to be readers. How insane this ending is. I was just like, verbally groaning. I think I yelled like no please no a few times. How is this even possible and it is just one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read, and you did a wonderful job of presenting this. And I can’t wait for readers to get their hands on it, because yeah, this is just a one of a kind story.

Well, I can only say thank you for such kind words. I’m like, I’m so I’m so pleased that you enjoyed the hearing about Breitweiser because I really kind of enjoyed writing about him.

35:31

And you get that in the book, too. It’s exciting.

35:35

Yeah, I read a lot of very serious things. And of course, the news every day, further, further reduces my hairline. So this is supposed to be just, I mean, it’s completely true. But it’s also supposed to be, I don’t know, I think I grew up reading books that were fun to read. And that not assignments in school, not dense tomes. And not I’m not opposed to either of those things. But sometimes you just want to read something that’s supposed to be fascinating and fun. And so thank you so much for what you just said about it. That’s really, really means so much to me.

Great. Yeah, but thank you for writing this. This has been wonderful. And thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

My pleasure.