Q&A with Noah Charney, author of The Art Thief
By Kristen Switzer, Handseller editor

You state on your Web site that you are most interested in art theft from “a practical standpoint--how the academic study can help to inform contemporary law enforcement and art protection.” And perhaps because the subject is so intriguing? Will you elaborate?
With all academic study, I feel it is very important to ask the question “why?” Why should we bother studying this? Why should we care about this subject? In almost all instances, there is a legitimate answer to this question. But too many academics do not take the time to consider the answer, and they run the risk of intellectualizing for the sake of intellectualizing alone. I want to study art crime but always with the thought in mind--how can what I am studying help us today? Not repeating the mistakes of the past is the best reason to study history. How can past art crimes help us protect and recover art today? There should always be a concrete response to the perfectly legitimate devil's advocate question of “why should we care?” If someone can't come up with a response, then they should be studying a different subject. For art crime, there are two answers. One is that we should care about art crime because we should protect works of art, which are the highest achievement and greatest creations of mankind. But whether or not you have a love for art, the second part of the answer is of import. Art crime is a major funding source for all organized criminal activities, including drugs, the arms trade, and terrorism. So, if you love art, or you don't like the sound of drugs, arms smuggling, and terrorism, then you have two good reasons to care about art crime.

What can you say to readers who are interested in The Art Thief in the bookstore but may feel intimidated because they aren't familiar with many of the artists' names or locations throughout the story?
I've been teaching art history for many years, and one of the most important things to me is to strip away everything that might be intimidating, and present the art that I love in an approachable way that reaches to the heart of the individual, whether or not he or she has any prior relationship with art. Art can, too often, feel elitist and unfortunately many members of the art world enjoy that sense of elitism and cultivate it. I have the opposite wish, to bring the pleasures of art to as many people as possible, from all walks of life and backgrounds. But I am careful to do this without “dumbing down” any of the material. A good teacher will lift up his students, show them how smart each and every one of them really is. The book contains all real, factual, historical information about art history and art crime. Readers will learn a tremendous amount, but my goal is for no one to realize that he or she is learning! I want to lace intelligent information through an entertaining plot. Readers should finish the book, think how much they enjoyed it, and suddenly realize that they know a lot about art history and art crime, having never realized they were learning.

As for the exotic locations, I hope that I paint an accurate portrait of them. I certainly love them, and I think that it shows. Readers can do a great deal of “couch traveling,” and I hope that some might be inspired to travel to these places and see some of the artworks I mention.

Without giving too much of the story away, why did you select the three particular works of art to be stolen in the book? Apart from The Art Thief, what should we know about these pieces?
Great question. I did my first Masters degree in 17th century Roman art, and the alpha dog of that period was Caravaggio. His lifetime was scarred by violence, sex, and murder, and his art was completely revolutionary. Most artists studied under old masters and in turn had their own students. Caravaggio's style came out of nowhere and shocked the art world. His story is sexy and fascinating, and anyone who sees one of his paintings can feel the dynamism, and is immediately aware that they are looking at a great work of art.

The two other stolen works are both from the same series, painted by an early-20th century Russian painter called Kazimir Malevich. I chose him because his works are exactly the sort that tend to bother people who don't have much interaction with art, and get annoyed at minimalist or abstract paintings, thinking “that's not art, I could paint that.” I wanted to use Malevich's series, which looks just like the name suggests, White on White, to speak in support of these often-dismissed art types. A minimalist, abstract Malevich to which viewers tend to react in a strong, combative negative way, is a perfect juxtaposition to Caravaggio, which everyone can see conforms to existing popular ideas of what entails “fine art.”

To be honest, I much prefer the more traditional painting styles, the Old Masters, like Caravaggio and Michelangelo, the works that are evidently “fine art.” But I do understand and have an appreciation for Modern art. Anyone is entitled to like and dislike anything they choose. But I think it is important to understand why Modern Art looks the way it does. After understanding it, if it still doesn't float your boat, that's totally cool.

I'm sure I'm not the only person to visit an art museum and fantasize about jumping into the painting and visiting the scene before me. If you could literally enter a painting, which one would you enter and why?
If I could physically enter a painting and live in its environment, it would be any painting by the 17th century Dutch master Jan Steen. Steen paints lively, debauched, drunken party scenes in pubs, involving saucy women, food, and lots of loud laughter. Steen and his wife are almost always painted into the scene, and Steen paints himself as a big fat Falstaff-like figure, drunk and laughing. It all looks like great fun, and I'd be pleased to hop in and grab a beer myself!

You live in Europe a great deal of the time. What is the general European view of American art? How does your own appreciation of American art differ from or equate to that of your European colleagues?
America, and specifically New York, has been the world's center for art in the second half of the 20th century, beginning after World War II. Most of Europe's great artists came to the US either before, during, or just after World War II, and New York has been at the foreground of contemporary, avant-garde art since then. There were a few great American artists before this time, like Benjamin West, but they studied in Europe and were painting in a European style. The art world tends to gravitate around center-points. From about 1400-1600 it was Florence, Venice, and Bruges. From about 1600-1700 it was Rome and Amsterdam. In the 19th century and until World War II it was Paris. Since then, it has been New York, with newer trends suggesting that Berlin will be its next home. So Europeans with art knowledge have the highest admiration for American art from World War II onward.

What are you working on now?
At this moment, I'm about 2/3 done with my second novel, which is called To Catch the Devil. I'm also about to write a nonfiction book: The History of Art Crime. I'm also fund-raising for the charity which I founded. It is called ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art. It is a think tank and consultancy group on art protection and recovery. We will help international police in art crime cases, and help public collections, particularly underfunded churches, to protect their art--all free of charge. For more information on ARCA, to donate, or to learn how you can help to fight real art crimes, please see www.artcrime.info.

Handseller is all about books. What are some of the titles that have meant the most to you over the years and what are you reading now?
I love reading, but I tend to get so excited about writing that I don't read as much as I'd like to! The last best read for me was Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Man, was that brutal, raw, disturbing, and beautiful. It does everything that Aristotle said a great tragedy should--inspiring pity and fear, but with an echoing, uplifting end to it. I also love Margeurite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian and Don DeLillo's White Noise. That's a random top three of the moment, but they are all wonderful. I'm such a young writer, and I want to improve, so I'm trying to learn by reading the contemporary greats!