“I lacked the knowledge of linear perspective needed to get into the art school, so now I whitewash walls and imagine I’m heaven’s landscape painter.”

“There are, broadly speaking, three directly analogous progressions inthe history of art: in Antiquity, from the blockiness of Egyptian art to the loose, painterly handling of Roman landscape frescoes; in the Middle Ages, from the tectonic emphasis of Ottonian art to the flamboyance of late Gothic; and in later times, from early Renaissance linearity to the sparkling web of light spun by the Rococo. The wheel turns full circle, but more rapidly each time. ”

“I’m an artist. I’m a cave painter. Archaeologists and art critics of the future are going to call me a genius. They’re going to say I was so far ahead of my time that I was way behind my time.”

“I am reminded, now, of Leonardo's advice to painters: You should fix your eyes, he says, on certain walls stained with damp. You will see in these the likenesses of divine landscapes, adorned with mountains, ruins, rocks, extensive plains; and you will see there battles and strange figures engaged in violent actions. For in such walls the same thing happens as in the sound of church bells, in whose reverberations you may find every word imaginable.”

“Hey, I’m an art lover,” protested Ramirez. “I love Thomas Kinkade. Painter of Light, you know what I’m sayin’?”Beverly’s smile froze. “Yes, quite.”

“I’m sorry. Walls are closing in and I need to go.Love you.”