Turn Every Page: the power of art
Turn Every Page: the power of art
Art has the power to move us, for good or ill
Have you ever stood in front of a painting, read a poem, or heard a song and been completely awestruck? Art—truly great art—has the power to move us. We all seem to know this in a visceral way, even if we cannot find words to explain what is happening. Thousands of years ago, Aristotle tried to explain the emotional effect that tragic plays have on us:
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. By 'language embellished,' I mean language into which rhythm, 'harmony' and song enter. By 'the several kinds in separate parts,' I mean, that some parts are rendered through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song. Poetics, I.6
Through certain words, rhythms, and movements, tragedy has the ability to tug on our emotions and allow us to experience the emotions of the characters without actually experiencing what they experience in the play. Watching a tragic play can be a way for us to process negative emotions and end with a sense of wonder about what we have seen or experienced. That is the power of catharsis.
But what happens when art leads someone to do terrible things? In The Art Thief by Michael Finkel, we find out.1 It is the story of Stéphane Breitwieser, one of the most prolific art thieves of all time. By the time he stopped stealing art (and it’s not certain he has stopped), appraisals estimated that he stole somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion worth of art from museums, churches, and auction houses across seven countries. Breitwieser stole more than 200 items over 10 years. At one point, he and his girlfriend accomplice stole art three out of every four weekends for almost a year.
It was a dizzying pace of theft, which is perhaps a microcosm of the cycle of activity that Breitwieser could not give up. Breitwieser was certainly moved by art—he described being almost entranced by certain works of art. He would see them in a museum (often a long-abandoned castle) and he was transfixed. He could not be satisfied until he possessed the artwork.
And Breitwieser saw himself as a possessor, a collector or curator. He did not steal to sell the artwork. Rather, he stored the art in the attic apartment above his mother’s house where he and his girlfriend lived. He believed that he was doing something good, liberating art from being hidden in museums. But as his own personal collection grew, the art was no longer available for anyone else to see. For Breitwieser, it seems that because he appreciated the works, that was not only sufficient, but even preferable to the art remaining in a museum where uneducated patrons pass by without appreciation.
Stealing Madeleine was like threading a needle, he says—a steady hand finessing a tiny opening. He’s well practiced by now, nearing his one hundredth heist, he and Anne-Catherine maintaining their three-times-a-month stealing pace. Madeleine is one of the premier paintings in France. For virtually any other art-crime team, stealing the portrait would be a career-crowning achievement after immense planning.
For Breitwieser and Anne-Catherine, it wasn’t even their only theft of the day.
Breitwieser is a student of art, an autodidact who has read widely. He favors Renaissance and Baroque pieces. Based on his style of theft—during the middle of the day, with only a trench coat or his girlfriend’s large bag to hide a piece—Breitwieser is limited by the size of a particular piece. Paintings must be able to fit in his waistband or in the folds of his coat. Even though Breitwieser removed the outer frames of the paintings, they still had to fit in a small space.
Breitwieser could not steal massive canvases or large artifacts. Those thefts, often performed in the middle of the night or with some force or violence, were abhorrent to him: “A violent, late-night heist is an insult to Breitwiester’s notion that stealing artwork should be a daytime affair of refined stealth in which no one so much as sense fear.”
The paradigmatic art theft by violence was the 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Two men went into the museum dressed as Boston police officers, tied up the guards, and proceeded out of the museum with thirteen works. They have never been recovered. The most famous stolen work was Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Rembrandt’s only seascape.
WBUR, the local public radio station in Boston, created a podcast called “Last Seen” in 2018, which details the theft, the theories about the perpetrators, the investigations, and recovery efforts. It’s very interesting listening if you are interested in art or true crime.
What usually leads a criminal to steal art like this is the hope of a payday. There is a black market for art like this, and even getting 10% of the value would net the Gardner thieves more than $50 million. Breitwieser, however, never sold anything. He wanted to enjoy the pieces himself, and figured he would give it all back at some point. Breitwieser’s motivation was “to surround himself with beauty, to gorge on it.” Finkel, at 16.
Surely we can surround ourselves with beauty without keeping it to ourselves. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the “Ode to Joy,” is an amazing work of art, but it is not able to be stolen the way a Rembrandt is. Maybe that is why some of these pieces are called “priceless.” There is truly no way to replace them when they are gone.
Many of the works Breitwiester stole cannot be replaced now either. After he was arrested for the second time—the arrest that led to two trials and actual jail time—Breitwiester’s mother took all of the paintings and artifacts out of Breitwiester’s attic apartment and disposed of them before the authorities had time to obtain and execute a search warrant. Many silver items—statues, chalices, etc.—were found in a riverbed not far from the apartment. His mother claims that she took the paintings, many of which were painted on wood that had been bone dry for centuries, and burned them in a field. Law enforcement apparently has never found the spot and there is an open question as to whether the works were actually destroyed.
Regardless, Breitwiester will never see them again, and we will likely not either. Breitwiester won’t see them because he keeps stealing, and keeps getting caught. Since the second trial, after which he vowed never to steal again and had plans to write a book and become a security consultant, he revealed himself as nothing more than a petty thief who cannot break a habit. He stole from airport stores, from museum shops (books, not paintings), and other places as well. It’s as if stealing was in Breitwiester’s blood and art was just a means to an end.
For all his claims to be an art lover and educated collector, Breitwieser should go down in history as another common thief—different in his method than the Gardner thieves, but just as pointless. By stealing the art and potentially destroying it, we don’t even have the opportunity to see what he saw and to be moved as he says he was moved. Dostoyevsky wrote that “beauty will save the world.” While that may be true for the world, it was not enough to save Breitwiester from himself.
Remember to turn every page. Enjoy your weekend. Please let me know whether you need anything.
Best,
Aaron
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I read the large print version and the page numbers correspond to that. Pro Library Tip: large print versions are often easier to get through the library hold system. Even though there are fewer copies in the library system, they are in less demand.